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

[PinotViogner]

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.

Strange how you think a grandmother is important. I met my dad's mum twice. The second time she blanked me despite her daughter my lovely aunt who looked after the £%&& "# saying "look there's Elvis'. I was 17 and my mum had died 6 weeks earlier.
There were many reasons why my dad was nc. All of his 9 siblings had dreadful stories about her. As did her dil's.

Someone said it's sad that where people lose touch with cousins. I've got over 45 first cousins and less than 10 are in touch with me. Mum died at a time when you tend to drift from family. So I am crap at "being family" but I've realised that not many have made an effort to get in touch

Why is being biologically related to someone considered so important? I genuinely don't understand it. Some people are lucky, but there is an awful lot of bad stuff in the name of "family". OP, why not let people make their own choices of whatever works for them? After all it would be a very dull world if everyone thought and behaved the same.

OP, I am 61 so on the way to being old. If there is one thing I have learned it’s that life is way too short to allow other people, family, in-laws , whomever, to negatively impact on my mental health and well being. If cutting them out of my life is what I need to do, I will do it.

On the very positive side, I have learned to cherish those friends and family who bring happiness into my life.

i think the benefit now, over the ‘good old days’ is that more women can make such decisions, and gain their freedom than could have in the past.

The thing is, what you see as petty and stupid and small normally is the culmination of years and years of shitty behaviour.

All the friends I know who have gone no contact have done so over silly things as a one off, except it wasn't a one off.

Just like on the relationship board you might have a wife moaning about the husband doing x and pages on she says she'll leave. It's not about x though (sometimes as silly as towels on the floor , or cooking or a ruined day out) , it's about years of shitty behaviour.

I haven’t talked to my sister in 7 years and it’s been bliss. We never get on as kids. She may be younger sister but she was bully. We semi got on when we both got older but was never close siblings. It’s been nice not talking to her. I also have a younger brother who I don’t really know because he’s the same age as my dd. So I was busy with my own kids rather than being a big sister. So I actually don’t really care if I’m Nc with him.

Sadly families can be a source of pain as well as joy. We worry alot about stranger danger whilst somehow forgetting that lots of abuse and neglect goes on 'behind closed doors' in so called loving family homes.
People go NC when they need to and this is a last ditch attempt to protect themselves and often their own children.
Very naieve to assume it is some kind of lifestyle choice or a sign that someone can't be bothered to 'work on it'.

My DM is NC with her sister. If you knew my mum, you would absolutely not know this about her as whether or not an adult woman has another sister just doesn't come up.

And yes I do think it was easier in the past. My DM moved to another country, international phone calls were expensive and there were no cheap flights. So she only phoned the relatives she liked, went home rarely and then didn't arrange to see her sister.

I don't think she ever agonized about the decision, it was actually more effort to maintain contact.

I don’t think it’s a new thing, there have always been rifts in families. My MIL was NC with her siblings for 25 years (until one died, but she literally saw her on her deathbed) and the other she is NC. Now the latter I can understand, but the former didn’t do much wrong from what I know of her. Unfortunately it meant that the first cousins didn’t talk for years. They do now, but it’s still meant they had 20+ years of no relationship (from early 20s to ilate 40s for dh). Before we met.

Many people here will already be familiar with Issendai's Missing Missing Reasons.

https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

Estrangement is far more common than people realise, it's just seldom discussed IRL rather than virtually because there's a stigma attached.

https://www.standalone.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/HiddenVoices.FinalReport.pdf

We support people who are estranged from their family or children. Our primary objective is to break down the stigma around estrangement and support estranged people in their daily lives.

https://www.standalone.org.uk/

I would love to "work on" my relationship with my parents who I am NC with.

Unfortunately this is somewhat difficult when they deny that there are any problems, refuse to acknowledge things that have happened and just tell me that I'm just being over sensitive.

(For years I did think I might be oversensitive. Until I realised that others were shocked by some of my parents behaviour that I actually thought was fine. And that my teen DC refuse to see their grandparents on account of their behavour towards me and themselves. We can't all be wrong).

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

Don't go NC with your own family, then.

What other people do with their families is none of your business.

And you are utterly naive if you think there's 'nothing that can't be worked on'. Nothing in your life, maybe. In which case, lucky you. But lots of people have dysfunctional families who make them incredibly unhappy, and no, they don't have to put up with it and suffer as a result just because they swam out of the same gene pool.

Also, it's not something new at all. I think most people's family history is absolutely packed with mad fallings out and family feuds and people who emigrated and never bothered to send a single letter back home.

My DH comes from a dysfunctional family. He didn’t have a happy childhood, sadly. My family isn’t perfect, but we still here. I’m lucky.

OP I know I am always saying this, but very close family relationships were really NOT the norm for a lot of the past. People moved around to a surprising degree and close contact was therefore not really possible for most of them until mass installation of landline telephones, which was, for ordinary people, not until the 1950s and soon after.

Many peoples' ideas about family life are shaped by relatively recent 19th/20th cent family recollections in very particular circumstances - such as strong and resilient factory or mining town communities . Or else by nostalgic media. Some of these ideas about family closeness may indeed reflect individual experience but may very well NOT reflect the actual statistically average behaviour for the past beyond one or two lifetimes ago.

I think going NC is pretty selfish and cowardly. Of course there are exceptions, but they are relatively few.

The vast majority on here who go NC is with elderly parents whom they no longer need and find annoying and an interfering. Ultimately just restricting contact to the polite minimum and having strong boundaries I’m conversation will do the same. Job without being hurtful.

If course the above does not apply to parents who were abusive (in the old fashioned sense of the word) or genuinely deliberately cruel.

The vast majority on here who go NC is with elderly parents whom they no longer need and find annoying and an interfering. Ultimately just restricting contact to the polite minimum and having strong boundaries I’m conversation will do the same

I have no way of knowing if your "vast majority" comment is accurate but it doesn't feel accurate (see above statistics in Stand Alone links). However, the "restricting contact to the polite minimum" is what's known as LC. Sometimes a staging post to NC, sometimes, a stage towards repairing a relationship. Who knows?

Agree. She sounds like a massive interfering PITA, and that's just from what she told you. I can imagine there is much more to that particular story. ;Innocently; demanding to turn up to hospital when she wasnt wanted and 'innocelntly' undermining a mother trying to breastfeed her baby. Poor breastfeeding support and pressurising mothers into saying getting breastfed babies to conform to feeding schedules and weight guidelines designed for formula fed babies is a major reason for mothers stopping breastfeeding, making them feel like failures.

I'm from a country where family ties are important as fuck. It's also dysfunctional and toxic as fuck. Years and years of hate , despising each other,jealousy, abusive and fucked up behaviours, backstabbing,gossip,duty and bullshit. Then all nicey nicey at the big gatherings,kiss kiss ,aren't you lovely, family is sooo important, we're family darling.

What's the fucking point?

Nothing? What about abuse?

Relatively few exceptions? That just isn’t true.
A large majority of people who choose to go no contact with their parents/close family members won’t ever tell you the full extent as to what they are going NC for. I’d wager that even a number of people on MN who go NC for what you perceive as ‘selfish’ reasons aren’t divulging the whole story. It’s often horrible to type out why, let alone talk about it.

Absolutely this! I totally disagree OP! I don't see why you should have to see people that make you miserable just because they're family.

I think you're looking back in hindsight with rose tinted spectacles.

@Vegetus Same here but it is an online forum which means that the overall percentage of people with issues will be higher than average. See the I never answer the door threads and I have zero friends threads. Whilst it is their lived experience and those experiences exist and are valid it’s very much the minority.

I think @Newbutoldfather is very likely deluded about the scale of the instances of what he considers to be appropriate reasons to cut off family. Sexual abuse within families is endemic, people delude themselves it is rare for their own comfort reasons but it is actually a huge problem. I presume that is an allowable reason. Addiction is common, coercive control is common, psychological abuse and manipulation are common. The instances where people should cut off family are as common as the number of people who cut off family because significant dysfunction is not rare in families.

I think people are often unable to manage conflict effectively. You see it here all the time 'I hate confrontation'. Nobody enjoys confrontation but effective conflict management skills can mean that family members can set boundaries and everyone could then get along.

As it is, boundaries are not set, or are weak, and people can't cope when family members are 'mean' so go NC because they don't have the appropriate skills to stand up for themselves.

This isn't all cases, but many. So many people are conflict avoidant to the point that they'd rather sever a relationship completely than get to the point where others knew they couldn't get away with treating them badly, so don't.