To think that being estranged or no contact by choice really triggers something in people?

[MyHonestMauveHelper]

Even when you’ve experienced real harm, some people still seem deeply uncomfortable with the idea of walking away from family. There’s this unspoken expectation to either keep justifying it, downplay it or be visibly “broken” enough for it to be acceptable.

When it’s a boundary you’ve chosen for your own peace, even after years of dysfunction, some people visibly bristle. They push for details, minimise your reasons or insist that “family is everything.”

It’s like the idea that someone might walk away by choice threatens something in them. I’ve seen it with colleagues, acquaintances, even in dating.

People seem to need the abuse to meet a threshold they define or they assume you’re exaggerating. And if you’ve built a life you’re proud of, it sometimes unsettles them even more.

AIBU to think this reaction says more about them than me? AIBU to think that choosing distance from family isn’t a failure but an act of self-respect and some people just can’t cope with that?

I think it only triggers something in people who have problems themselves. It’s the ones who doth protest too much.

That said, I’m NC with my family and I’ve never really had a negative comment about it from anyone. For the rare person who doesn’t know the story, when I tell them, they are like holy hell, what awful people! I’d never speak to them again either. Anyone who was actually around when I was going through it, knew it was 3 years in the depths of hell that nearly drove me to the brink. Our lives are so much better without them.

But I’m guessing it can be triggering for people who are trying hard to convince themselves that their dysfunctional family is perfectly fine and they are being martyrs by hanging on to them.

I am sober and when I tell people I don’t drink (usually because they ask why I’m not drinking alcohol), no one puts more effort into telling me a whole big story about how THEY definitely don’t have a drinking problem than the people I know who most certainly have a drinking problem. Everyone else says, oh that’s fab, well done. I suspect it’s the same for people who are trying hard to keep the longstanding narrative afloat about how their own families are perfectly fine, nothing to see.

@ValBiroThanks! My sister’s behaviour towards me has always been horrific from a young age she was desperately resentful and jealous of the amount of attention I received due to my disability but she never grew up and continued to perpetrate this nastiness towards me into adulthood, she’s nearly 50 and hasn’t stopped, ever, it’s like dealing with a child. For some of the worst of it, it was a legal adult bullying a teenager! I’ll never willingly see her again after DM dies and I’m fucked if I’ll let anyone tell me I’m wrong for that.

I went NC with my DM two years ago and the general consensus within the wider family was that “you only get one mother” and that I was being over-dramatic. Interestingly my close friends were all completely understanding and supportive.

I agree, I think there is a worrying trend of people going NC because their parents weren't perfect. In my brothers case, it's all reinforced by his friends who he only keeps around if they agree with him, everyone else is discarded. It's very main character syndrome.

I think it is a brave and difficult thing to do.
Invariably it is an action of last resort.

What I found having taken the decision to go NC, I had very little interest in people who soldier on taking bullshit from family, friends and relatives.

I had cut the toxic out of my life and I wasn't interested in listening to people go on and on about the awful people in their lives, ad infinitum, without taking action.

I appreciate that is very judgemental, but its the truth.

I also have zero interest in explaining myself or my reasons to anyone.
No one's business at all.
But there is a type that cannot consternance nor conceive, that all families thrive no matter what.

Such a dim narrow minded view of families is to be wholly avoided, IMO.

Or

1. They have had someone in their own life just walk away, and have witnessed the hurt and upset it has caused.