Would you blame the parent with multiple children NC?

[TheBushySquirrel]

Situation: Women with multiple children. Divorced from their Dad almost 20 years ago. Two of her children are NC, both of them at different times due to different reasons and nothing to do with each other as siblings are not close. One of these is her only daughter.

Both still remain close to their Dad. Her other are children still in contact but not particularly close to her and don’t go to visit often. Woman isn’t elderly but frail and in ill health, quite often in and out of hospital- has been going on for years.

In this situation would you think that she is to blame for multiple children being NC or would you think the children are being too harsh particularly given to her ill health?

YES I would. One going NC could maybe be their kid's issue, all of them- nope.

In my experience, parents who are baffled that their children dont want to talk to them usually do not, or will not, see their abusive, manipulative behaviour as they think there is nothing wrong with it.

There will always be exceptions but generally speaking, children will always crave/pursue a good relationship with their parents - to feel loved/accepted/seen etc. So, to decide to go no contact is an incredibly hard decision and heartbreaking for the child on some level. People struggle to understand this from the outside when there’s no terrible event or story that makes NC make sense (eg physical or sexual abuse in childhood). But something like emotional neglect, for example, is death by a thousand cuts - no obvious traumatic event to point to but years of trauma that builds and builds. So when I hear about people going no contact, I tend to believe that they suffered enough for it to be ‘justified’. I don’t necessarily believe it is the solution to the trauma they have experience but I can understand it as a strategy. Especially as most people who go no contact try to create healthy boundaries and work on the relationship for a while before cutting off contact.

Without knowing the children's reasons for being NC, it's impossible to answer if the mother is "to blame" or if the children are BU. And it could be neither: both may have perfectly valid reasons for their choices, behaviour etc.

Not everything that happens in families is someone's fault. It's not uncommon for someone not to get on with a parent or child. Families can be very fraught and divided, sometimes.

I would assume blame on both sides but most likely the Mum. The onus should be on the parent to try and pursue the relationship. However as PP say difficult people or cold people are often victims of their own traumas and don't know how to be loving and supportive. Also MH issues can be genetic so where one person may need to cut off a parent to protect their own MH, another person with stronger MH may be supportive and realise the parent is struggling mentally. It's often complex. I think there would be an serious issue with the mother but it'a debatable as to whether that makes her a bad person.

2 nc and the rest low contact. she is the common denominator.

i'd leave well alone, she's only reaching out because she is ill and wants company. it comes across as manipulative already

You think that no adult child ever has no further use for a parent once they have their own life filled with new people? That no one ever finds their parents dull, tiresome and inconvenient? That no one of their generation could possibly be over sensitive, argumentative, selfish, looking for an excuse for drama, to play victim or not be bothered?
What shared characteristic do you think the older generation must hold that they will always be the ones at fault? And what unique qualities do younger generations have that make you think they will never be in the wrong?

I would also reserve judgement. I know several people from very different walks of life who went NC with a parent through coercive control from a partner who was abusing them. I think there are a lot of people who have found themselves alienated from family because of a new partner who wants to isolate them and it can take years, even after leaving the abuser, before they realise they were manipulated.

No I don’t believe that multiple adult children will go to the lengths of never, ever speaking to their parents again for no reason.

No contact means your own children never meeting them. Having birthday parties, weddings, events, christenings, graduations and not telling them. Not reaching out when they’re in hospital, on birthdays, at Christmas.

Going through some of the hardest and also the best times of your life and by default wanting to embrace your parents but not being able to.

I think going no contact is incredibly hard and I imagine most of us find our parents quite tiresome and tedious sometimes but I don’t think we’d go to the lengths of above for no reason, no. I absolutely believe some people move out and get their own lives and can’t be arsed due to what you’ve listed. But not no contact.

The same way I imagine a parent going no contact with their own child must be absolutely excruciating but parents still do it to save themselves from pain. No contact isn’t something that only a child inflicts to a parent. Why are you assuming only younger generations do this?

People are NC with family for a reason. It’s usually a crap childhood. I’m NC LC with nearly everyone. It’s heartbreaking.

But that doesnt mean your friend is not a good friend. The nc children dont affect you or your friendship.

Myself and my mum are in contact but have a difficult relationship from my point of view. But she had lovely friendships, I’m glad she does as everyone deserves thst. But it’s hard thst she doesn’t want that with me. For example in the past if I went to stay, doesn’t happen anymore, she’d still go out to one of her friendship groups whilst I was there rather than doing something with me. I’m a few hundred miles away so I might only be there 2 days of that year.

just enjoy her friendship.

Hmmmm. My own mother is/was a toxic emotional abuser. My brother is no contact,I am light contact and my sister keeps her at arm's length. She was an awful, damaging parent and her past behaviour is affecting me more as I get older.

However lots of her friends think she's great. She shows them her carefully curated best side.

I have a dear widowed friend whose 2 adult DC have gone NC because the Bank of Mum closed . She has DGC she longs to see but not allowed .

Not to be unkind- but I assume this is the version of the story as told to you by her.

I wouldn’t judge her. On one hand she might be an abusive cow. On the other hand, the DCs could have been alienated by her exH and he might be the horrible one.

We have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.

If you asked the adult children they wouldn’t go into detail just say she didn’t respect boundaries, was manipulative, turned nasty when she didn’t get her own way and son would say she wasn’t nice to his wife. The other children would say they aren’t getting involved. So that’s is how much information anyone would get from this.

I'd say that's quite a bit of information. But depending on who you are and what your relationship to all the parties is, it's not really anything to do with you. As a PP said, you can only take people for how they are to you.

I once knew a family where the kids had been hugely encouraged by the dad to reject their mum. He was an awful abusive and manipulative person. One of the kids recognised this and ended up going NC with the dad but the other totally stayed on his side and cut contact with both the mum and sibling. It was a very sad situation.

What shared characteristic do you think the older generation must hold that they will always be the ones at fault?

They share the characteristic that they were the adults during the period of their children's life that the children were entirely dependent on them. It was up to them to decide how they wanted to treat their children. Their children had no choice but to put up with it.

Two children, entirely independently going NC with the same person. There is only one common denominator there. Unless there is a massive drip feed about the father being abusive and controlling towards his daughters and “poisoning” them, then I’d have to assume the daughter’s have both had poor experiences and have their own reasons for going NC. I wouldn’t place blame because I don’t know the full story, but I certainly would think something has gone wrong with the relationship and the mother should listen to their story and be open to whether she could have done things differently.

Curious as to OPs role in this and why she feels the need to judge either the mother or the kids who went NC.

Yeah sorry but 2 children going NC to me suggests a parent issue. Perhaps generational trauma coming into fruition but not a normal relationship outcome. And very sad all round.

Honestly I think a lot of things are genetic so they might call a mum a narcissist, selfish, stubborn etc etc, the kids will have some of these traits too and the combination is explosive, so while some families would find a way through, other families split. And I’m saying this as someone who has recently realised one of my children is leaning towards one of my very much not better traits and I’ve had to have a talk to try to help them not be what I was

I’d be curious if the mother was so keen to repair relationships and contact the kids prior to needing help with her ill health. Two NC children to the point where they won’t let her see the grandkids and no friends or anyone else to help her speaks volumes. It’s interesting to say one of the children is her only daughter…what does that fact have to do with anything? Or are you implying the daughter specifically should be helping her because you know…she’s a female?

Why are her other children not helping her also?

Theres obviously a reason for NC and her other children not being close, but could be anything.

Was it something she did. Did the children stay with the father. Could she have been discouraged from keeping up a relationship. Could bad things have been said about her to stop her children wanting to see her. Did she just not bother. Did she give them a bad upbringing.

There are lots of reasons for NC.

Are you writing about yourself OP? My eldest d has been nc for years. She was planning on moving with us when we downsized, but met someone several days before the move. We met him and didn't like him on sight, he came across as controlling and rude. Was she getting any money from the house move? Were her siblings? No, why would they, we needed it to live on it wasn't a vast amount anyway. She decided she wasn't going to move, told us and her siblings we were selfish about the money and wanted nothing more to do with any of us.
All over the space for a couple of weeks.
I keep in touch with one of her friends, most have been dropped as they don't like him, and apparently they are now married and living in a grotty bedsit. Her friend has told her we'd help but was told her d unless it was hard cash we could fuck off. Nice one.
So the family have done just that, she knows the door is open if she needs us, but I don't think she'll ever walk through it.

I am trying to figure out how much support to offer the woman as the partner of one of the children who isn’t NC. I appreciate I don’t have the full story, and will never get it, but when I first met her I felt very sorry for her. Poorly with multiple children and no support, including two children who refuse to talk to her at all.

She can be quite intense and dependant but I have often put it down to her being lonely. Other than that she has always been lovely. Makes a lot of effort. She is devastated about the children who won’t speak to her. She is particularly adamant she did nothing wrong to her son.

We don’t live near her and DP isn’t very close to her as she divorced his Dad and moved hours away when he turned 17. It definitely isn’t a Father issue. There isn’t any hostility between the two of them.

I have met the no contact children and they too are lovely and down to earth, including the wife she insists is controlling. I’m not getting involved and would never say anything to any of DPs siblings as I like them and it’s none of my business. I do know that they went NC with her years apart, don’t live anywhere near each other so there was no “ganging up” or influencing as they aren’t particularly close. Big age gap too. However I feel I can independently be kind regardless of the situation.

I want to be able to give her support but my own Mum and friends have told me to be very wary of her as there is a reason that her children treat her the way that they do and they think I am walking into the lions den.