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.

OP, I’ve tried to go NC after years of physical and mental abuse that have left me absolutely crippled with MH issues. The decision to go NC is sometimes used as a tactic in arguments between generations (“I’ll never speak to you again, you’re so mean”) but in forming your views did you consider that by going NC with a parent you are forgoing one of the only sources of unconditional love in your life and might also have to cut out family members you adore in case your abusive family member uses them as leverage/takes it out on them? The first time I cut out my mother (committed GBH on my father, daily verbal abuse towards all of us, literally stalked me after I cut her off) I visited my maternal grandparents and my nana was literally too afraid to talk to me because of the daily campaign of shouting which had just transferred to her.

People with what you call trivial reasons will either be the problem themselves, in which case going NC or LC is the best thing, or it’ll be the straw that broke the camel’s back or they won’t want to share the more horrible things for various reasons.

I have much more mixed feelings about the advice to LTB over playing his harmonica too much or something, but you can’t just get new parents. Going NC is a serious matter. Even a significant minority of those advised to do it probably won’t.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

Life is too short to waste on people who treat you badly and being related to someone shouldn't mean you accept being treated like crap because faaaaaaaamileeeeee

@PaperDoIIs 30 years ago I married into a family like this. My DH warned me from the beginning that we needed to stay away, I didn’t believe him! 30 years later, after much heartache we are NC. It took for my own children to ask me why I put up with PIL treatment of me. My youngest said, gma, why were you mean to mummy? To which my MIL replied “ don’t be so rude, I am the matriarch.” I still thought, it’s his mum. In the end I gave up. She still phones occasionally playing the victim, crying. Will tell everyone what an awful person I am.

Im 60+, so possibly an 'older' old fart than you.
I'm sorry you feel your need to play happy families is more important than my familarul abuse.

My parents 'fell out' with my brother in the 1980's then got upset that he didn't fall over backwards to make up with them. (He did nothing wrong, but oh well)
I eventually fell out with the old cow that's my mum in the early 2000's

We don't all live in a Disney movie.

OP, I am interested that you appear to be minimising and denying information that runs counter to your argument (that people really go no contact for minimal reasons). I'm also interested in how you presented your story about your dear friend. I wonder what made you hear that story so uncritically and readily. I wonder if you find it easier to notice posts that support your hypothesis and reject posts that show people to really agitate to come to a decision to reduce contact. I wonder how that bias serves you, and what it means about your own relationships. I wonder if you have some experience of this and feel too shamed about this to be open, but instead are looking for indirect validation that you are right, that other people are the problem.

As a middle aged survivor of a very difficult childhood, my siblings and I have all had significant mental health challenges. Two feel suicidal, decades later. We are all still in contact, and two of us talk frequently about how we wish our surviving parent was dead so that we can finally start putting our childhood behind us. We weren't sexually abused. We weren't hit more than typical for culture and era. How bad does it need to be for you to not minimise the impact of a damaging relationship? Why are you invested in this?

Just some thoughts.

Correct.

forming your views did you consider that by going NC with a parent you are forgoing one of the only sources of unconditional love in your life and might also have to cut out family members you adore in case your abusive family member uses them as leverage/takes it out on them?

Tell me that you don't understand that there are people who've never had parents (or family) capable of unconditional love without saying it…

And, yes, if you've grown up in a seriously dysfunctional family, you understand the consequences at an early age. Look at the advice for women who are leaving their husbands/partners to not only take their children with them but any family pets for fear of retribution on the pets. It's such a common concern that refuges have Pet Fostering projects associated with them.

In a home where abuse is happening, pets are at real risk. Most refuges and hostels can’t take animals, but our Pet Foster Project can help.
The Pet Foster Project is a vital part of the jigsaw for women, providing a safe place for their pets to be housed temporarily so they can flee abuse and go into refuge or other emergency accommodation.

https://junowomensaid.org.uk/pet-foster-project/

It kills me to not have anyone to call family anymore - but seeing as most of my immediate family think I should be killed for leaving their religion. I think I'll take dying of sadness over the alternative, thanks!

Absolutely bullshit. That only works when the other family members are willing to listen and respect those boundaries. The vast majority of people going NC do so because there is a refusal to listen and respect boundaries.

You can't do conflict resolution with selfish people, with people that always play the victim, with people that always put themselves first. Because they don't govern a shit and it's all about what they want and when they want it and the minute you stand firm you're the bullying,horrible one. So you have three options 1.shut up and put up 2. deal with huge amounts of drama or 3.go NC because what's the fucking point?

I always say 'walk a mile in someone's shoes before criticising them'. That way, they're a mile away when you do, and you've got their shoes.

Where do people learn these skills though? People typically learn how to manage conflict, or how not to manage conflict, in families. And what happens when one member goes out into the world and learns about managing conflict but the others don’t. The biggest issue in my DH’s family is the complete intolerance for boundaries of any kind. FIL was wildly physically abusive, MIL is extremely codependent. Family members railroad any attempts at heathy interactions and are massively resistant to any boundaries.

It was awful as a child and a complete mindfuck. I couldn't stay away from the people I didn't like (for very good reasons) because they were family. Then when shit went down it was my fault for being too friendly. I was fucking told to!

Or not understanding why it was wrong to enjoy spending time with one set of cousins and their parents (I understood later and they were awful) and why we couldn't stay over or see them more but still went for x and y and everyone played happy families.

So the woman was out of line and continued to be out three times. I seriously doubt these are isolated incidents.

I would go NC to avoid continuously being told what to do 😡

Honestly some women really think they have a right to control everyone and have no insight into boundaries.

Yeah, not going to get absolved for the shit you've done, and are trying to convince yourself is "silly and petty" here. There's ALWAYS a more damming pattern to the example given.

Take a HARD look, and maybe you'll come around to being devastated at what was accepted, and stop trying to foist that abuse onto others, because you had fewer choices.

OP, you have to be kidding.

I was raised in a house where my father rejected the education of women. Who believed we are simple domestic functionaries. Who did everything he could, our whole childhoods, to undermine and deprive and restrict and belittle us. To make us believe we were and would always be useless and valueless.

Going NC was a joy, an escape, an indescribable relief. Being rid of him and being under no obligation to put up with such bigoted nonsense ever again is the best thing that was ever invented. It is one of the most important freedoms we have - it's called free will.

To all those who went NC with a family member.
If that family member genuinely doesn't know what they've done.
They have apologised for anything they can think of.
They have asked if the other person can offer their side of what happened.
If the family member has not pushed it because of respecting boundaries and doesn't want to involve flying monkeys.
At what point can there ever be hope of reconciliation or is the relationship stone dead after four years of NC?

@adultchildofalcoholicparents I know you were quoting me, and I misspoke - I meant they are the people who are supposed to provide unconditional love. I know all too well the feeling when you need someone who is there no matter what and sticks with you. It breaks your heart. The point I was trying to make was that humans - even animals actually - are supposed to have parents they can fall back on and if they turn out to hurt you instead of helping you that doesn’t make it easier to cut them out.

This doesn't discuss all circumstances but it gives some starting points as to why this might be true: Missing Missing reasons

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

@PinotViogner please enlighten me.

How would you solve these issues?

Your MIL steals all your wedding gift money and takes your SIL shopping and blows the lot.

Your cousin's husband makes up lies and accusations about you that could not only lose you your job,but get you court martialed.

A family member hires a PI to find your child's biological parents against your wishes,purely for gossip.

A family member says you let your husband die/killed him.

None of these are actually abusive or what you consider "that bad". Never mind years of abuse (emotional,physical, sexual,financial) or neglect.

I totally sympathise.
My guilt comes from not understanding those families.I forced my own children into those relationships for 15 years, til the penny dropped, and actually they were old enough to recognise the toxicity.
When we went NC the fallout was huge! But my husband said, he finally has his long awaited peace. And we’ve broken the cycle!

I've no idea whether NC is more common nowadays, but when I read some posts on here advising people to cut off their family, or asking advice about the same, I'm often struck by how uncompromising many people are. Lamenting other people's poor behavior sometimes, but being incredibly unforgiving of what often seem to be relatively benign transgressions.

I agree with you that it doesn't make it straightforward although it can be life saving to do so.

It's not all about parents and children but I was struck by this recent write-up of ostracism and families | friends | online.

Williams believes that being on the receiving end of silence is so distressing because it threatens all our human needs after the basics of food, shelter and safety have been met. This concept of a pyramid of needs was introduced in the 1950s by the psychologist Abraham Maslow, who said the higher needs included the need to belong and have social connections, the need to feel good about yourself, and the need to feel that your existence is meaningful.
In his own research, published in the journal Science in 2003, Williams and colleagues identified that when someone is ostracised, the same areas of the brain are triggered as when experiencing physical pain. They also conducted an experiment giving participants painkillers to see if feelings of rejection could be treated in the same way as physical agony and found that it could. This was backed up by MRI brain scans.
“If you get into a fight with someone, that’s not great but at least you are still connected, you are acknowledging each other,” he says. “You can demonstrate competence by winning the fight. Ostracism can be more distressing because it’s taking away all of your needs.”

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/12/the-silent-treatment-one-woman-was-ostracised-by-her-husband-for-40-years

I know this sounds like NC but IME it's not unusual for an entire family to ostracise 1 or 2 members and to support each other in that ostracism and police it. Under those circumstances, painful as it can be, NC can be the lesser of several evils. And it can be easier for other members to ostracise a scapegoat than run the risk of being ostracised from that dysfunctional family | friendship group themselves.

It was never about the dishes by the sink.

https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/