If you went NC with a parent did you ever regret it?

[Simpsonsfan]

I am struggling so much at the moment with whether to go NC with one of my parents. Currently we've had no contact for just over 2 months. They committed a harmful crime about 4 years ago which I've not been able to understand or really forgive them for but the way they've handled things since has also been poor. The last 4 years of my life have honestly been shit as a result of their actions while I've worked to get over the trauma they've caused me. The thing is until this all happened we were so close. And I do miss them. This is causing me torment every day. I don't really have anyone to talk to so I just wondered if anyone could share their experiences of going NC with a parent. Never thought I'd be in this position. I'm worried that when my parent dies, I'll have big regrets. Thank you x

I was in a similar position 7 years ago. TW for abuse but my bro abused family members including me. My parents manipulated me to stay silent, I absolutely adored them so when it all came out years later their subsequent behaviour broke me. It took me years to recover from what my family did. I felt every feeling imaginable. I would never trust them ever again, they are quite narcissistic though so in their eyes I’m the problem, it was so difficult at the time but I grieved a lot and I have moved on.

If they were convicted of a crime then they did their time. We don't all need to jump on the bandwagon and condemn. Lord knows I've done wrong. I'd be devastated if my family turned against me for whatever way I'd let society down. We don't really have a right to judge anyone.

I'd have to disagree strongly with that tbh. Depends on the crime obviously but nobody gets a free pass with me.

Me. I do regret it but also not. It’s hard. It was my Dad and when he died I went into quite a deep trauma for about a year. Awful dreams.

Sometimes I wish I could have had more compassion or tolerance or understanding, but then his behaviour was deeply painful. I think I understand it now and what caused it, but I didn’t then so his behaviour was incomprehensible to me and deeply, deeply distressing and felt immensely cruel.

i know my going no contact caused him deep pain.

No answers really. It ruptured things with the rest of my family too and I still find that difficult.

Its not an easy path to take, but then neither was the alternative.

I regretted it a lot and had a lot of stress and anxiety. It ate me up everyday hours on end for months. I was depressed but never clinically diagnosed.

I read a lot about forgiveness without an apology and re-connected. They were willing to re-connect too (if you cut someone out are they open to coming back, it goes both ways).

They’re better with me these days too. They may not have apologised but their behaviour improved.

I’m opposite to many posters who say it was the best thing and no regrets. I wasn’t able to put it out of my mind, it was driving me out of my mind, ruining other aspects of my life.

That’s just my experience.

NC with my mother for many years (5ish initially, then low contact for a few, NC for probably another 5, then saw her a week or so before she died)

I don't really regret it, occasionally I think I would like to have had an adult relationship with her, but I recognise deep down that she wouldn't have behaved the way I'd have liked her to - would've remained manipulative and verbally abusive.
Had more contact with my father after she'd died.

I’ve been NC with both my parents since
the first lockdown. I started to have major
flashbacks of childhood trauma, it was easy to stop contact.

i don’t regret it, i wish I’d done it sooner.

i am Sometimes sad that I don’t have decent parents but I don’t miss the ones I had.

I could have written this exact post, OP. Though the parent I’m NC with (my mum) married someone who committed a serious crime (CSA). It wasn’t so much the sexual abuse and the minimisation of what happened, but it was the reaction to my reaction. I was a bad person. I was being ridiculous. I was being attention seeking and ungrateful by making a fuss. Eventually my mum started spreading lies about Dh and I to explain why we were no longer close to make people think it was us who did horrible things to them to cause the relationship breakdown.

It’s not something in a million years that I ever could have seen coming. Before this we’d always been so close. But the pull of a toxic relationship with a manipulative man was too much. I would have thought you were bonkers 4 years ago to ever suggest something like this could have ever happened in my life.

We’ve been LC since this all happened 4 years ago, but completely NC for nearly 2 years. Do I still feel a lot of pain and trauma from it all? Yes. Do I wish it never happened? Yes. Do I ever regret the decision to go NC? Not for a second.

It’s sad that my mum brought so much chaos to her and our lives, that she put her grandchildren at risk to a known paedophile, that I went through everything I did to extricate us from that chaos. But my life is so much better now that our relationship is over. It was literally killing me. I developed a chronic illness from the stress. There is absolutely nothing she could ever do or say that would make me doubt that choice now. I was finally able to exhale for the first time in years.

I absolutely get this. It is definitely a last resort.

Lack of forgiveness hurts you. I felt physical pain when I stopped talking to my mother. I've forgiven her and moved on. Its easier to talk. Parents are just people too with trauma, brokenness, wounds etc.

.

Be that as it may, there comes a point where you have to say enough now. You don't owe your parents a free pass to abuse you. Sometimes you just have to let them go if they're having a negative affect on your life.

I am glad you found a path through but I was the opposite having a relationship really hurt me. They brought me to breakdown. That damaged my relationships with my husband and children. I was not a person to my father, my needs, me being a person with emotions was completely off his radar and my mother would follow him off a cliff. My father is likely undiagnosed ND with extreme self focus, lack of any empathy, he could be very cold and cruel. He made every excuse for my paedophile/rapist brother. He is also deeply misogynistic as is my mother. I don’t agree that forgiveness is a path for every relationship.

I've been NC with a parent for 35yrs . I grieve for the parent I should have had not the one I got . Sometimes you just have to let toxic people go for your own wellbeing . No regrets here .

No.

They did have a choice though...the situation they are in is of completely their own doing.

It's not possible to forgive some things. No matter how hard you try.

You absolutely don't have to put up with abuse. Forgiveness sets you free though. Never take your parents actions personally. You forgive to release your own resentment and bitterness. I still have a lot of forgiving to do but I definitely feel lighter since I started to process of forgiveness last year. People carry their own trauma and project it onto their children.

Yes I can see how a poster might ask the nature of the crime to get a feel as to whether NC of a previously close and happy relationship would be regretted later on.

If it was a white collar crime at work at a large organisation with good insurance, I’d be angry with them for minimising it and putting their family under stress with court but would probably eventually focus on the close relationship we had before.
If it was a crime that hurt a vulnerable dependent of some kind - that for me would be NC territory, even with a previous close relationship and I can’t see how I would ever regret it.

I've not talked to my dad for over two years. It was a mutual thing. His wife was always cruel towards me and I put up with it because I wanted him in my life, but decided to pipe up when I wanted to start a family of my own; I couldn't have her treat my kids like that. I told him how I was feeling in person and he was so sad and apologetic. A couple of days later he texted me like nothing had happened. I messaged back saying I don't want our conversation to be ignored, I would like things to change and he completely blew up at me, phoned me up shouting and swearing at me and his abusive messages to me are in my whatsapp archive. He sent flying monkeys to me a couple of months after and I'm aware of the story he's spun on this, painting me as a mentally ill villain and has pretty much shut me out of that side of the family.

I think about it all day, every day. It's completely broken me. But I know that if I tried to reach out it'd likely cause more upset. Even though I still don't have kids, I can't say that I regret speaking up for myself which lead to us both cutting off contact, even though our relationship falling apart lead to my heart breaking which took an enormous toll on the rest of my life I'm still recovering from. I dont think I could ever regret protecting myself from someone capable of causing so much upset and ruin.

Everyone is different I suppose? I won't be forgiving anything and I don't feel bad about it.

I heard of a lady who forgave her drug addicted mother for selling her daughter into child prostitution. How she forgave, I don't know. But I think there is a spiritual release or healing when you do it. You develop compassion for their brokenness and it brings healing into your own life and relationship.

Not a white collar crime. I wish.

No, it’s been 9 years and I’ve made my peace with it. They are still alive so I don’t know how I’ll feel for sure when they die.
I don’t feel guilty as I couldn’t expose my own children to what I experienced.

I don’t take my parent's actions personally, why would I their behaviour is about their own issues, but their behaviour and my brother’s behaviour harmed me as a person, so same way I would protect myself from a punch in the face I protect myself from my family’s deep dysfunction. I think people need to handle trauma their own way and I think with the complexity of people there is not one way to do that.