Thomas Markle - To think the pain of being ostracised is not understood by those who haven’t experienced it?

[EarthlyAngel]

Reading various news reports of Meghan Markle’s elderly Dad having a stroke and her still not visiting. Some batshit comments of how ‘abusive’ he was to her by talking to the press after she cut him off and that he deserved it.

Having experienced something similar myself (being cut off), I can say it’s been the worse pain that I’ve ever experienced, that someone who is supposed to love you can callously walk off and totally cut you completely out of their life. Not talking about a boyfriend, a close friend or even a husband but a family member such as a parent or an adult child who you have complex emotional bonds to.

The silence is deafening. It’s like they’re dead but you can’t grieve them and you also have to deal with feelings of anger, rejection, worthlessness and profound sadness. IMO it’s something you can never move on from because you’re stuck in a limbo with no closure, hoping that someday they might want to have you in their life again even though you rationally know they don’t deserve to,

I for one can totally understand Thomas Markle speaking out to get a reaction, any reaction. You are desperate to get them to contact you in that situation. You try to fight back so they can’t just erase you and forget about you. He had a right to voice his truth and his sadness. I think he’s been treated abominably from the beginning when he was besieged by photographers while living a quiet life in retirement and people who have not experienced the pain of being cut off have no idea. It’s a punishment which IS actually abusive! The kind of people who do this know it will cause immense pain and distress.

Yes he did a deal with a photographer to get some flattering pictures of himself publicised under his control to improve his image as he didn’t look great when the press descended on him after the engagement but really did he deserve to be tossed like trash in the garbage because of that? It’s not like Meghan herself hasn’t made money from her connections now is it?

I find it a very extreme response, while recognising that there can be good reasons to do it. My MIL cut us off. What gets me is how that could be her first move without even trying to talk about it with us first. According to my DH it's something she did on the regular to people though.

I've been both the teenage-adult child walking away from a parent and having been walked away from by a parent after a failed attempted reconciliation who turned my siblings and others against me.

I've also had a parent I walked away from take photos outside of my place of work and around the city I live (thousands of miles from where I grew up) and email them to me as a way to try to get my attention which was a distressing line crossing.

I've attempted reconciliation with a parent nearly two decades between conversations from a sent email on my birthday.

It's reasonable to feel pain at complex emotional relationships and feeling like there is no way to make amends, that you can't have that relationship you'd really like to have. It's reasonable to want to try again privately, but we have to accept even in our pain that we cannot control that. Even in email reconciliation I'm now going through, I know I'll never have that parent-child relationship I wish for with my whole heart. It hurts, there are times I'd love to talk to my family, but it's never going to be the way I dream of.

It is unreasonable to think that pain justifies every action. Even when the harmed party, we are responsible for handling our emotions and actions. Some actions cross that line. Going to the press, it's hard to see that as not crossing that line on either side. Pain may make unreasonable choices seem sensible, but there isn't a way that's going to end well and actually rebuild connection or trust.

If your child is extremely difficult or a narc and has cut you off, then you aren't going to say you don't know why are you?

So anyone saying they don't know why is by definition the problem. If the child is the problem, the parent knows and understands that and is saddened but not shocked by it.

Not knowing means it's you, imo.

@Hbh17 That’s very honest but also quite sad.

Do you ever feel guilty, did you consider just sporadic contact rather than none at all and how do your parents feel about this

I'm not talking about "toxic" relationships though. Simply pointing out that not all cases of ignoring parents are due to very obvious reasons. Yet this is consistently said by people who I totally accept have had good reason to go no contact.

There is a subset of other people of different character who just can't be bothered with boring parents who can offer nothing they value to their current life. It's a bit mean to stigmatise these (often poor😉) "boring" family as abusive.

another day another meghan bashing thread.
no one knows the truth. she does. he comes across as very abusive and controlling. so I for one think she did what was best for her.

'another day another meghan bashing thread.'

Tbf it's a scrutinise the Sussexes hypocritical behaviour thread.

How come they don't visit her sick df who has blabbed to the media yet they're going to raise their profiles at the jubilee after they blabbed about the rf.

Can you really not see any inconsistency here?!

Sometimes both sides have their own truth in the matter.
My MIL would tell you she cut us off because we excluded her and she couldn't handle it. Of course, DIL is entirely to blame.
My truth is that MIL wanted to be overly involved and excluded me from my own family and children to meet her own needs. I don't feel bad having boundaries about how I parent and live my life.
My husband's truth is that he just can't be bothered and let her walk away. She has a habit of cutting people off.

Probably none of us are wrong but I will never accept someone telling adult me how to run my life and taking over my family, even if they respond badly.

I am a person who just stopped any contact. It is hard and heartbreaking but for my own good in so many ways I had to do it. There was a long build up to this decision. I bit my tongue a million times. I also let rip a few times too. I dont want to be used and never get anything back.
I love the people I no longer see. One of the reasons I stopped contact was that I was watching them being abused by the people they chose to have in their lives and it is hard to watch.
There was violence in their lives and that violence came to me too. There are "cocklodgers" who are claimed to be perfect while I am the worst. The money grabbing came to my door too and I refused to give in to demands.

I know the influence from a number of "cocklodgers" is stronger than any protest I can make so I gave up and took myself off the scene.
It is interesting that according to some newspapers MM and PH kept the birth of Archie secret from the press for a while. This was also done by my family.

I am the mother who walked away into silence. I know it goes against the grain but I think it is better that I love my DC as I remember and stop watching them going further under the control of those who seem to want them away from the woman who can spot an abusive man from miles away and abusive men do not like me for that. While I acknowledge that it is difficult to get away from an abuser, I can not be expected to allow myself to be abused in a second hand way.

yes
she gets bashed. this thread is all poor TM, yet he did worse.

Having cut off a family member who was abusive to me I can say hand on heart that I don't give a flying fuck about the pain it caused him.
Have a really honest word with yourself and think about why you were cut off, it's rarely a decision taken lightly.

No. Harry and Meghan have only spoken to the media after their families treated them badly, so their behaviour can be made sense of. Thomas Markle or the RFs behaviour wasn’t justified. It’s very different.

This man is an absolute idiot.

What kind of father expoits their own child, sells her letters, takes media deals set up to garner more press. I don't know if he had a stroke or has been heavily warned off by RF. He was going to hog the headlines, be filmed in the crowd, shouting out for his grandchildren. What a tosser. I'd have gone NC with him eons ago. The fact he has the brass neck to whine on about, 'I paid her way through college' says it all. Horrible, toxic cretin.

But It's not a logical step to say this is the case every time. It may indeed be common where relationships are abusive but it isn't universally applicable however much it's worked as a rubric for you.
The personality who does anything for a quiet life with their life partner and isn't that bothered by inclination with family really can just drop off the radar and it be a slow, sad realisation to those left behind.

TBH I don't we should give a fuck about who MM talks to in her family. There will be reasons which quite frankly shouldn't be any of our business.

For the same reason, the press profitting off the row within the royal family isn't exactly helping anyone but the press either. The public don't need to know this shit anymore than they need to know about MM's family.

The whole parade of washing your family dirty laundry in public is crass, no matter what your background and social status. The press know it makes them money. The best response to thinking its hypocritical garbage isn't to then amplify in your best Barbara Streisand voice. Its to go grey rock so that they all stop generating money off their trashy soap opera.

Stop being gossip whores and slaves to Scheleb Culture.

I've been NC with my family for 6+ years now. They'd all swear blind they have absolutely no idea why. My mother will cry about how heartbroken she is. But it's all bollocks. They do know why because I told them, over and over and over, for 40 fucking years and it made no a jot of difference. And my mother just wants to be reinstated on Facebook. She doesn't care whether she sees me or my children or not, but she does care about her friends being able to see her gushing OTT 'Nanny loves you so much' Facebook posts.

People get cut off because they're toxic. But they see that toxicity as normal and therefore are blind to the harm they've done. Nobody cuts off someone with whom they have a loving nurturing relationship. They just don't.

Believe me, people don't cut off their parents for no reason.

The fact that you've also been cut off speaks volumes. Of course you feel sorry for him, because you feel sorry for yourself!

I agree, but it’s never going to stop. People love gossip in their own lives so they’re always going to love it in celeb’s lives. They want the drama and to take a side. It’ll never stop.

I agree with this.
Meghan reacts in just the same way as her father.

I hurt a friend very much by dropping contact, something I deeply regret and which luckily I did get to resolve. In this instance I dealt with the situation badly. I have been estranged from family members for a while, this was a complicated situation and not down to me in the same way. In fact in that situation the family member was at fault but I made the moves to resolve it.
Sometimes of course it is really clear cut , one person can be abusive, or cruel, and the other eventually, and sensibly, makes the choice to never see them. Was TM Abusive ? Thomas Markle seems like a lot of my US relatives, there is a proud and quite macho culture. He carried on acting like a Dad who could tell his daughter what to do, as do many men of his age and culture, and she dropped him. I really think she found him embarrassing , I don’t see his behaviour as abuse. It seems to me more like a situation that could have been resolved if M&H had ever sat down with him and talked through it. It is beyond ridiculous that Harry didn’t ever meet him, given what a huge thing it is to suddenly be thrown into the spotlight. Even more so as someone not British, with no sense of what that might mean. Getting married is about families as well as a couple.
Harry should have met him as soon as things became serious between them. What were they both thinking, the groom only meeting his new father in law at the wedding?
Both sides have made mistakes.

What did he do? I know he had paparazzi photos of himself trying on a suit. Ill judged perhaps, but I thought he looked after her when she was growing up? He paid for her college and supported her. She was posting gushing praises of him a few months before she got involved with Harry.

I agree, but it’s never going to stop. People love gossip in their own lives so they’re always going to love it in celeb’s lives. They want the drama and to take a side. It’ll never stop

I agree wholeheartedly. It is never going to stop because Harry and Meghan are relying on all of this drama to keep them in the headlines and keep the dollars rolling in!!!

living sadly for us this is all they have left to 'sell' now they have become a two bit reality couple not unlike Kim and crew. I am over it. Was over it years ago and just wish they would go and have a properly private life they said they wanted and stop running after the limelight in a terribly desperate fashion.

10:06

Believe me, people don't cut off their parents for no reason.

There will always be reasons but not necessarily reason enough to cut them off. No parent is perfect, they make mistakes, but so too can grown up children.

My sister cut our parents out of her life for the flimsiest of reasons. We all couldn't believe the insignificance of the reason she fell out with them. She used them for childminding all through her children's younger years, then when she had no further use for them cast them aside like an old shoe.

Her reasons for doing so were because of long forgotten trivial incidents from her childhood, which were so trifling to have even deserved a mention. No problem when she needed our parents for baby minding but suddenly remembered when she didn't need them.

So there aren't always good reason to go NC with parents. It can often be the grown up child is my point.

Nobody cuts contact for no reason
im nc with my whole family-my mother is a narcissist
I was the scapegoat-she had no interest in me or my children beyond playing at being a fab mother and nanna-she really wasnt
She’d only have my children if others could see her having them,but if I needed help and nobody could see her playing at being Nan then she would refuse to help,anything I bought her went in the charity bag within minutes,I was sworn at,beaten,bad mouthed,I once answered the phone with ‘hello?’ and the abuse I took was unreal-so much more

i went nc and it blew up-I’ve remained quiet but she went round all her flying monkeys,sobbing that she didn’t know what she’s done wrong
ive been chased down the street with the flying monkeys shouting at me,I’d had people go to hit me because I just repeat I don’t want to know and I’ve taken abuse online thanks to her

that didn’t work-I refused to toe the line so the smear campaign started-Im mental,I have a spilt personality,I belong in broadmoor,I’m a slag who shags anything
i ended up moving away just to get away from it-and I still get the shit from them
ive had to lose my whole family because it was a ‘her or me’ situation and they chose her
I’ve had to go through my sm and delete so many people who I would have said where my friends because they would innocently tell her things from it

nothing was ever her fault-always mine-and she will act wide eyed and amazed to anyone on why I didn’t want to know her

Maybe he is trash?

Far too many men abuse, neglect, and abandon their children indulging every selfish desire.

Then when they become ill or old and in need of help, they expect or demand their children to take care of him.