Would you blame the parent with multiple children NC?

I think it’s a massive decision to go NC with a parent and is generally not just done due to some parenting mistakes in childhood, but ongoing behaviours and denial of wrongdoings.

I’m LC and my siblings NC with my mother and she frequently lures people into caring/supporting her with her stories of ill health and family abandoning her. People quickly realise that she is not a nice or safe person and then she moves onto the next. I’d be cautious if I was you.

Maybe you should read her full thread to see she’s trying to be kind to this person.

Probably kinder than I would be! I’d stay well away from this situation.

Whats it to do with you and why are you expecting people to judge another woman without even knowing her. Awful.

We don't know enough about the situation. Why have the children gone NC?

So he has been "brainwashed". What about the others- were they all brainwashed too?

Notice all the excuses and how nothing is her fault, its always someone else's.

Do NOT get involved. She sounds like she was enmeshed with her son and couldn't cope when he got married. It's always the horrible wife's fault, she stole precious son away blah blah blah.
Keep your boundaries and protect yourself. NC children do it for a reason.

OP I don't think anyone here can answer this one for you. You know what you are willing to give here; time, care, presents, presence etc etc. If it becomes too much you are an adult and can presumably say "enough" and stop?

She hasn't done anything to you and everything is fears and speculation on your behalf. If you have trouble saying no and are one of those people pleasing types who push themselves onto people "in need" that they barely know then expect huge amounts of adoration and public affection/kudos in return, maybe your family are thinking this might be a bad combination if this woman is not great with keeping up friendships.

Yes of course. Who’s nc with their mother for no good reason? I’m saying that as someone who is nc with mine after years of one-more-chances. It’s like cutting a core pain out of my body. Her words still haunt me though. She used to tell people I was to blame for all her failed relationships and that she hated me. I was a child.

Yes. Shes the common denominator.

' so he cannot do it himself.'

nowhere have you said he wants to do it himself...

Continues to abuse children? Have you been to the police?

"she blames her sons wife for everything to do with the downfall of that relationship" A tale as old as time!!

She is particularly adamant she did nothing wrong to her son.

This is quite a bizarre distinction. She definitely didnt do anything to her son. So what about the others?- this implies she did do something to the others otherwise she wouldn't single her son out like this, she would have just said it applied to all of them.

You describe her as intense and needy, has zero friends. It's pretty obvious from all of this there are significant reasons why noone wants contact with her. If you start to help her (what does that even entail or mean if you live miles away?!) then I suspect you will soon find out why noone wants to spend time around her.

Do you see yourself as her rescuer @TheBushySquirrel?

Think of the dynamics and fall-out for your partner and his siblings should you, in your infinite wisdom, decide to "support" a woman who has zero support and little contact from her own children.

Are they all wrong because you feel sorry for her?

If you live far away what kind of help is she looking for? Do you have DC, a job?

What is she expecting you to do? Hand-on care?

I'd be very wary indeed. Your partner doesn't seem that keen to help his mum and keeps his distance. He will have his own reasons for this.

I don't think that your MIL should be asking you. It's obvious that her own behaviour has driven people away. She has obviously been telling you how sad she is that her children are no contact and she is baffled about the reason. I don't believe this for a minute. She'll know why but won't accept it.

I would bet good money that if you start helping her, you will end up at her beck and call and your relationship will deteriorate massively. If you then pull back, you will start complaining about you to other people.

But in your example, you spent your 20s thinking about reducing contact.
It sounds like you didn't, but even if you had, starting to reduce contact is a few steps away from going entirely NC. During which time, you would have come to the same realisation that you did, that your parents weren't actually abusive.

People who've actually gone NC, have slowly reduced contact over time, they've had multiple conversations with their parents, they've examined their own behaviour and they've often had therapy. This takes years. We're not talking about a short phase of teen/early 20s self absorption. Or if we are, the contact might well resume when maturity sets in.

It's been said a lot on this thread already, but NC is a last resort after all else has failed, not something that people do on a whim.

(caveats - yes mental illness, coercive partners etc etc may play a part in some cases)

You seem like a very kind person and I have been in your situation before. Both of my parents were NC with their own parents. My mum due to horrific physical abuse by her father and my dad due to continued emotional abuse and lack of any parental care from his mother. It's more clear cut in my mum's case, but on my dad's side I sometimes found it difficult to stay NC with my grandparent. She was never anything but nice to me, but I know what my father went through (as I have seen and heard it myself) and I could never forget or unhear some of the things I witnessed as a child from my grandmother. This did not stop me from feeling sorry for her and wanting to help her in her final years of life. I did help but I was also very mindful that her situation was one of her own making. She never apologized and never admitted/accepted she was at fault, but she knew it. I could never minimize what my dad went through (and he never spoke to his mother again despite living next door to her), but I was able to offer some help and empathy to her as a human being who needed help despite the fact I felt she didn't deserve it. My point being it is possible to both understand the reasons of NC and also provide some support if that's how you feel. My father never judged me for it or prevented me from helping.

If you asked the adult children they wouldn’t go into detail just say she didn’t respect boundaries, was manipulative, turned nasty when she didn’t get her own way and son would say she wasn’t nice to his wife. The other children would say they aren’t getting involved. So that’s is how much information anyone would get from this.

So it sounds like they were justified then.

She blames the wife of her son for him falling out with her citing her as controlling, and would say her daughter has been difficult for years and believes she cut her off due to her getting poorly. Woman desperately wants a relationship with her NC children and will send them messages, attempt to call them to reach out etc and receives nothing back.

So she won't take responsibility. Shows no remorse yet keeps reaching out without apologising, and then wonders why she receives nothing back. If I were NC from my mother I wouldn't re-establish contact if my mother refused to acknowledge her part, express remorse and apologise. Those would be the bare minimum needed before I would accept contact. She can't expect contact if she won't sincerely apologise. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped and who won't help themselves by doing what they need to do. She sounds like a nasty piece of work and if I were you I'd have nothing at all to do with her.

It's hard to judge fairly without knowing the facts. One of my siblings was turned against my mom by a now ex partner who is probably a psychopath. They still have a relationship with my mom but the ex did do damage along with sibling who let their partner darken their view and reframe the past.

My mom showed me a poem that sibling wote in tribute to them before partner was on the scene and the contrast in siblings's opinion of mom was stark.

Why not?
All sorts of things go on in the world.
Just one example, a relative might be spreading lies about the parent, unknown to the parent.
A parent could be falsely accused of a crime.

Children don't go NC with their own parents for no reason. Believe them. Believe children. It's bad enough that children of abuse are not believed, and when adults, are not believed it is justified when they go NC. And not one, but two? Yeah, she knows exactly why, and her not taking any responsibility is a big red flag. It'd be different if she had some remorse. I'd be very wary around her and want to have as little to do with her as possible.

Not necessarily, or at least not directly. Having the same parents isn't the only thing children might have in common. They might share temperaments, schools, social circles, and these days virtually all young people spend their formative years exposed to various destructive almost cultlike belief systems online. I spent a chunk of my 20s thinking my parents were abusive and that I needed to reduce contact. They weren't. I know some people my age who still think their parents were abusive and it's often possible to recognise if/when they're basing that on the same (online) headfiction I spent my teens absorbing.