Family blaming me for going NC?

[NCNCNCdadquestion]

Background - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4517489-To-go-NC-with-dad-after-granddads-funeral?msgid=116244884#116244884

DF has history of being abusive but doesn't acknowledge it/blames me. Went to family therapy and he point blank denied my memories and basically called me delusional.

Finally after doing it in front of my kids I sent him a message and decided to go NC.

EVERYONE in my life is now trying to change my mind. MIL said "even as you're speaking I know this won't last, you're a forgiving person."

Last night at a family dinner they all said "it's such a shame, don't rip the family apart, how can he make it up to you if you don't talk (he was at the dinner, didn't apologise or make any effort), why don't you just bring the kids to his house, he loves the kids so much, don't punish the kids."

I tried to explain it's his behaviour, not mine, I am not the one breaking up the family, and I don't want my kids around it - and if nothing changes, nothing changes.

Then DF just said to my uncle "Get the car and drive her home" like a child, so I was "sent home."

What do I do?! I just want to feel that I am making a serious rational decision. As a teenager I removed myself from family because of this dynamic and everyone referred to me as unstable and a "problem child." Even if I can't convince them what can I say/do to convince myself I am making the right choice, not being "crazy" or breaking up the family?

You stay strong, you repeat I've made my decision, I'm not changing my mind.

It will get easier in time.

Stand solidly in your own interpretation of events.

React how you want to react. I dont think your MIL is right. Just because you are forgiving, doesnt mean you will go back for more abuse and gaslighting.

Trust you.
💐

You didn't make this choice lightly. Just say what @HELLITHURT said and ignore them.

There's a possibility that your MIL might even be right here. You might forgive him in time and start to reintroduce contact but if that ever happens it will be your choice made in your time. Unless and until that time comes just keep repeating that you've made your decision and change the subject.

I wouldn’t be at a family dinner with him if I’d gone NC

As others have said, continue to repeat, I’ve made my decision and don’t wish to discuss it further.

I went NC with my older sister after years of abuse. I used to be told that I had caused it her outbursts and her behaviour was my fault. 40 years later she has fallen out with everyone in the family including her SiL and her own DD is on the verge of going NC as well. However NC does mean just that. I have never spent any time with her at all.

If you have gone NC, why were you at a meal with the person that you claim to be NC with?
having said in person (after previously saying and texting that you want to be NC) that you want to be NC, person concerns arranges for you to be taken home - and your problem is?
If you want to be NC, do that - just stop bloody stalking the man and turning up for dinner.
If your family/father do not see you or have any contact from you, you'll probably have convinced them that you have gone NC - job done.

@MinnieGirl

I wouldn’t be at a family dinner with him if I’d gone NC

As others have said, continue to repeat, I’ve made my decision and don’t wish to discuss it further.

This. If you’re NC don’t see him. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. I haven’t gone NC because there are family members I still want to see and I’m not ready to do that. Going NC isn’t an easy choice but from what I understand it’s rare you can go NC with one person if the wider family are enabling them.

You can’t convince them,
They already know, they are just denying it.

There is no way they can’t know how he treats you, it’s just easier for them to keep up the pretence that it’s you that is the problem, because it keeps the status quo and it stops them becoming a target.

Tbh in your position I wouldn’t want any of them in my life, they are part of the problem, none of them protected you as a child, none of them stand up for you, they just excuse the abuse and emotionally blackmail you into accepting it.

NC means no more family dinners. It doesnt mean being in ths same room as the person you are NC and just ignoring them - that's sulking. No wonder they sent you home.

If NC is what you want then do it. Properly. Yes you'll have to put up with comments and flying monkeys but they'll die off fairly quickly. But dont piss about dragging the wider family into it (I dont include your ds in this, obviously you wont want him to see your father either).

I wouldn’t have gone to the dinner if I was you.

Tbh in your position I wouldn’t want any of them in my life, they are part of the problem, none of them protected you as a child, none of them stand up for you, they just excuse the abuse and emotionally blackmail you into accepting it.

Thank you, this is how I felt for a long time, but I caved in because it's so lonely and because it feels like "me vs the world" and the whole family is talking about me behind my back as the "problem" if I cut them all off. They always talk about how they want us all together and it hurts them so much when I'm not there, but refuse to see that I am only reacting to how I'm being treated.

I think you're right though it is just wanting an easy life, and it's easier to blame the victim. Sad but true.

As to why I was at the dinner, my grandma whose husband just died made me promise to be there. I thought it would be fine to be there because I wouldn't interact with DF and he would only be one of 20 people there. I wasn't "sulking" I was speaking to other family members and not obviously ignoring him. Then they had to bring it up and make that the focus.

(She said it was the first Easter holiday dinner without him so it would mean everything for me to be there. I didn't feel I could say no and didn't think DF/our relationship would be a point of conversation.)

It will always be the focus. There will always be a reason someone needs you at an event. Go nc properly and you'll feel better. It won't matter if they talk, you won't hear it. You'll feel much better.

Nobody can make you promise anything. And you cannot go to the same social gatherings as someone you are NC with. Come on now, you must have been able to predict this would happen.

NC is a really, really tough thing to do and it quite often does result in you losing contact with the wider family because the sort of behaviour that leads to NC is often symptomatic of a far wider family disfunction. Bluntly put your role in your family is to be "the difficult one" and they are going to be lost without you - who are they going to be able to blame now/next.

So ultimately it's up to you. Set your boundaries and stick to them. FWIW I think going NC with your dad is the right decision,

WTAF. Sorry but your family is a toxic pack.

Stay away for your own well being and keep your DC away too. This type of behaviour is incredibly damaging to mental wellbeing.

BTW you can do this, life is too shirt for people like this.

Good luck xxx

You dig in your heels and you stick by your convictions. You are setting an example to your kids. A good one. Your father is a narc. Read up on it. They hate to be ignored and lash out and engage flying monkeys. Grey rock is their worst nightmare. Read up and educate yourself. Watch Dr Ramani YouTube videos on how to cut a narc out of your life. She is incredible and has helped me understand their behaviour. Do not give in to the flying monkeys. Do not forgive. Cut out the toxic father

(She said it was the first Easter holiday dinner without him so it would mean everything for me to be there. I didn't feel I could say no and didn't think DF/our relationship would be a point of conversation.)

It's been a very short amount of time. It was going to be awkward and the obvious elephant in the room.

I think you need to look into what NC entails because it does come across as you are just having a sulk. You need to be very honest with yourself and what you want.

I'm grey rocking my parents and brother now and they do hate it.

They preferred when I was begging them to let me have a voice in the family, preferred when I was pointing out the double standards, and asking them why my pain was a ''grudge'' but theirs could be used to shame me and label me cold-hearted (for not caring!)

The whole thing has been a gas lighting carousel and I've just stepped off it finally.

I still want to be heard, but it isn't going to happen. So I feel better now for not trying to be heard.

‘ NC means no more family dinners. It doesnt mean being in ths same room as the person you are NC and just ignoring them - that's sulking. No wonder they sent you home.’

This.

You went along to a family dinner just after your grandfather had just died. You didn’t speak or acknowledge your father - whose father had died? - & some family members commented on your behaviour.

Thing is @NCNCNCdadquestion, whilst accepting that things are passed past a point with your father & going NC with him, your choices become limited. Many people who go NC accept that there is a trade off with their stance & some times miss out on things but are in an overall far better place.

You had a choice to either adamantly stick with NC or disappoint your grandmother. Not an easy situation but you made a choice.
Your being NC with your father will be a family flashpoint for some time to come.

Ideally you would have left once they started on you.
Chalk it up to experience.

Put you & your kids first.

Stay strong.

Stop promising things like this dinner that are against your best interests.

Even for your grandmother.

You need to protect yourself.

ps, and you will never convince them that it's not you breaking up the family.

Your father wrote the part of daughter. Your role is to play her. The other actors on the stage are super enmeshed and get annoyed if you ad lib. Play your PART!!!!

So don't expect them to suddenly get it. TWO years of trying under my belt here and I have got precisely nowhere with the trying to get them to understand that they cannot seriously react with exaggerated martyrdom to being told that they hurt me, follow it up with silent treatments and stonewalling, and then blame me for the ''damage done to this family'' but yes, that is exactly what they do. They have thrown in more labels and insults for good measure in fact! Over the last two years, not only have they not acknowledged the one thing I wanted them to hear. But they have hurt me more.

So, change your focus. Change it from that desperate desire to be heard to a determination to protect yourself.

It took me two years just to get that far.

My therapist recommended a self-compassion work book and I did the exercises in it, very good book. Really helped changed my focus away from the need to be heard to the determination to protect myself.

I am NC with my family and virtually all of my extended family. To my face at least they supported the idea of me going NC with my parents but I feel they have enabled and swept my parents abuse of their two daughters under the rug (something my very much in denial sister cannot see). There was significant abuse in my family from a sibling and my parents have swept the abusers behaviour under the rug. Everyone knows about the abuse but enables my parents. I have written to people to have my say about what went wrong in my family and how their behaviour affected me and I never engage with them after.m because none of them intend on changing their behaviour which they have told me. I do it in writing so I don’t have to put up with their attempts as gaslighting and dismissing. It doesn’t change anything but it gave me a voice.

I can see you’re hurting but if you go NC it means just that - no contact. You don’t talk to them. You don’t see them. You don’t go to family events that they attend.

The kind of messy half way NC that you’re describing is worst of all worlds and you’re making it harder for yourself.

You have to accept that if you go NC, you may well lose contact with wider family because you will no longer be attending family events/they support the other person. This may well feel very lovely. And you may well also be scapegoated as the ‘difficult one’. You have to accept that. You cannot change a toxic family dynamic - you ah e tried and not succeeded.

Going NC is very hard. It is. But you’re making it harder by declaring you’re NC then not actually doing it.

Sorry I posted to soon.

NCNCNC there is nothing as lonely in life as participating in your family’s abuse of yourself. I’ve been there it is absolutely awful.