To think cutting people out of your life is just cruel

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

I know I am risking a real flaming here, and I honestly do appreciate that every case is very different and I cannot judge anything without knowing each case. However I see a lot of advice on here, mostly in relationships, where the advice is to 'just walk away' or 'cut them out of your life'. Now, in many cases I can see the point BUT......

I have a MIL. She is enormously hard work. Totally selfish, manipulative, vindictive and cannot even conceive of not getting her own way, a real pain in the ass. She drives me scatty and on occasion her manipulation makes me very angry. She repeatedly gets the hump and has little hissy fits, stopping speaking to DP and I for months on end (once because DP told his grandmother the dog had died ) then decides to make up. If you tackle her she tantrums - literally storming out screaming that she never wants to see you again. I suspect she could benefit from counselling but she won't even countenance it.

She is the mother to 4 grown up kids. 2 of them no longer speak to her and one is emigrating (in part I think to get away). This leaves DP. Oh joy. PIL are also homeless, having sold up to go travelling and when back in the UK they end up staying with us for months at a time, without really asking properly.

Anyway, sorry for length. Despite all this I see the total utter misery and heartbreak not seeing her 2 children causes her and I think they are really nasty for continuing to refuse to see her. At least part of her bad behaviour seems to stem from this misery. last week I could hear her crying her heart out (through the ceiling) and it turned out it was her 'lost' daughter's birthday (didn't talk to MIL, asked DP if he knew what was up). This is someone who ran away at 16 and is now back in touch with many others in the family but won't have anything to do with her parents.

They weren't abusive or anything, DP was living at home as an adult when she left and said at the time it just seemed like the usual teenage angst (ok, it's a bit more complicated but not wanting to out self or anyone else).

Everytime anyone asks PIL if DD is their first grandchild they just look stricken. They have 5 grandchildren but don't even know the names of all of them and have never met any but DD. Yes they are a nightmare but they don't deserve this misery.

Anyway - AIBU to think that people should sometimes be a bit more forgiving and tolerant? families can be a PITA but to just walk away because it makes life easier is just selfish and cruel.

Go on, tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.....

My Brother no longer considers me to be his sister he informed me at th weekend along with firing me and cut my DH's hours. We've managed to fall out about what Care is best for Mum who he han't seen for at least 4 years.

I have joined my Dad in the people who Brother isn't speaking to club.

Look for the pattern OP. If there is one and there is in your MIL's case then it's probably for a reason. You might have been around when falling out with BIL was happening but you don't know exactly what was said.

I don't know whether or not to feel better that I'm not the only one who's had to take the hard decision not to have my parents in my life anymore, or saddened that other people have experienced the same and far worse as I did.

Good luck everyone in making the right choices for you and yours, and hopefully breaking the cycle, either with or without the troublesome relative in your life.

It does make me think very carefully about my parenting. It'd break my heart if DD is the third generation of broken mother/daughter relationships. She's only 4 though, so plenty of storms ahead! All tips on how to weather those would be gratefully received...

OP, I'm afraid I've committed the MN cardinal sin of not reading the whole thread. I'm going upstairs for a bath in a minute and don't have time.

I've cut my mother out of my life. There isn't a single reason for this and I had wanted to do it for about 10 years before I actually did it. And during those 10 years I tried and failed, I agonised and reflected, I modified myself and my expectations.

She destroyed the person I could have been. In fact, the only thing that got me through my dad dying and my husband leaving after an affair was my mother not being a part of any of it.

She doesn't like me, she doesn't love me. She told my brother this and her actions have made it quite obvious and clear throughout my whole life that she didn't and she blamed me for the fact that she didn't love me and punished me for it.

The final straw for me came when, not only did I begin to hear the sort of poison she'd spouted at me directed towards my children, but when we found out that the man she was seeing and had been encouraging my children to have an unnecessarily close relationship with had a history of the nature that meant he shouldn't have been anywhere near my (or any other) children, let alone have any sort of relationship with them.

My mother has told everyone that I am an intellectual snob and have cut her out because I have decided we don't like what he does for a living. She knows full well that I cannot tell anyone the truth.

I tried over the years to forge a relationship with her - I've invited her on days out with the children and me. Sometimes she came, but then she always complained that they were days out that the children were interested in and didn't interest her ; I invited her for meals out, just the two of us, and not once did it happen; I've arranged for us to go on holiday together and she managed to treat me like a naughty child the whole time we were there.

She told me I was fat, ugly and that no one would ever love me.
She locked me in the garden in my nightie with bare feet when there was frost on the ground.
She locked me in dark rooms when I was too small to reach the light switch and was terrified of the dark.
She mocked and humiliated me in public.
I'm incapable of forming deep and lasting relationships with people.
I don't trust people.

Still think I was cruel to cut her out?

Oh and just to prove I'm not some drama llama - my brother no longer has contact with her and none of her remaining living relatives (one paternal uncle and his family and 2 maternal cousins and their families) have anything to do with her either.

I think that it's hard to gauge what it was like for your dp's siblings - different siblings growing up in same house can all be treated in different ways - maybe your dp was the favourite child so less emotional abuse on him. Of your mil not prepared to go to counselling to address these issues then she deserves to be cut off - its a drastic step and rarely done without good reason. I suspect she just apologised in name only.

That's very true foreveronadiet.

I bore the brunt of all of my mother's hatred and emotional/physical cruelty. But my brother suffered in different ways. She was the opposite with him and lavished all her love on him, but it was very oppressive for him. When she and my dad split up, she treated my brother like a substitute partner. They went on holiday together and she wanted to slow dance with him!! He was 16 at the time and mortified. Apparently she rabbited on about how people would think they were a couple and he was her toyboy.

Fucking strange woman with a completely incomprehensible take on boundaries!

folkgirl I don't have anything to add to the discussion but wanted to acknowledge that awful history of abuse that you have suffered at the hands of your DM. It made me shudder and feel thankful you're no longer going through it. I hope you've found a place of peace and a new beginning that looks a lot brighter.

folkgirl, Jesus thats just terrible. best of luck to you in your life.

op think folkgirl puts it heartbreakingly well.

some people are bastards and they happen to be bastards to their children.

your mil really has brought it in herself.

It may surprise you to hear this, but I have no-one in my life. No family; I cut my father out years ago, no mother, stepfather, or sister, as I finally got the courage up to cut them off a year ago, after one of the most hideous weeks of my life. A week in which my DDs actually contacted my XH to ask him to ring and make up an excuse for us to leave. A week that was the final nail in the coffin for us, neither of my children want to have any contact with any of my family. I slapped my sister, I'm not proud of that at all, but I will never, ever apologise for that, as it pales into insignificance compared to how she has behaved towards me in the past. I know that she's posted many times about it on Twitter; her version anyway, which is so self pitying and self congratulatory as to be laughable to anyone who knows me.

But I've always been the scapegoat whilst she was the golden child. On the outside it must have appeared that we had idyllic childhoods, and she did. But I didn't, MY childhood was very different to hers.

I trust nobody now. Have nobody in my life. The only people I speak to, apart from my DDs, are my XH and my XPILs. And thank goodness they are decent people, who still love me, and have provided me with all the love and cherishing I should have, but didn't receive, when I was a child.

Some families really should have children. Mine is one of them. The childhoods of two children growing up in a family can be polar opposites, and OP really needs to take on board what so many of us are telling her.

stratters -so glad to see you again

I didn't choose to cut people out of my life

I had no choice

Do you think it was easy ?

It was - and still is - fucking painful

Do you honestly think they give a fucking shit ?

Well I can tell you - no - they fucking don't care

They only care about their own image

And who they can manipulate next.........................

I am of the opinion that, if a person brings more misery than joy to your life, you are better off cutting them off, regardless whether they are family or not. The person you cut off often had multiple chances to stop making your life miserable. I personally have cut people off my life and feel no regrets, and live more happily because of that.

Wow OP, this is one of they most presumptuous bit of tripe I've read on here, and that's no mean feat. How dare you judge. You've made your choice, leave them to theirs, you stupid woman.

Very difficult.

Generally if someone has the capability to be incredibly awful but also has redeeming qualities, I don't cut them out.

But I've cut two people out of my life. One ex-partner who I tried to stay friends with but who I always ended up arguing with (just like when we were together) - I could no longer deal with it, and neither could they, so off they went.

The other one is my sister, and this is going to sound horrible, but we were never really in touch after my early years anyway, so we weren't close, and she keeps changing her name so she's hard to keep track of. She gets toweringly offended over tiny, tiny things - will just go off at you and threaten to cut off all contact before reconciling - and that whole side of my family is riven with incidents of abuse (on the part of several people), infighting and general fucking horribleness.

So when she had a real go at my DP and I one Christmas for the umpteenth time over some imagined slight, and said 'I'm never talking to you again', I thought 'for Christ's sake, I'll call your fucking bluff on that one then' and deleted her and everybody else on my dad's side.

What makes it worse is that the pair of us are on the autistic spectrum, her more obviously than me, so I should be remaining friends with her out of solidarity because of our neurological issues. But I just can't bloody do it.

oh OP....it is very sad but sometimes choices are made for the right reasons.

i am a successful woman, career, lovely DH, and two absolutely delightful children whom i love with absolutely all my heart.

but that belies a terrible past for me. A past filled with abuse, neglect and cruelty that defies belief sometimes. And so, after many years of trying, i came to terms with the fact that my immediate family were bad for me. So bad for me they made me ill, many years after the broken bones had healed. (my step father was a violent man)
i have had no contact with my mother for 13 years. I tried some contact with my half sibling last year only to find that they were addicted to heroin, cannabis and alcohol. Best avoided i thought under the circumstances.
and so i am once again an island. i have my DH and my children. thats it for me. but thats better than the fucked up nightmare alternative that is the rest of my family who wouldnt be out of place in an episode of shameless....
and yes i did feel terrible guilt. so much so i had 8 months of counselling
and now im good.
and i know i made the right decision for my own mental and physical well being.
cruel?
no. i dont think so. cruel was my mothers actions in marrying a man who beat me, spat on me, swore at me and belittled me, who thought i was a germ that needed to be stamped out.
cruel was a mother who stood by and did nothing when her husband broke my fingers with a garden cane, or split my lip with his fist.
cruel was the man who stopped talking to me and simply clicked his fingers to gain my attention and then signed what he wanted because i was beneath wasting words on.
cruel was stopping me from ever seeing the grandparents who loved me because they were scared that my bruises and cuts would be seen.
cruel was the 8 years of this i had to endure before fleeing at 15 and being homeless.
that was cruel.
i dont see my wanting nothing to do with them now as cruel. My SF died young, which does not surprise me in the least - carrying that much anger and vitriol around with you must shorten a life.
my mother caused me such absolute pain and heart ache - seeing her now would only cause more.
she is fine. she has my heroin addicted brother for company. They all saw me as the black sheep....im happy to be the black sheep that got married and is still married 22 years later, who has a son with SN but who still went through uni and now works in his chosen field, who has a daughter that is beautiful inside and out and who i would die for, and a normal life, complete with career, dog, mortgage etc etc....none of that i would have ever imagined as a child who tried to take their own life at the age of 11 because the misery of her life was too much to bear.

so you can judge if you like OP.
but im happy in my choices. and im ok with htem after months of counselling - im happy. it only took 41 years.

As hard as it is to understand, you have known your MIL for a short time whereas the family have lived with her for years.
I too have cut out my mother from my life, making us a family once again. There are four of us and mother tried to turn us all against each other over the years, but it only made us realise that we had suffered because of her evil and it brought us closer together.
You sound very nice, but beware of the evil lurking within. There is nothing on this earth more powerful than a vindictive woman, sooner or later you will be used as a pawn in some way, shape or form.
There is usually a very strong underlying reason why people cut a so called close family member out of their lives.
Take heed and be strongly warned, don't get involved or dragged into a situation, which could result in a lot of damage to your relationship and in particular your marriage.
I would also avoid letting your MIL have too much influence on your kids.
You will find out for yourself, eventually, why I suggest you butt out and leave her to it.

I can see both sides. You read threads on here sometimes by people who have cut their parents out of their lives and by reading other threads they have contributed to, you wonder if their DC will be doing the same to them in a few years. People tend to be very accepting of their own parenting failures but completely intolerant of their parents' or PIL's.

That said, sometimes you really have no choice but to cut someone out of your lives. We no longer have any contact with SIL. She was a danger to our marriage and caused a great deal of misery for us. The sad thing is, she has a child who will probably never meet his cousins (our kids). That breaks my heart, but it is her choice to behave the way she did. We have given her numerous opportunities to put things right ("just apologise and we can all move on"), but she is not willing to. Her child will be the one who suffers and that is very sad. I think she thinks if she holds out long enough, DH will leave me and go back to her. And yes, I am talking about SIL not an ExDW!

Good luck, OP - I think you are behaving entirely properly.

Despite all this I see the total utter misery and heartbreak not seeing her 2 children causes her and I think they are really nasty for continuing to refuse to see her

Essentially, you have NO idea why her children don't speak to her. YOU have no idea what their childhood was like. What they felt, what they didn't feel.

As someone who hasn't spoken to her mother for 20yrs, I can tell you that it isn't easy to just walk away. To just close a door on your childhood, your life, deny yourself the love of a parent, deny your children the love of a grandparent.

Call me cruel & selfish all you like, but you have NO idea what I lived with. You have no idea how I felt & still feel about my childhood. I am not going to go into details, because I don't have to justify it here. Walking away wasn't easier. I have no mother, no one to share my good times with, no one to go to when I am ill, no one to tell me that I am making a good job of parenting. It is hard not having her, I want a mum, just not the one I have. And yes, I miss out. But missing out is so much easier than having her in my life.

What I see, when people walk away is a heart broken by years of unhappiness.

Your MIL sounds manipulative. Believe me, she WANTED you to hear her crying, because that is how she holds onto the children who still talk to her. Manipulation. Crying, all while controlling. Although she is clever, because she has you believing that she is the hard done by one, doesn't she!

Kids can't understand that she is just being childish and ridiculous - they would be genuinely hurt

And there you have it. You would cut her out if she did it to your kids, because they don't understand?

Well, her kids lived with it 24/7 & they didn't understand it either, only unlike your children, they had no one to take them away from it, to stop it (FIL sounds like he just enabled it) or to tell her to back off. So they left, and didn't look back as soon as they were able.

Now do you understand?

You reap what you sow.

As for your SIL leaving to be with an abuser.

Do you know, I have never known anyone from a stable loving home to stay with an abuser for any length of time. I have known a couple who accidentally got lumbered with them and then dumped them.

But the people who have put up with bullshit from a partner are all from emotionally abusive homes, where they learned that abuse was 'normal'.

Obviously I don't know everyone in the world who is in abusive relationships, just my observation.

'I am sorry if I upset you' says everything really doesn't it? If she actually was sorry she would have said, 'I am sorry I upset you'. Small but important difference.

YABU.

Oh yes I get the "I'm sorry if..." apologies along with self-pitying trembly lip and baby voice.

What that apology means is - I'm sorry IF you think I did anything wrong, though of course obviously that's impossible, because I want you to think of me as perfect, so please forgive me for everything and tell me it's nothing and don't desert me like the others have."

She moans in the same self-pitying voice that she has been "sacked as a parent" by my siblings. That really makes me see red. You can't be sacked from a job you never did.

You reap what you sow.

So, so true. My parents were expecting me to take care of them in their old age. Not my sister, as she point blank told them she would put them in a home. Looks like they'll be stuck in that home now, there's absolutely nothing that would make me go back to having any form of contact, let alone look after them. As for my sister, from what I hear she's slowly driving people away with her aggressiveness and self absorption.

Good. Karma will bite em hard.

LadyBigToes, don't you just feel contempt when she behaved like that?

My mother thinks she was a brilliant parent. She wasn't abusive but she was certainly totally uninterested in us as children. I get when she claims all our academic successes are down to her. She had no clue.

Strats

(((((HUGS)))))

Much love.

XXXXX

I don't think people do this lightly. People tend to cut family out when they have been treated cruelly by them, so no i don't think it is cruel. If a parent ruins their child's childhood then they can expect said child to escape when they are able to as an adult in a way that they were unable to as a child.