How to go no contact with a parent.

[theotherfossilsister]

It has reached the stage where I need to cut a parent out of my life for my sake and that if my family. Please don’t tell me otherwise, I have carefully thought about this and wanted to for years but not done so through guilt. I need to do this though. Please tell me how?

How often do you see / speak to them usually?

Did you just start a thread about your mum favouring your sister?

Do you have support from family members? It's easier if you do otherwise it's lots of hassle.

Refuse to talk to the parent, block their number and email address. Don't attend events with them. Bin cards and letters, don't open the door to them and don't be manipulated by others to get sucked back in.

I would just tell them that you need space from their behaviour, list the behaviour and tell them you won’t be in contact with them while they have taken responsibility for x, y and z behaviour and completely change it for a prolonged period of time.

I wrote an email to my family members. There was like yours, a significant back story.

It is extremely painful but their behaviour would have completely destroyed my mental health so it has been completely worth it. Mine have never addressed their issues, I knew they would not as they simply lack the capacity to self reflect.

It really all depends on how enmeshed your life is

ie you rely on them for childcare and see them daily… tricky

the live abroad and you see them once a year, if that, easy peasy

I wrote mine an email. And then ignored every other attempt to contact me in the years that followed.

Except for the emails I get for my birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day telling me what a terrible person I am, it’s been bliss. I have absolutely no regrets about the decision.

The only thing to consider is relationships with other family members or family events where they might also be invited. Will you want to stay close to siblings? Will you not go to an event if your parent will be there?

It’s easy for me because my mum was my only biological family (other than my children), so there are no siblings to maintain relationships with or family weddings where I might run into her. We don’t even live in the same country. That makes it very straightforward.

You just stop. Block them on phone or email. Tell people you don't want to hear about them.

The only decisions really are whether there is anything they could do to change your mind in which case you might want to keep a communication channel open (e.g. post - read and don't just bin letters), and whether you will also have to cut ties with anyone else who might act as a flying monkey.