Are there any circumstances which would make you stop contact with an adult child?

[Lilington]

Inspired by another thread where I mentioned that my horrible ex husband’s parents cut contact with him due to his utterly shitty conduct I’m wondering how often this happens and what people consider reasonable grounds for parents to stop contact with adult sons or daughters.

In the case of my ex husband it was serious financial abuse (as well as being an arrogant, selfish bastard who never did anything for anyone except if it suited his purposes) which actually led to legal action.

I don’t think so. I think it’s about as unconditional as any human love can get. I can imagine setting boundaries, not allowing them to live with me, not giving them money etc. But cutting all contact? No, I can’t really imagine that.

I’d never cut contact completely but they would absolutely not be staying in my home if they committed an absolutely despicable crime.

can you imagine alienating all your other children/putting them at risk/neighbours children at risk just so their needs are met.

i can’t.

i would mourn the child that they were but not what they’d become.

I do really feel for those parents whose children have done such awful things but don’t have a great deal of sympathy for those who put that child above everyone else in the family.

I should add this absolutely doesn’t extend to condoning or enabling behaviour that is dangerous or immoral.

'yes, I would visit you because I know that if you ever committed murder, then it would because you were not in your right mind or were acting in self defence.'

That would mean there are no evil people in the world. Just not right in the mind or acting in self defence. I hate to tell you but evil people exist.

I cut contact with my stepdaughter. I understand that there is a difference, with a biological child who you've carried, brought into the world and raised form birth but I tend to think I'd do the same even if that were the case, and I absolutely loved the girl to bits. I'd have done absolutely anything for her, we shared a love of horses, hobbies, clothes (her mum not so much) and we spent a lot of time together, I supported her with college and jobs and friendships and just about everything one would do for their child.

Aged 17/18 she began hanging around with a bad crowd of 'street people' some homeless some not,all involved with crime and drugs. She got into a relationship with a man older than me (late thirties at the time) who had been in prison for rape and armed robbery.

She returned to me and my ex once and then went missing again, when police found her that time she was found with all of our larger knives, every bit of medication we had had in the cabinet, duct tape (probably other items, I forget) basically a murder/suicide kit.

She reported me to SS for abusing her, absolutely 100% untrue and also for supplying her with 'crack'. I laughed at them honestly, I wouldn't have known where to get 'crack' from if I had have tried, I was a police civilian at the time, and as SS were involved due to all of the issues I had actually called them to ask if it were okay if she had a glass of bloody wine with xmas dinner, when she were 17 and now I'm supplying her with illegal drugs?

She's threatened me many times since then over text and social media, keeps cropping up with new accounts. Had physically assaulted her Mum and accused me of it when I put my hand on her shoulder to ask her please let me get past (she was standing in a doorway).

We lived near my niece and nephew also in their later teens. I simply could not put my family in danger and I had no idea what her next move would be. She disappeared anyway but I decided I wanted nothing more to do with her as she was no longer a child I loved, she was a young woman and a dangerous one at that.

My ex still sees her but is supportive of my decision. It was a heartbreaking one, but I had reached a limit.

She was a very intelligent girl and a beautiful girl not that that is important but she's now almost toothless, in her early twenties and still on the streets. Most homeless shelters and services will not allow her to access their support because of her disgusting behaviour toward them and abuse of their staff.

Yes if having them in my life was a serious threat to my safety or the safety of others in my family, I might consider it.

That would mean there are no evil people in the world. Just not right in the mind or acting in self defence. I hate to tell you but evil people exist

Exactly. Lot’s of criminals who do not gave mental health issues per se, no acting in self-defence, but are just inherently evil. That must be really hard to accept as a parent but it’s a fact.

I agree with @VegQueen, only if they were a threat to safety.

Interested to read this as my own father in old age cut contact with me and my brother over trivial matters, a one off argument that could have easily been resolved and although we are willing to talk he is not, Absolutely bonkers that he prioritizes being right and winning this argument over seeing half his family ever again before he dies.

Its not always the children cutting off the parents.

Exactly what I was going to say

I wouldn’t be able to look at them in the same way ever again

Honestly don't know and I hope I never find out

But I know people who literally housed their adult child accused of molestation and volunteered them for babysitting duties you have to wonder would i be like that? Or would I stand firm to the police and say he isn't staying here (i would never offer them as a babysitter btw)

We were in this situation with one of ours. they moved out at 16, lived in awful conditions with an inappropriate person. We supported as best we could at arm’s length. When we were predictably needed, we were there. 10 years later, they had turned their life around. 15 years later, married with a wonderful child and studying for an MA, we’re extremely close.

It's not a fact. It's an opinion! One I don't share.

My DSis is NC with her DD. DD's attitude to the whole family changed some years ago, she was obnoxious to her young nephew at my DM's birthday, it sullied the whole afternoon. She has disowned her sister, who apparently ruined her wedding, she didn't I was there.
She has been awful to my sister, treating her with contempt. For years my sister kept trying to keep contact going, not even allowed into the house when delivering birthday presents.
Eventually I was fed up of having to hear my DSis crying on the 'phone after each failed attempt, I asked her if her DD was not her DD, and just some person she met, would she be happy to cut them off. After a lot of soul searching she agreed that she would. That is what she has done, she still sends Christmas and birthday presents to the children, never receives any kind of acknowledgement.

It's not a fact. It's an opinion! One I don't share

@Poppingby What evidence do you believe exists that validates evil people do not exist and there must only be mental illness? There are evil people who don’t qualify for a mental illness diagnosis, that is a fact.

What evidence do you have that evil is a thing? What behaviours count as Evil as opposed to just Bad? If remorse is a human emotion, surely a lack of it is a fault in what makes you tick unless you think it's something you can deliberately override? I just don't agree with you. I'm not saying my opinion is fact either.

Pedophilia

Rape
Murder that wasn’t self defence or something like a road traffic accident.
Generally becoming a horrible, awful person.

I can't imagine any. Violence against me I suppose, or against other members of the family. Drug addiction maybe.

Yes I would cut off contact in certain circumstances. Thinking of past cases - Baby P for example. If my daughter was his mother I'd be ashamed to be associated with her. What about the bio father of Tony Hudgell? Beat him so badly as a baby he had to have both his legs amputated. If my child grew up to do something so heinous, they wouldn't be welcome back in my life.

They were all adults, but even Robert Thompson and John Venables, knowing how they tortured and killed that poor child....

I love my two adult DDs to bits, but if they'd ever done something like that, I don't know I could come to terms with it.

I look at my toddler now, and I can't imagine any scenario in which I would abandon contact with her, but maybe if in years to come we didn't have a solid relationship and we made each other unhappy, then whilst I couldn't see myself initiating an estrangement, I could imagine myself letting her go if it was what she wanted/needed.

There was a 16-year-old boy in Scotland who abducted, raped and murdered a young child. If he were my son, I wouldn't visit him in prison or have anything else to do with him. I could stand by my child in almost all situations, but that would be one of the few exceptions.

I was told by a DV support worker that the families of perps never believe they harmed even a fly.

But... but.. he's not evil. He must have mental problems!

Nah, some people are evil to the bone. And all of those people were once children.

What evidence do you have that evil is a thing? What behaviours count as Evil as opposed to just Bad? If remorse is a human emotion, surely a lack of it is a fault in what makes you tick unless you think it's something you can deliberately override? I just don't agree with you. I'm not saying my opinion is fact either

Okay, so a serial killer, but no mental illness. You are splitting hairs between what is ‘evil’ versus ‘bad’? And lack of remorse, absent a mental illness, is just, not normal, so that’s excusable? Yeah, definitely agreeing to disagree on all of that.

I'm not excusing anything. In some ways you are more accountable if you're not intrinsically evil but do things that hurt other people. I just don't agree that people can be evil. And it's certainly not a 'fact'. Just as evil itself is not a fact.