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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it's such a shame that family bonds are being destroyed and going NC is becoming more and more common?

340 replies

PinotViogner · 19/12/2023 15:21

Just that really. I might just be an old fart desperately yearning for the old days but I was raised to believe in the importance of having family around you and I find it horribly sad that so many people I know have family that haven't spoken to them for years.

Obviously in cases where some bad behavior has gone on it's understandable but surely there's nothing that can't be worked on? Going NC is so extreme and I think should be a last case resort if done at all.

OP posts:
Changingplace · 19/12/2023 15:23

I think it’s sadder that in the past people felt that had to put up with all sorts of unacceptable behaviour from family or partners just because it was frowned upon to cut ties/get divorced.

Comtesse · 19/12/2023 15:24

I think you should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before sitting in judgement about how other people live their own lives.

PinkyFlamingo · 19/12/2023 15:24

On the contrary I'm glad people feel able to cut toxic people out of their lives for the sake of their own mental health, family or not.

pastypirate · 19/12/2023 15:25

Many things cannot be worked on. As adults we are able to make our own decision's.

Hth

sprigatito · 19/12/2023 15:26

I think it is a last resort; people aren't just ditching their families on a whim. However even when done as an absolute last resort, it is still happening more frequently than in previous generations because it is actually considered possible and reasonable to do it if you need to.

There are people who bemoan the increase in divorce too, without acknowledging that the days when divorce was rare and shocking saw many more women and children living and dying in intolerable misery and putting up with violence and abuse.

Seasidemumma77 · 19/12/2023 15:26

Changingplace · 19/12/2023 15:23

I think it’s sadder that in the past people felt that had to put up with all sorts of unacceptable behaviour from family or partners just because it was frowned upon to cut ties/get divorced.

This 100%

MandyMotherOfBrian · 19/12/2023 15:26

Seriously, please fuck off with the judgement. By going no contact with my mother before my children were born I imagine I saved them from the years of emotional and physical abuse I endured until I could leave at 16. And no, I couldn’t have ‘worked on it’.

Though I suspect that last little bit in your OP is designed to be goady.

AnnaMagnani · 19/12/2023 15:28

NC is more common than you think and always has been.

People have always moved town or country with part of the reason being to distance themselves from dysfunctional relatives.

It's very far from new.

Dotjones · 19/12/2023 15:28

YABU. In the past people had less of a choice to go non-contact. It was harder to move to a new area and everyone knew everyone else within their local area.

People being unable to get away from relatives they dislike is one of the reasons the murder rates were so high in the past. (The murder rate in rural England in the 1600s was the same as in some of the most dangerous US inner-city regions today.)

Coffeecup123456 · 19/12/2023 15:30

I mean this warmly, that you are incredibly privileged in your family life / relationship experiences to not be able to fathom the utter heartbreak in needing to make the NC choice. It’s a choice no one WANTS to make but NEEDS to make.

CostaDelPatio · 19/12/2023 15:31

Death to the following clichés:

”You know what they’re like”

”That’s just the way they are”

”You’ll never change them”

”Life’s too short”

Yes, life is too short, too short to put up with BS

Also, there are quite a few historic rifts and secrets in every family so I think your nostalgia is clouding your view

GodspeedJune · 19/12/2023 15:31

Obviously in cases where some bad behavior has gone on it's understandable but surely there's nothing that can't be worked on?

Toxic people who are behaving badly don’t want to work on or change their behaviour. Even then, going NC is often the last resort for families who have faced manipulation and abuse. I’ve never heard of anyone going NC at the first sign of trouble, it’s usually years down the line.

I actually think it’s a good thing that people protect themselves from spiteful family members who wish to cause harm and upset.

FictionalCharacter · 19/12/2023 15:31

I'm not convinced it is more common. Before MN and social media, people knew far less about the family lives of people they don't know.

You might think it's sad, but that's probably because you have been lucky enough not to experience a level of abuse or ill-treatment so severe that going NC is the only way to survive.

Prayfortheangels · 19/12/2023 15:32

This is an amazingly insensitive and tone deaf post to make just before Christmas.

SnappersUnflatteringSelfie · 19/12/2023 15:32

Yabu sorry. There is a great deal that cannot be worked on, and if it is, it's usually one side making sacrifices constantly for the sake of "family". That's much more unhealthy.

Kazzyhoward · 19/12/2023 15:32

You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family!!!

PossumintheHouse · 19/12/2023 15:32

I’m NC with my family due to some very bad behaviour when I was younger. I made the cut a few years ago after a serious dip in my mental health due to past events. I believe it was deserved, necessary and it will be for the best in the long term.

SausageChopsBellyFlops · 19/12/2023 15:32

Spoken like someone who has absolutely no clue whatsoever.

You can be nostalgic for what you perceived all you like, the reality is that society didn't accept people speaking out about abuse, it was all covered up for the sake of the appearances you're so fond of. What went on behind closed doors would have been very different.

The fact that you know lots of people who's family don't speak to them speaks volumes tbh.

5128gap · 19/12/2023 15:33

I don't think people should keep others in their lives if the relationship causes them mental or emotional harm.I do think now not having anything to do with someone has been given a catchy label it's become a threat, a weapon and a pastime for some people who enjoy drama and power play. If you want nothing to do with a family member, just stop seeing them and talking to them. No need for all the big announcements and special names for it and angst on MN about whether to go "low or no". Just get on with it.

Lochness1975 · 19/12/2023 15:34

You have no idea.

I was brought up in a house of domestic abuse. Being dragged around the streets at 3 years old by my drunken mother. Watching my father knock my mother out. Watching my mother break my fathers nose. Being so scared I’d be physically sick.

My father smashed the house up when I was 3 months pregnant because I wouldn’t go to the pub with him. My mother slapped me across the face because I asked her to stop screaming at my stepdad so the whole avenue could hear when I was holding my 2 month son.

They have repeatedly caused so much heart ache with their selfish ways.

Im sorry you can’t see why I’m vvvvvvv low contact with them now they are old and want so much from me. Im zero contact with my brother because he moved away and left me to it and decided he had a better life than everything going on at home.

Do I wish I had the perfect family?

Absolutely. But I can sleep at night knowing that my children never heard raised voices. They never witnessed physical domestic abuse. That although I split from their father we have maintained a friendship and have co parented amazingly, that my children always were and are the number one priority in my life. I try my best for my children and they’ve turned into amazing adults and I’m so proud of them. My parents couldn’t even tell you what my job is or what my children studied at university, all they are interested in is still bitching about each other and talking about how hard done by they are.

Superscientist · 19/12/2023 15:34

Just because you are related to someone it doesn't mean you have to have that person in your life more than is good for you.

I don't always have an easy relationship with my mother she is in my life but there is a lot of my life she knows nothing about. If I could cut her out without cutting everyone else out I would.

We have gone non contact with one of my uncles to the point of his removal from the will. This relationship has been strained since 1981 and this is probably the third period of non contact!

BMW6 · 19/12/2023 15:34

I think it's fantastic that more people now have the ability and mental / emotional strength to stop themselves being hurt and abused.

Very very few people take such drastic measures on a whim or without very good reason.

It may be that the person being cut out were themselves victims of parental abuse - but the cycle must be broken or it perpetuates to the next generation! Is that what you'd prefer?

Bookworm1111 · 19/12/2023 15:35

YABU for deciding NC is a modern malaise. Families have fallen out for generations, it's nothing new – and often with very good reason. Are you suggesting, for example, that my father, now in his 70s, should've stayed in contact with his parents who physically and sexually abused him throughout his boyhood and that he should've "worked on it"? Should the MNetters who are treated appallingly by their inlaws just put up with it "for the importance of having family" around them?

Frankly, any suggestion they should is highly offensive. You deserve to get flamed for this post.

PhulNana · 19/12/2023 15:36

If you had a lovely childhood, all your relatives were or are lovely, kind, nice people, then - as the Lighting Seeds sang - oh lucky you!

If, on the other hand, your childhood or family life was or is less than ideal, especially if markedly so, then stopping, or reducing, contact with toxic people may be the only way some people can safeguard their happiness and mental health. It really gets my goat when people bang on about some imagined 'good old days' when 'blood was thicker than water' and 'flesh and blood' mattered more than an individual's needs. and was invoked to cover abuse and cruelty with a cloak of shame.

CatherinedeBourgh · 19/12/2023 15:36

It's the same as with divorce, the sad thing is not that there are so many people going nc/getting divorced but that there are so many relationships that are bad. No one goes NC/gets divorced from a healthy respectful relationship.