AIBU to think there is not enough focus on parents when kids cut them off

[diddlysquatagain]

Posting on AIBU for traffic.

I know that there are many cases of terrible abuse which lead to a child cutting contact with their parents — I understand that.

But in the last few years, I’ve come across an increasing number of cases where parents are flummoxed as to why they’ve been cut off.

I have a female friend whose adult child (around 30 — I personally think he’s experiencing mental health issues, having previously trained and, I believe, used steroids) has cut off contact, and the stories he’s been telling others verge slightly on conspiracy theories. In fact, and this is history repeating itself, the DC's father - who is the one I would actually term a 'narcissist' who wasn't around but reappeared and now has a stong hold - had a parent who also cut contact with their parent so it seems to be a pattern repeated.

This post is not for those who say, “you don’t know the full story, there is always another side to it.” I want to hear from parents who have been cut off or estranged but genuinely don’t know why and are heartbroken.

Of course, no parents are perfect — we shout, we sometimes overlook things, there are myriad minor and not so minor failings — but I’d like to hear stories to better understand.

More generally, I’ve noticed in younger generations a tendency to cut off friendships if those friends are a bit down and are labelled as “toxic” (I dislike that word intensely). In some cases “toxic” has been described as “someone who just talks about their own problems.” I feel this is dismissive. If someone is suffering from depression, that is exactly what they end up doing - it’s part of the illness. I would never drop a friend for that, but people do nowadays - at the drop of a hat.

As I say, I would like to hear from those parents who - albeit not perfect - truly don’t know why their children chose to go no-contact.

Edited by MNHQ for the OP to remove content that wasn't meant to be part of her post

From reading your posts, it seems that your beef is about a parent who alienate the other parent , leading to the adult child cutting them off.

That’s NOT the same as ‘a lot of young people cut their parents off with no reason’ or ‘being a fragile wallflower’ that can’t cope with ‘toxic’ friendship that aren’t toxic.

Youre mixing very very different things and it’s not helping.

fwiw I’m basically LC with my parents. My dad would probably fit the abusive line (exploding fur no reason, always right, everyone walking on eggshell). My mum is enmeshed, plays the martyr and has used me as a way to find her balance. I have c-PTSD as a result.
And yet, theyd both profess to be living, caring, to have done everything for me. Theyre hugely hurt (my mum in particular) if I don’t play the role she needs me to play - the helpless, incapable daughter - because she sees that as me rejecting her help - she only wanted to be kind and helpful!

I also believe that the new generation is rejection some behaviours that we’ve always accepted - like being completely self centered and only ever talking about yourself. Or being a user - you’re only as good as the support you can give.
i see that as something good tbh. Even when depressed and struggling, even when you do need tge support and someone to support you, you can also give support. That’s how my life long friendships, that have withstand all the miles stones (marriage, children, divorce, children moving out, LD contact) are working.

I agree with this. I've not "cut off" my mother as at nearly 80 I've realised she will never change. There are things she's done I can't forget but it's not worth cutting her off.

After a lifetime of seeking her support and approval I've realised that she'll never be able to provide me with what I need as she's just not capable of doing so.

We muddle along and I see her with my daughter every 3 or 4 weeks or so. But I don't involve her in my life or share anything with her as all she does is criticise.

Even when she does try to be helpful it's on her terms. I wasn't well recently and I didn't even bother telling her as I knew doing so would just add to my stress not help. I had to go to A&E and got my ex to take me and didn't tell her.

Define ‘actual abuse’.

I’d be interested to know if children who go NC with their parents, and the parents genuinely don’t know why, are still expecting to inherit any property or money.

Being in contact with my parents can be very taxing emotionally. They are very hard work. I persist but there are times when it really doesn’t feel worth it. They still haven’t divorced, my mum paints herself solely as a victim and wants constant validation and emotional support and will bore literally anyone who will listen but doesn’t understand things like complicity/culpability or even appear to remember straight verbal abuse immediately after she’s dished it out; my dad is incapable of seeing the big picture or accepting that his actions affect anyone else and plays his children off against each other. I now see that I just have to get on with my own life and do what I can to look forward, but they’re still there demanding my energy. I don’t blame people who don’t want to do that anymore.

I’m NC and we were always told we weren’t inheriting anything even when we were in contact due to favouritism of their golden child! A “quirk” of the “haven’t got a clue why they are NC” parents is that they often play divide and conquer and pit their kids against each other.

Most of the people I’ve connected with who are NC with parents have experienced this. And then there are the ones who have the parents who dangle inheritance as a means to control their adult children into doing exactly as they tell them.

*edited to add - my parents know why I’m NC with them, they just claim to everyone else that they don’t.

No. The day I left, my F told me if I left, I'd never get a penny. I laughed at him and said he had nothing I would ever want.

Escaping was the only way to be allowed to live my life. He died 12 years later, still trying to force me back. On his death everything went to my dm.

God knows the poor woman had earned it.

Obviously physical or sexual. Psychological/emotional if it’s sustained, rather than random incidents, though obviously it is very subjective as to whether a single incident is enough to go NC.

There’s actually quite a lot of research on this.

The book I have read is Joshua Coleman’s rules of estrangement.

on a personal level I have friends who were cut off by their parents because they lived together before marriage - so one reason for NC is breaking social rules that either the child or the parent insists on. This covers religion and racism both of which are common reasons for NC.

many teens/young adults also go NC with a parent or parents if they come out as gay and the parent(s) refuse to accept it. Still surprisingly common.

Let’s be honest there.
You have people who decide to NOT cut their parents off despite the fact t they despise/hate them. Just for the inheritance.
You have people who cut their parents off and will still see them being cut off a will as yet another sign their parents don’t love them.
You have people who struggle like hell but are so enmeshed with said parents they can’t contemplate going NC despite how badly they’re still treated as adults. Aka theyre not still in contact because of love/caring about them etc….

Asking ‘do you still expect inheritance even though you’re NC’ is creating a false dichotomy imo.

eg with my own parents.
They moved overseas to get away from respective families. Made as little effort as possible to go and see them. Rare phone calls (40+ years ago, these were expensive!). No letters. That’s how close to NC you can go really wo saying NC.
When my gran was in a care home, parents ‘helped’ as took on some of the cost, whikst being clear theyd get their money back on the inheritance. Invoices kept etc… they still refused to pay fur new dentures (so my gran was restricted to what she could eat - only the softest foods). That’s despite the fact they could afford it wo a second thought. Lots of talk on how it was my gran’s fault. She should have planned ahead and not financially helped her adult dcs. Her best interests certainly weren’t at the center of their decisions.

Now they got their inheritance!

But where you do think they fall? The NC crowd that shouldn't expect it? The contact lot what is entitied to it?

Oftentimes, realising you have similar imperfections and forgiving yourself for it too.

Relationships are complicated, but I think the less we're able to deal with these things, the worse people's mental health becomes, not better. Social media has made everyone think only perfection is acceptable. In others and themselves. This is not healthy.

My mother says some god awful things sometimes, but if I had her upbringing, maybe I would too. Her heart is still in the right place. I do give myself a breather when necessary.

And you realise it’s extremely restrictive and that neglect, including emotional neglect, fir example can be just as damaging wo it fitting into the ‘abusive’ category that’s always about ‘doing’ somethimg rather than not doing it.

None of the relatives in our case expect anything or if they do they haven’t openly said such.

I find inheritance funny anyway. Let’s face it most people who inherit could of actually
done with that money back when they where buying their home and raising their children not when they are close to retire themselves. So if I did I’d send it my children’s way the actual step up they would need. Rather than festering in my bank till my demise.

There seems to be a popular narrative at the moment that when adult children go no contact with their parents, it must be the parents' fault.

However, my brother in law has gone no contact with his parents and it is 100% not their fault. It is his wife's fault (and his fault for marrying her really).

I am NC with my parents and they claim not to know why (telling them or a moment's reflection would give them the answer).

I don't expect to inherit anything. I want nothing to do with them. That's kind of the point.

I agree. My mother said some awful things to me too, and had a pretty awful relationship with her own mother. But I was not always the ideal daughter.

Have you posted on here about this before? Around a year ago? I distinctly recall the details. Your friend with a model son who had cut off his mum for not fitting into his new shiny life, and you wanted opinions on whether or not to interfere because she was amazing and he was awful?

Quite a coincidence if not.

The consensus last time was to stay out of it. You only know one side - the parental side, that would naturally be predisposed to give you their positive bias if they were in fact problematic.

Same here. And my grandmother was an orphan and literally sold, so really, it's been an improvement!

I haven't been cut off. But I do have a (possibly) unique perspective.

I cut off both of my parents, for very different reasons. One I stand by, one I will regret until I die.

I've always had difficult relationships with family. I could waffle on about a possible diagnosis for why I find personal relationships hard, but honestly, it's irrelevant.

Both of my parents are dead, but I bitterly regret cutting off one of them. We had a hard relationship, not all due to me, probably about 50/50. But when this parent was on their death bed, I spent quite a bit of time with them and it was obvious they had regrets. As do I. I wish, wish, wish I'd made the effort while they were alive to have some sort of relationship with them. I know it devastated them, my cutting them off, and honestly, it has partially ruined the rest of my life because I have to live with my regrets.

My other parent, it was the right choice. I didn't regret it when they died. There was no love left there on either side.

Very sadly, my nephew is doing the same thing with my sister and my BiL. It is making them very sad and while I can see they were flawed parents, they tried to always put their children first.

We're all human and unless parents are actually abusive, my advise these days is to maintain some form of contact.

Hahahaha. OP I sent this article to my covert narcissist mother: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202404/why-your-adult-child-is-mean-to-you/amp

Her response? “It was all about the child!! I’d love to have read one with the parents perspective!”

…and the point continued sailing off over her head into the distance, and was never seen again. I’m not no contact, but she’s proven to me a million times over she’ll bulldozer me and victimise herself given the slightest opportunity to, so I try not to tell
her anything because it’ll just be weaponised. It’s exhausting and sad, I wish I had a good mum.

I will answer with my personal reasons even though I’m not the audience you are looking for.

I am 40 in October and haven’t seen my “dad” since my 21st birthday. (Well I have visual seen him but the last time I spoke to him)

If you asked him he would definitely say he has no idea why I stopped talking to him. He actually thought it was to do with the birthday gift he got me.

He beat my mum and cheated on her. Came home, after being missing all weekend, on my birthday, with a love bite in his neck! Whilst she was pregnant with my younger sister he was hitting her and chased into the bedroom. Threw me onto the bed to be with her. I would have been maybe 10 months. Just a little background on this “man”

I spent my entire childhood waiting for him. He never saw us regularly. When we were meant to see him he would either be really late or not turn up. Said some very disturbing things about my friends when we were teenagers. I danced when I was younger, he only came to one show and all he could say was how one of the girls could do that on his lap!!!

On my 18th birthday I had a party. He couldn’t come because he’d booked a holiday away. Like my birthday hadn’t been the same day every year. On my 21st birthday I told him I was going out for dinner and what time I’d be home. He said he would come for that time, then I would be stopping at my boyfriend’s house. 2 hours late. He was 2 hours late. The gift was a me2you photo frame with 21 on it, that he knew my sister had bought me because she told him. And he went and got the same one anyway!

It was an eye opener for me. I thought why am I still waiting for a man that clearly doesn’t give a crap. I didn’t tell him just stopped calling him didn’t go to see him. (I used to go every other week). He never rang me or texted or anything. I saw him a few months later in town, he let go of his girlfriends hand and went to to me saying oh “my name” went to hug me I just looked past him, and kept on walking. My boyfriend (now husband) was confused and came running after me. I felt so powerful in that moment. That he had “tried” and I’d been the one to ignore.

I saw him once more when my sister had 2 of her children christened. We weren’t sat too close to each other and I just acted like I would with anyone when I don’t them.

He didn’t go to my sisters wedding because “he didn’t want it to be awkward” that’s when she decided to cut him off.

He still won’t see what he has done. And will play poor me, my own children won’t talk to me. He has another daughter who has cut him off a few times but she doesn’t seem strong enough to stay away for good. He is also “dad” to a girl who isn’t his. That’s why his other daughter keeps going back because she always wanted a sister.

It won’t be like this for everyone. But you will find that those people who don’t know why, it’s because they don’t see any wrong doing in what they do.

And this is exactly one of the contributing factors to allow this stuff to continue, nobody ever believes the child, "oh don't be silly, your mum is lovely, you'll be thankful when you grow up"

Nobody ever says that they'll step in and have a word.

Goodness no. I don't expect to inherit and I don't want my father's money or property. Why would anyone expect anything from someone they have no relationship with?

The children doing the cutting off are a product of their environment. From whom did they learn that behaviour?

I'm been NC with my mother for nearly a decade, which was her choice - some of the reasons cited were that I had been too selfish to give her grandchildren and killed my dad. She cut off my other siblings at the same time. In recent years, I've received birthday cards from her, in which she vaguely wonders about the length of time we haven't spoken, despite her telling me in no uncertain terms, on more than one occasion, that she no longer wanted me in her life.

I realise she's incapable of any kind of self-reflection, and I doubt it's even crossed her mind how hurtful and confusing her behaviour is to me.

And yeah, as PPs have said, there's an entire forum on gransnet dedicated to this subject. Read one thread, and you've read 'em all. Most posters resistant to consider the idea that they may have played a part in being estranged from their offspring.

I'm always surpsied people can't grasp people have different faces for different audiences.

Even when that's not an issue and they know full well at least some of the problems - they'll minimize for sake of family unity -seen that in DH family and it's frightening what people will ignore or dismiss or conceal.