To ask those of you who have cut off your families/have in the past.

[sherbetlemonD]

If you regret it? Did you change your mind when you had your own children?

I went NC with parents and sister for about 15 years, don't regret it, still no contact with sister but contacted my parents when DD was 8 months old, it was the realisation that my inlaws are totally dysfunctional and if anything happened to DH and I they would be her only family, I cried alot over that thought and decided to contact them, glad I did as the break has made a difference to our relationship and they are brilliant with DD DH and myself, I would love to go NC with all the feral inlaws now

Nope just strengthened my resolve!

Cut my dad out about 6 years ago, best decision I've ever made and I've been more convinced of that since I had children, I'd never want to risk him hurting them like he hurt us.

I've been NC with the woman that raised me since 2002, and was very low contact for several years before that.

She's a very unhappy and unwell woman and one of the more pressing reasons for going NC was to protect my children from her. I see no need for them to experience her toxic behaviour in any way, shape, or form, and have found that we've been a far happier family since contact was cut off.

I went NC with my half-brother 8 years ago. He fell out with me over something that had nothing to do with me. It was only after i got over the severe shock of the really nasty letter he sent me that i realised that i was less stressed. I had been brought up to do what he wanted above anything else (although I don't think that was intentional) and it was great not to worry about upsetting him, although he never cared about not upsetting me.

I would like to have a relationship with him again, as i thought we were close, but i know that isn't going to happen. I can contact him if necessary, but the overtures that i have made have been ignored. I do worry about him dying and me not knowing, but then, he had been married (for the 4th time) for over a year before i discovered this and i doubt if the latest wife knows about his kids... that's a whole other thread, though

I've not seen or heard from my dad since the 1970s, I'm not going to pay good money to try and find him, and free searches have turned up nothing other than my parents marriage and divorce locations.

I don't regret not being a part of his life because he walked away from his whole family with hardly a backward glance, but I would like to know what happened to him.

I'm NC with my whole family. A mix of them being super religious and not accepting that I'm not, abuse and other issues.

I regret not doing it sooner.

I wish I had supported DH in cutting off his patents pre DC.

But I ( wrongly) thought I could help them navigate a more civil relationship.

Now we have children it is impossible to cut then out completely and yet they are nothing but bringers of stress to DH.

I went NC with one side of my family following my mother's Death (won't go into why, but they were truly vile, despicable arseholes).

The relief not to have to put up with any of their crap anymore was immense, and now I have children it makes me realise what a great decision it was. I just want to protect them and stop them coming into contact with people who had behaved in the way my Uncle and his family did. They are strangers to me now and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I do believe that if people wonder if they should get back in touch, they probably shouldn't have gone NC in the first place. It was a one way street for me, I don't even have their contact details anymore

Not even a little - my mum is a destructive alcoholic, and that's never going to change. I wasted years trying to get her approval and only hurt myself trying. Do I deserve a lovely mum and did I deserve a decent childhood? Yes, of course. But that's never going to be, so I choose to focus on the positives of what is.

I don't regret it. I wish it hadn't had to come to it though but everything is better for it, hurt very much to do at the time though.

Are you going NC with someone or hoping someone will stop being NC with you?

Cutting off parents or siblings is never a good solution, but it might be a better solution than trying to maintain a painful relationship.

Sadly, there are really difficult people out there - and they might be related to you!

Bonsoir I saw the start of your comment in 'threads I'm on' and thought it was going to be one of those 'oh but it's your family' bs type ones. I'm glad I came and actually read it.

I think you can't really find a perfect solution in an imperfect situation. All you can do is choose the least-worst one.

yeh I cut off my brother after he made some kind of point of treating us (me and two 4 year olds) like shyte at his big society wedding.
No regrets at all, I do not need someone in our lives who cast me in the role of 'family failure' years ago and continued on and on and on with it. Plus correcting my pronunciation and use of English at every opportunity....

No I dont regret it but sometimes I do have a tinge of "well DS should know his family" then I wake up and realize I do not want them to hurt him the way I was hurt.

The people I miss never actually existed anyway. I made excuses for them and tried to pretend they were something they never really where. I wasted so much of my life trying to make it work and all I got was pain. I couldn't let my dcs go through what I did. I see other people with their sisters/families at my dcs sports days and I feel a tinge of sadness and I wish that could be me. But it isn't, my life took a different path. So I don't regret the choice I made but it makes me feel sad sometimes that I had to make that choice at all.

No, i really don't (I did it because I had children and a moment of absolute clarity that they were completely better off without those family members in their life).

No contact with Mother and one brother. They're narcissistic bullies, carbon copies of one another. Not regretted at all. Love it. Took me far too long to do it, but so much happier since I did.
Very close to sister and the other brother.

People can change though

I went low contact with my mother, while my brother went no contact.

I grew up a bit, learned how to establish healthy boundaries and gradually let her back in. It was a steep learning curve for her as I think no one had EVER stood up to her before. Took a few years but actually we now have quite a healthy grown up relationship where she respects my decisions and boundaries. She changed massively and actually everyone had said so and now my brother is back in contact as well.

No I wouldn't regret it. Sometimes it's necessary.

I cut off my father after I had children. Becoming a parent myself meant I had far less tolerance and patience for his fickle nonsense and sporadic contact, where previously I had known no different and had nothing to compare it to.

Only becoming a parent myself made me realise how feckless and selfish he was and whatever gene you have to have to be a good parent and to be able to put your children before yourself, he clearly didn't have it. So I called it a day. There's only so long you can flog a dead horse before you accept that it isn't going to get up and start jumping hurdles. I've never regretted it, even when I got a call to say he'd died and I didn't even realise he was ill.