To be shocked at how many people think having no contact with family is normal?

[dogscatsandbabies]

I'm a lurker. Can't help it, I find AIBU gets me through many a night feed. I'm always totally shocked at how blasé some posters can be when giving advice "she sounds unbearable to me, I'd go NC" and similar phrases.

Really? Just like that you'd advise someone you don't know to break all ties with a relative over a situation you've only heard one side of, creating a family situation that can become unbearable for husbands / wives / siblings who are very literally stuck in the middle?

I know there are some situations when decisions are taken not to see family anymore for various good reasons but I'd seriously hope these were carefully considered and thought through in time given the wider impact it can have. NC just seems so normal to so many. Is it just me that thinks (safety of children etc aside) most problems are at least worth working on?

Here is the OP:

'I'm a lurker. Can't help it, I find AIBU gets me through many a night feed. I'm always totally shocked at how blasé some posters can be when giving advice "she sounds unbearable to me, I'd go NC" and similar phrases.

Really? Just like that you'd advise someone you don't know to break all ties with a relative over a situation you've only heard one side of, creating a family situation that can become unbearable for husbands / wives / siblings who are very literally stuck in the middle?

I know there are some situations when decisions are taken not to see family anymore for various good reasons but I'd seriously hope these were carefully considered and thought through in time given the wider impact it can have. NC just seems so normal to so many. Is it just me that thinks (safety of children etc aside) most problems are at least worth working on?'

These are the OP's words.

Observe this key sentence:

Is it just me that thinks (safety of children etc aside) most problems are at least worth working on?

The entire thread has been relevant to the OP. All those people up there, talking about how their problems - which didn't always involve the safety of children - simply couldn't be worked out. About how they didn't find being NC 'normal'. They are all relevant. We are all responding to the OP.

The OP came back and said, if I remember correctly, that this thread had 'really opened her eyes'.

You are not leaving the thread because it's gone off topic - it's never been off-topic. You're leaving it because there's no proof, actually, that the casual exclusion of ILs etc is actually advocated on MN.

And also probably because you're bored. As am I.

For fuck's sake.

It's not a 'Stately Homes thread'. Twice.

See, when you sneer at all the people who've laid bare their personal situations, in genuine response to the OP, that's when I start to wonder if you're just a common-or-garden goader with no point at all.

In which case, I'll be off. No more wasted keyboard time on this non-argument.

I expect the last sentence is the correct one! It is as if you are all talking about tea and I come in talking about coffee - both hot drinks but beyond that not relevant. Therefore best to make it my last word.
(Said in reply to AdamLb in case things have moved on)
I suspect we all bring our personal experience to a thread title and therefore don't read the same into it. I certainly read it differently to most.

I wouldn't judge till you've been there. I have been NC for 9 years with my parents. They are emotionally abusive and harmful.
I would actually rather my DC had no GP on my side than spend time with them and their toxic ways.
I have agonised over the decision, I have felt guilt many times, I have even given them a 2nd chance but they cannot and will not change their behaviour, for anyone.
For most people, it becomes a matter of survival and is not a decision that is taken lightly at all.

I wasn't minimising it- I wasn't talking about it!

that "you're either a family person or you're not" comment is 100% minimising. No matter what way I look at it, I can't see it as anything else but minimising, well I can.... but then I start to use even less friendly words like judgmental/patronising/tactless/cunty etc

it would be like saying to a double amputee in a wheelchair who has just said that he doesn't take part in any sports because the options open to double amputees in sport are few are far between, "oh well, you're either a sporty person or you're not".

Can you see that? Telling a double amputee he just isn't a sport-minded person is making a judgment on his personality, while it's not his personality that's hindering him in sport, it's his lack of legs. That would be tactless, right?

Well that's the same with telling me or the other ladies on this thread that we are just not family people. That is on some level making a judgment to our personalities, and it's not our personalities that is stopping us having relationships with our parents or inlaws, it's their toxicity.

And also, don't forget, many of us enjoy very fulfilling family relationships with other non-toxic family members. So I am a family person thank you, just not with my toxic parents.

One very last word before I hide it. I thought that I had explained that when I wrote that I had no idea what the thread was about! I have apologised - I can't do more. We were not talking about the same thing. It doesn't matter how many times you tell me that I should have known, I didn't. I do now!

But you still assert that there are times when people go/are told to go NC for no good reason. I think that is what people are objecting to.

you don't get it delphinium, because not once have you said "yes I can see now that -you're just not a family person- comment was tactless at best".

Instead of just admitting you said something shitty you go one to compound that by trying to defend a pretty indefensible stance.

For fuck's sake.

It's not a 'Stately Homes thread'. Twice

I can't quite articulate why, but both those comments irked me too. In some way I felt......... "lablelled" ............ if that is a even a word.

they are not the people OP was referring to in OP. Posters who have gone nc have made this about themselves- it was never supposed to be from my interpretation of OP.

delphinium, sorry, but I am on a roll. A lot of what you said has pissed me off, and better out than in as they say. So... that bit up ^^ there also pisses me off because I feel like you are telling me (and the others who posted similar stories) that we have somehow highjacked a thread and made it into something it was never intended to be. I don't like being told I have "turned into thread in to a me me me" thread. Not that I actually think I have. I think you are just a twat whose first line of defense if offense.

Yes, you were being belittled slow. It's a passive-aggressive dig.

Tata Delph.

To be honest, slow, I don't think Delph had a point.

After being pulled up on being unable to evidence the alleged 'Mumsnet petty NCing trend', she's covered by accusing everyone else of pulling the thread off-topic, and making PA digs.

When shown that the thread's bang on-topic, she's packed it and disappeared in in a whiff of confused defensiveness.

It was all so gigantically pointless.

stealth passive aggression, yes adam, I am seeing more and more of it now I am taking more time to actually digest her words slowly. Like it's not her fault for being obnoxious and tactless and judgmental, no it's our fault for derailing and thread and turning it into an "us us us" thread, for no logical reason whatsoever, AND against the OPs wishes n.b.

IMO .... if the rest of you with toxic parents/inlaws are half as experienced with passive aggression as I am.... it was a silly tactic for delphinium to use with this particular group of people in particular.

I'm sorry people who have posted thoughtful and deeply personal posts have ended up feeling belittled and judged.

I am struck by the glaring reality that I could imagine some of my estranged family posting exactly as delphinium has on this thread. Ironic really.

Going NC in in cases of toxic and abusive behaviour is totally fine. I bet you all who have, feel so much better for it, that's the main thing, regardless of what anybody on here says, you have one life, you do what you have to, to make it a happy and healthy one. You would not put up with being g treated badly by a friend or anybody else, why is it ok because your related to the person. There!

Although I totally credit the OP with having her eyes opened – and for people lucky enough not to know about this kind of abuse, it is an eye-opener - her op suggested that NC is advocated "just like that" and "seems normal to many".

I posted about my experience because I thought it was important to explain how it is so, so not "just like that" and it is the fact that it is not normal, and people are shocked by it in RL, that makes it hard to contemplate even doing it. That was not to make the thread about me, but to answer those questions in the OP.

OK, on some MN threads people will say "go NC" just like that, but it's a thread, not a lifetime. There's not really any other way to suggest something in a typical post. And I welcome those suggestions. I'm not going to do something just because someone on a thread told me to. But it means a lot to me to hear that it's something I could consider.

My counsellor wants me to consider it. My DP wants me to consider it (that's an understatement). I would have my sister's support too. You know what, I still haven't done it (with my mum, though I have with my dad).

What I have done is decades of trying to keep my mum happy and not react to her nastiness because my reaction would upset her. I've put her first and myself last. Has it improved anything? No.

I could imagine some of my estranged family posting exactly as delphinium has on this thread

Oh, yeah, I hear this. Unfortunately for my dad, the 'family' thing sounds a bit lame when he's asked why he punched his child in the face.

Bollocks, that was supposed to be a quote.

Over children growing up without grandparents and missing out, my mother has never wanted anything to do with my children, she has never met my eldest son who is now sixteen and only met my youngest when I stood outside her house with him when he was little. I had to shame her into acknowledging him.
My partners parents are both dead so my youngest has never had grandparents. I feel terrible about this, and actually wish I hadn't read this thread now.

Fluffy, I reckon yours dcs had a lucky escape from your mother.

Thank you winky. I know that too.

I have no doubt that various posters on here would consider my going NC "petty", in fact there was a thread about "funny" things that you did to your siblings it was like reliving my childhood + teenage + early adult years.

I was at a stage where I was going to go in to anger management courses, surprisingly as soon as I went NC all of the problems stopped.
No sibling being "annoying", no "scapegoating", in fact I have never felt or been better.

So to those that say "its just a bit of fun", "they are family", "you could make more of an effort", I say walk a mile in my shoes and see how you feel.

Exactly Boney, all your problems disappearing is proof you did the right thing. Fluffy I agree your children have had a lucky escape, better no grandparents, than toxic ones.

My only issue with the "Go NC" is that it seems that the people suggest it like it's a magical fix. It's not.

Sometimes it opens more problems, sometimes it alienates you from people you were close to. Sometimes you can't just NC one person without causing strain on your other family relationships.

It takes a pretty impressive sort of willpower to not get sucked back into the games, 2nd hand messages, and general bullshit. It also opens the door for new problems that weren't there before.

Luckily I don't have anyone I need to NC from. I live too far away and when it comes to stupid quarrels I have "no idea" what's going and "forgot" what someone else said about it. Ironically, I somehow find out more than I want anyway.

I do have a few people that quietly disappeared from us. While I don't blame them, I do wish they didn't include me in the family purge and wonder what happened to them from time to time.

YANBU.

I have often thought the same thing. Some people on internet boards seem to be very cavalier about cutting family members off. 'Going NC' should be an absolute last resort, not a response to 'MIL feeds my children too many sweets, even after I asked her not to, and I think she doesn't respect our parenting decisions'

Maybe if people looked at the bigger picture, there'd be fewer fractured families and less loneliness in the world.

(Note: am NOT talking about actual abuse.)