NC with family member but family still passing on information

[SushiSuave]

Not sure how to deal with this situation so looking for advice. I went NC with a parent 3 years ago due to their horrendous behaviour beginning to affect my son, and me drawing the line at that. Since going NC I have been so so much happier, my anxiety has reduced dramatically and I just feel free. However, my sibling is still in contact with this parent and discussing me and my family on a regular basis with them. I know this is a very difficult situation for my sister, and the narcissistic parent still claims to love me and miss me every time they speak to my sister and guilt trip her into trying to get me to make contact again. My sister completely understands my view point on this and does not try and persuade me to do anything which I really appreciate. However, I have found out they they still regularly talk about me and my family and what we have been doing. This irritates me greatly as I don't believe this parent has any right to know anything about what me and my family are doing or our "news". We will soon be moving to a new house that NC parent will not have an address for. However, I am sure they will ask my sister where we are living. I don't want parent to know. How do I deal with this? Telling my sister not to pass this information on will put her in a difficult position with NC parent, and I know parent will continually ask her until she gives in. I also don't want to fall out with my sister. However, part of me feels like saying to her that I can't give her my new address unless she can promise not to tell parent. Is this unreasonable of me? Is there a better way of going about this that won't lead to any animosity between me and sister, but will also keep my privacy from parent? I can not stress how lovely my sister is and I know she is navigating me being NC with parent in the best way she can but am getting annoyed with parent still being so up to date on my life without my permission.

You can ask her not to pass on the information but I think it’s unrealistic - whilst you’re NC with them that doesn’t stop them hearing about you or finding out where you live if they’re determined. We are NC with SIL and BIL so I know what it’s like, but we just rejoice in the fact that the next time we’ll see them will be at 91 year old MIL’s funeral and then never again. In the meantime we just make sure we only share things with MIL that’s so boring we don’t mind the gruesome twosome knowing about or that’s in the public domain, if they were so determined to google.

I’ve had the same but with my dad telling my sister things about me, If I ever move he won’t get my address as I don’t trust him not to tell her

@SirChenjins I'm half thinking this, let parent scavenge for tit bits of information and keep the moral high ground of not giving a shit. But a perhaps childish part of me feels like parent lost the right to know anything about my life when I cut contact. I am torn, along with keeping a good relationship with my sister. Have also found out today that parent recently contacted ILs to ask them "what this is all about" (as they continue to maintain that they have no idea why I cut contact despite being told and it being blatantly obvious), which again irritates me as I feel like parent is trying every avenue to wheedle back in, but has not ever bothered to actually apologise. Not that it would make a difference now and I don't want their apology or contact of any sort. Sorry to ramble - things like this being a lot of emotions back up again and I find myself getting inexplicably angry about things that happened years ago.

@BiscoffSundae it's so hard to not fall out with innocent parties isn't it?

I’ve been told I should just cut him off too but he is elderly and disabled and she is very manipulative, I know he is not doing it to harm me he just is easily manipulated by her and falls for her sob stories, I have to be careful what I tell him now though which makes things difficult.

Sorry to be blunt OP, but indeed I would not give your sister your address.
If she's as lovely as you say she'll eventually understand.
Otherwise you'll know she puts her facile comfort above yours.

Yes my sister is the same with being manipulated by parent, but it's almost as if she sometimes slips up and mentions a conversation they've had which she must have volunteered information, because it would be too obscure for parent to have asked about that particular subject. But I know I don't have any right to dictate what she talks about, it's just very frustrating and hard to ignore at times.

Thanks for the comment @Bonheurdupasse. Sometimes I do feel like I've taken the difficult step to go NC and it's almost for nothing when parent is still fully aware of my life, as you say for the sake of my sisters comfort/her not having the guts to tell parent it's none of their business. But then she hasn't had the same relationship with parent that I have.

From what you’re saying it sounds like you’ve got a really good relationship with your sister, so rather than focusing on what irrelevant people who are not in your life might gain by knowing things about you I would suggest focusing what you gain by having your sister in your life - don’t give your parents power by letting them get to you, and don’t jeopardise the close relationship you and your sister enjoy. Leave your parents in the past where they belong 😊

You can control who you have contact with.
You can't control who your sister sees and what she discusses with them.
You risk loosing you relationship with your sister if you don't accept this.

I don't know if this will help in the slightest, it may be that our situation is very very different.

But I'm in the middle of my parents and my sibling. Sibling is NC alternating with very LC, with my parents.

Thing is, is I already went through all the emotions and feelings my sibling is only recently processing. I had no support to the point that when everything was happening to me, my sibling was very unsupportive and did the classic victim blaming etc.

I now have to deal with my mum (who is not an a-hole) trying to hide from me the vicious and revolting things my sibling says to her and about her, hiding her tears, all the while my sibling is spewing vitriol about both parents to me, then shutting down the conversation because actually they don't want to talk about it.

I'm having my second breakdown this year thanks to this fucking situation sitting on top of everything else I am dealing with alone in my own life.

If I'm told not to pass something on, I don't. I have to be careful and I know to be careful. But please please bear in mind how your sibling may be feeling. It's utterly shit being stuck in the middle.

I'd try and channel that ''what you think of me is none of my business'' sentiment.

I know it's really hard but in a perfect world, you'd be detached enough from the whole situation not to care if they discussed you. FAKE that.

I should take my own advice. It annoys me that my mother and father will talk about me but not to me. They have given me the silent treatment or stonewalled me for over two years. I do still care. It hurts, less than it did, but it does. I am working towards a place of believing and feeling really genuinely that what they think of me is none of my business. One third of the way there.......... Still plodding along.

Thank you all, @SpencersCroftCat I'm sorry you are caught in the middle. I am VERY conscious of my sisters feelings in this, hence not having displayed any irritation to her at their conversations and seeking some advice. I think perhaps other posters are right and I must just rise above and let them get on with it, I am just struggling with the address situation as parent would be likely to turn up and I hate living in fear of that situation/feeling uneasy in my own home as I do currently due to parent knowing current address. They haven't tried to make contact in the last 3 years so chances of them doing so at a new address are minimal but I feel I have a right to feel safe and secure in my own home.

Thing is, they could get your address from another relative, a friend, the electoral register, through Google, private investigator… if someone is determined to track someone down there is always a way. If they did decide to - and it sounds very doubtful - you would handle it brilliantly, I’m sure. Trust yourself.

Thank you @SirChenjins, you are so right about all of those other possibilities. I do often wonder what I would do if I saw them, they currently live locally and I get the fear whenever I go to the local shop/doctors surgery that I might bump into them. I find myself walking into these places with an "escape plan" of how I would get out again without having to speak to them if they were to be in there, or come in after me. It will be nice
not to feel like that every time I pop to the shop/get petrol. On the bright side they have lost their driving license currently so not so much concern at petrol station for now!

I would definitely not be offended if my sibling moved and wouldn't share the address with me. I'd understand (I appreciate many others wouldn't). I would reiterate to your sibling that you really mean it when you say you don't want things passed on. But then it's also on you to modify what you share and in my situation I'm having thoughts and feelings about our parents dumped on me frequently. I want to be able to listen, but my sibling is in dire need of proper therapy really. I've had to go through it. And now have my strategies for dealing with our parents. The problem for us is primarily our father. Who had a shocking upbringing and has passed this along. I hope things improve. Do know you're not alone, so many of us are in awkward situations with our families too. 💛

Do they even know you are moving? Would your sister have to even mention that?

My sister wouldn't HAVE to mention it but I'm learning about more and more things she didn't need to mention but he's been. This is outing but partner was in an accident a few weeks ago and sister casually dropped into conversation "when I rang parent to tell them about accident...". There was no need for her to ring parent at all so I'm annoyed about that, but again, didn't tell her I was annoyed so as not to add to her difficult situation. However, after a terrible nights sleep full of anxiety and anger at parent I'm feeling like I do need to remind her that I'm entitled to privacy and she doesn't need to run back to parent telling them every little thing about me. Answer specific questions so as to make your life easier but don't go out of your way to keep parent up to date. But I'm probably just tired and grumpy. Struggling so much with where to lay my boundaries with sister, what rights I have and what rights she has.

I wonder whether your sister feels she gets a lot of positive attention from your parents if she feeds them snippets of information about you.

That could well be true @EmergencyHepNeeded. I feel validated this morning as I've spoken to parent I am in contact with and their advice has been to calmly speak to sister in a few days, explain how I feel and ask her not to pass information on. I will sit on it for a few days but I probably will ask her to not give any more info than she absolutely has too. There's no need and I don't want her to be volunteering info about me/OH/our child.

My advice would be to keep the contact with your sister very light and non-descript. Don't be providing her with details of your life, where you're moving to (if you wanted to, you could even give her details of a town/city that you're not moving to but you might know a lot about so would be able to provide actual street details etc. if in conversation, so a sense of misdirection if you will). See if that information might get back to the relative that you are NC with. If it does, then you know you must keep personal information private and not tell her very much either.

You may have to go low-contact with the sister if you plan on maintaining a relationship with her.

This doesn't mean that you can't still meet your sister but it will always be on neutral ground and not anywhere you live.

Unfortunately, OP, that's j unlikely to be enough. You need to take back that control from your sister. She can't be trusted not to pass on information (you've already asked her not to) for whatever reason, so take the power away from her and don't tell her anything you are not happy with her passing on. It means your relationship will maybe suffer but if she can't choose to protect you what else can you do?

I had a similar situation with my mum insisting she had to pass on information about me to my sister. She knew why I didn't want her to, and understood, yet my sister's FOMO and ensuing tantrums when she found out she had were of more immediate consequence to my mum than any long-time pain I then had. So I stopped telling her anything of importance. It meant our relationship suffered but it was worth it.

The only thing I really wish is done was spell out to her why I did that. Make her understand that her actions caused it. She has dementia now and wouldn't understand. So I suggest, if you do go down this route, you do tell your sister. Don't blame her, just point out it stops her being in an awkward situation so you're protecting her. It's not the entire truth but will suffice.

NC means you control that you and your family have no direct contact with your parents. I assume you don't speak about them to your sister? So from your perspective, you're getting what you want. What you can't enforce is that they don't speak of you between them. I know it hurts and you want a clean break, but that would probably have to involve NC with a sister you clearly adore. Would that be the price you're willing to pay?
If your sister is being manipulated by them and you feel you have to be guarded around her, they're winning, aren't they. They're driving a wedge between you. I'm so sorry you're going through this. I had this a few years ago, different family members but similar dynamic. I just showed disinterest in my sisters life and our shared mother eventually stopped telling me about her. I assume my sister behaved the same way but if she didn't, then I was in her head taking up space whilst I lived my life unaffected. It's hard, you have my sympathy x

It just makes me so sad to think NC parent is now coming between us. So sad and so angry.

In fairness to you @SushiSuave , the NC parent was always going to be the elephant in the room. You don't discuss them, you have nothing to do with them but your sibling still does and will struggle with trying to have a conversation about what they are up to or be asked by them to find out about you because the NC parent has asked them to (in effect, being their flying monkey, doing their bidding for them).
You, now aware of this, can tailor your conversations and discussions around things that your NC parent wants to know about you and be smart about it. Just don't offer any information to your sister that you don't want to get back to your parent.
The fact that you're aware of the information being passed back and forth between them is actually good. You can now control what information you want this sister to have.