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?

True born, we all love to speculate about peoples' psychology. And I agree that posters won't just automatically do whatever they're told.

However, I do get worried when I see authoritative diagnosis and simplistic judgements (NB: not from anyone particular, but generally, and from both sides), especially in a conversation involving vulnerable people in abusive situations.

It's an issue WRT anything involving relationships, emotions and mental health because the area isn't as well understood and regulated as physical medicine. We wouldn't let anonymous MN posters tell us what prescription drugs to take because we know they may not be qualified and that drugs can be dangerous. Advice about serious relationship problems can be just as risky, but is accepted with less questioning because it's 'just' about emotions.

Therapists and counsellors go through rigorous training (including spending years in therapy themselves) in order to be able to treat people safely and professionally, just as GPs train to safely treat the body.

The only thing we can really offer each other on here is sharing and support. Pretty much like the rest of the thread's been, really

YY Adam-it is when anyone sets themselves up as an authority that I worry.
These issues are very complex and some vulnerable people (aren't we all vulnerable when distressed) take advice seriously.
A real life psychologist would work through these issues slowly and carefully

And just to emphasise, I do mean from both extremes there. That includes advice like 'You owe your parents respect, no matter what they've done', and 'But it's your mum'.

Simplistic instant judgement = bad news.

I am NC with my parents. I tried hard to work at it to let them be grandparents but our life is much better without them. At best they were Disney GPs a few times a year but would call and send crap all the time. I had a emotionally abusive and sometimes physically abusive upbringing. I am adopted and was told "we can send you back if you don't do/act like etc" all my life. My final straw came not when i had cancer and had to go to chemo myself as my DH couldn't find anyone to look after the DDs as they wouldnt help but about 6 months later when my mother wrote a letter to my then MD of the company I was working for informing them that I couldnt do my job and they shouldnt be paying me what I was being paid around £50K as I wasnt worth it!!! (i was 34)
Luckily he was nice and concerned about my mothers mental health!

I am in contact with my fathers side of the family as they are NORMAL and nice. We are attending my cousins wedding next year. my mothers family are as bad as her so bad that my fathers family emigrated the day after their wedding!! Later in life my Grandpa said that it was influenced by who my dad had married!! they had sorted it out during their 2 year engagement.

My DH is also nc with his mother who was physically and sexually abusive to him so he ran away to his grandparents at 15.

We are NC with DHs family. Not our choice exactly. DH was told by his mother to pick me and DD or her (after ten years of horrible behaviour the mask slipped and she showed her true self).

Not an easy 'choice' to make and stick to but ultimately for us it's been a positive outcome in the long run.

I think a lot of people on MN who advise it have been in a toxic family situation themselves. It can be very difficult to see what's really going on when you are being manipulated by a controlling family member who fills you with doubt and guilt.

To anyone thinking of going NC; stay strong and be brave.

The way some people talk about being NC its more like they've backed off a bit from a difficult/ challenging person. I think its a phrase that means different things to different people.

We're NC with some of DH's family. We changed phone numbers, deleted social networking profiles they knew about, sold our house, moved areas and remain NC (following various police interventions, restraining orders on them and a court case). To me thats NC.

I don't think bandying it around is such an awful thing, along with LTB. Its a kind of offering support like saying if things are really that bad 'LTB'. But the reality is the OP may just be letting off steam and in doing so focusing consciously or not on the bad bits. Once vented a well place LTB can make you sit up and get a sense of proportion about things. As someone used as an example upthread, after all it is only the butter left out the fridge! Or alternatively it can make you think I spend too much of my life in grief over this person and yes I do need to take some form of action.

YABU in some cases and YANBU in others :)

My mother is NC with her sister and it is for the best. Until my aunt seeks the help she needs to deal with her anger and mental health issues, anyway.

But a friend of mine is NC with most of his family and it really is a big sulk.

Siring a child does not immediately elevate someone to sainthood.

Most of the EA from my DM has been gender based. For both religious and cultural excuses reasons.

What i dont understand is the gaslighting. And although obviously there is gaslighting sometimes involved in emotional abuse, the gaslighting society does to women and mothers is astounding.

Look at how women whether they are mothers or not are victims of sexism in the workplace, single mothers are vilified and treated with vitriol.

Then all of a sudden when an adult child decides to go NC the mother they are going NC with gets elevated to sainthood.

While there are undoubtedly cases where you need to go NC because of toxic relations there also the women who think that marriage has nothing to do with families and the man comes alone- without parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, old family friends etc- and they want to isolate him from family- or take the attitude that they don't need to get involved and make their own relationships with those people.

Delphiniumsblue, Surely in the same vein there are shitty men too who do this???

Men who think that marriage has nothing to do with families and the woman comes alone- without parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, old family friends etc- and they want to isolate her from family- or take the attitude that they don't need to get involved and make their own relationships with those people.

I don’t think being selfish and self-centered regards in-laws is just a thing that some women do.

I was just going to make the same point as SlowRedCar.

The idea that there's a collective coterie of horribl, controlling, DILs whisking their husbands away from their family, or enough of them to make this a phenomenon worthy of note is very odd.

This is not to say that some DILs aren't like this because they do exist , but making this out to be some exclusively female phenomenon is bith sexist and offensive.

And what about the abusive SILs who behave like this? They definitely exist I'm afraid. You only have to read a few threads on here to confirm that.

SIL = Sons in Law, for the sake of clarity.

I think I also know the poster referred to earlier, but from many threads I've read here, it seems to me that she only "speaks" in a direct way when it's pretty clear (to me as well as others) that an OP needs some serious pointers to what is going on. Often an OP posts when they've got to the realisation that something is wrong in their family dynamics and are trying to figure it out. The terms "toxic" and "narcissistic" aren't diagnoses – they're a colloquial shorthand useful for describing behaviours.

So many of us have been raised with the concept that our parents are always right, that we owe unconditional respect and loyalty to them forever, and we can end up being silenced – we can't speak with our own voices because we've never been allowed to do. Making some kind of sense of all that, and getting away from it, can be very daunting, and is very painful to talk about. So that’s two reasons why people don't realise the number of dysfunctional families out there and hence the number of adults who eventually go no-contact to protect themselves and their children.

As a society, we're getting better at dealing appropriately with domestic violence, and we're getting better at intervening in child abuse/neglect and elder abuse, but there are unknown numbers of adults who are otherwise fully-functioning yet whose lives are made a misery by controlling families. Some of them post to Mumsnet, and sometimes the only realistic advice is for them to go no-contact.

Slowredcar

Yes, its not just women, its men as well.

but its also wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews etc.

and there are many reasons to go NC.

I know all that BoneyBack, I was taking issue at delphiniumsblue for making out it was only ever females who got shitty with their inlaws, when obviously men can and do get shitty with their inlaws too.

I have not contact with my mother after years of abuse of which resulted with my older sister being taken in to care for 3 years with me being told she was away at boarding school which I find found out was a lie like most of my life of course

Last I heard she is now married to someone 4 years younger than my older sister who is 40 and as a result of the trauma bond myself and my sister had I had to cut her out of my life for my own mental health yabu

I expect it is men too- we just don't hear from them on here about MIL.

Anyone, male or female, who tries to isolate a partner is being abusive.
You marry and get the family- unless he/she was a foundling

Well, that's true. But that's because the majority of posters on here are women.

However, you do hear from a lot of women in abusive and controlling relationships where their other half alienates them friends/family etc. Different side of the same coin.

"Anyone, male or female, who tries to isolate a partner is being abusive"

Agree. Isolating someone from their support network is a classic sign of abuse

I only took women because OP was talking about AIBU on MN and I have never read about a man on there- but plenty of women. I will include men if people want to widen it from OP. I expect it is the same problem- they just never post.

Not everyone has the fairy tale apple cheeked grandparents or well meaning relatives.

It is naive to assume that children need relations with family members who aren't necessarily good people.

I never met my maternal grand parents. I feel no "hole". I never had a sister. Again no "hole".

I never met either of my grandmothers- both dead - I felt a hole. You can't assume your children feel like you- they may indeed take after the very relative you have cut off! You don't choose the genes.

I can see from photos that I look like my paternal grandmother rather than my mother- and I am more like my aunt in character than my mother.

When you have toxic in laws it is often the just the op who has gone NC with the toxic person, her dp/dh may still have a relationship with them unless their toxicity is extended to the partner and dc aswell. Like abuse, in the past it used to be put up and shut up, now more people are standing up for themselves saying I don't need to out up with this crap anymore.