No contact parents - phone ringing now after 12 years

[CocoKenny]

I’ll try to keep this brief.
My mother was cruel,nasty and violent. I remember the beatings starting VERY young. She quickly stopped beating my slightly older brother when he got bigger and could restrain her but this meant an escalation for me. Dad was scared of her, saw what was happening and choose himself. He allowed me to be her punchbag to save himself.
my childhood was hell.
i stupidly tried to continue to try and win their approval/love until my 40s and after an awful incident where my brother and I were then having the most terrible lies told about us ….. I broke.
i have been no contact for 12 years.

i’ve done a lot of healing in that time and am not happy and content.

now they are elderly, I have so many phone calls from the ghosts of relatives past saying I need to go back and take care of them. It’s MY job apparently.

I'm numb. I feel nothing but cold towards them. My healing is done. I feel sick at the thought of seeing them again.
AITA for feeling that way?

thanks if you’ve read all of this

YANBU at all. Please maintain your boundaries OP.

Your ghosts of relatives past only want to dump the burden of care onto you. Guilt is their tool. None care about you.

So say no thanks, and block. Do not fold.

Tell your relatives exactly what both your parents did, and that if they're that bothered about them being looked after they can do it themselves.

Stay non contact. Make it clear to your relatives you wil not be helping at at all and block them too if you need to. Your parents are reaping what they sowed.

Given the history of serious abuse you would absolutely not be the right person to provide or organise care in any event, too much conflict of interest.

Well done on moving past your childhood, protect your hard won peace of mind at all costs, that’s your priority.

I haven’t spoken to my father in over 20 years. He’s now in his 80s, nothing could induce me to speak to him and the abuse was mainly verbal / psychological. He can get to fuck. Stick to your guns.

I have exactly the same thing that's going to happen soon as they age

I've been nc for 17 years as both where abusive

They firmly believe that women should do all of the caring and wiping of backsides when they get old ('it's why we where so pleased to have a girl!') and that boys should reap all the rewards for doing nothing

They can jog on-i won't be listening to the flying monkeys (Google that term) as if they are so bothered,they can give up their lives to do it

I won't be lifting a finger to help-they should have treated me better when they had the chance

They have my 3 brothers,2 wives,any random girlfriends (whoever my brother is shagging that week) my aunts,uncles and cousins to help (or they can pay for care but they are tight and will refuse)

I feel no guilt-they chose to abuse me and this is the result

As someone who is NC myself, I would say do not engage with any of them.

I find people who have not experienced an abusive childhood have no clue of the long term psychological impact it has.
They are phoning you now because they want to pass the buck onto you, and will probably cause you further pain by guilt tripping and making you feel responsible for everything.

They didn’t treat you like family when your mother was repeatedly beating you, you do not need to treat them like family now. No good can come from it, you will just have old wounds opened up.

I think in the future my parents will likely do the same to me. But they can get stuffed. I will just tell them to sell their house and put themselves into a nursing home.

Hugs, @CocoKenny . Being estranged from your parents - having the sort of people that you cannot have contact with for your own safety and wellbeing as parents - is really hard. I think sometimes estrangement seems and feels easy but it really isn't. I was estranged from my own father for almost thirty years, from my late teens until he died. He was abusive. My mother is still alive but we have very little contact and I find it incredibly difficult and stressful to see her. She enabled him, and she stood by and did nothing. He abused her too, but she was the adult in that situation, and I was just a child. She's also stuck in a place where she still seems to see me as someone she can be unkind to, should she feel the need, without any fear of consequences. Well, there has been a consequence. I have quietly withdrawn my services.

The relatives who want you to step up and do the elder care are deep down only thinking of themselves. They want to dump it on you because then they won't have to do it. But we are of the generation born to parents who believed you had to do your duty (i.e. present yourself to be abused) if you were biologically related to someone. I disagree. I don't think you owe an abusive parent anything. You've already served your time as a child. Your time as an adult is yours to do with as you wish. It is our gift to ourselves.

If you decide that what you want to do is reconnect with your parents (I am in no way saying you should, just that this is a choice you can make if it's the right one for you), you can do that. But if you don't want to, that's your choice too.

The feelings around all of this can be difficult and overwhelming. Is there anyone you can talk to about it? I did quite a lot of therapy last year because I was strugging and it helped a lot just having someone I could talk to, and to see her reaction to some of the childhood stuff.

You don't owe her or your relatives anything.

Change your number and get on with your life.

I am no contact with my mother. Relatives on her side of the family as she got older and had health issue started calling me and trying to guilt tripping me into getting back in contact and getting involved.

I changed my number. Then some of them tried to contact me on social media. I blocked them.

This relatives never supported me when I was a child and it was obvious that I was physically neglected and that there were some serious issues with my development caused by abuse at home. They also had no part in my life for the past 30 years when I became an adult so there is no way I was allowing any of them back in.

Being related to someone does not mean you need to have them in your life or care for them. They reap what they sow.

Nope absolutely no reason why their care has anything to do with you.

You owe them nothing. Sod them. And tell anyone poking their nose in to mind their own business.

Have a standard response ready for these relatives. "Thank you for your call but my mother beat me rather than look after me, while my father watched. So please tell them they can look after each other. Goodbye relative"

Block the numbers. If any get sneaky and start trying to contact you by different means, threaten to tell everyone they know that they were complicit in child abuse.

Block them all OP, you owe them nothing!

Look after yourself and be kind to yourself!

Anyone that dares say it’s your duty to look after them can go and fuck off then fuckety fuck off some more!

Id be telling any future callers its called "reap what you sow"

Sums it up. I’m sorry you didn’t have the parents you deserved op. They are not your responsibility.

Don’t bother, they won’t care and they certainly wouldn’t change their stance. You will always be the problem in their eyes. Doing the objectively “right” thing is hard doing the objectively “wrong” thing is much much easier.

Don’t ever underestimate how many adults are content to do the “wrong” thing and then lecture people doing the “right” thing from their position of foolish hubris. I cannot tell you how often I’ve seen it my own situation and beyond.

Id tell them to fuck off and not contact me again. They are trying to guilt you into doing the dirty work, don't let them

I knew from the title the phone would be ringing to tell you to go and provide care. OP stay strong. Block every single number that calls with instruction/guilt/you don’t like what they have to say. Don’t answer unknown numbers or numbers you suspect to be flying monkeys. They’re calling you to tell you what they want to see someone doing but that they don’t want to do/organise themselves. They’re there seeing it already, let them sort it.

You are a grown up with freedom of movement, and you owe these people nothing. They had an obligation to give you a safe childhood and they failed. Make sure the rest of your life is happy.

I’d be asking your relatives why they think it’s ok to interfere now but not when you were a child getting beaten by your abusive mother.

Nah, not really. I’d tell them to let your parents know you reap what you sow, then I’d block them too.

You are under no obligation whatsoever to put yourself into what will be an abusive situation. I guess that your mother will still wield power over you and make your life hell. Even if she’s all sweetness and light (unlikely), being with her will drag up awful memories of her past treatment of you.
No child is obligated to care for a parent and I really think you should change your number, if relatives continue to disrespect your decision, and live your life as you deserve to. You didn’t get the childhood you should have had, don’t let contact with your parents ruin your life now.

Lines I have used:

”your relationship with her is one thing, mine is completely different, I don’t expect you to ever understand but I do expect you to respect my boundaries”

”please drop the subject as I don’t want to fall out with you”

”my relationship with my parents is between them and me, please stay out of things you don’t understand”;

Things I’ve said in my head “ fly my pretties fly” quite apt giving the current Wicked frenzy, but when the flying monkeys start I try and tune out, step back contact and on one occasion I did make reference to people being my mothers flying monkeys, I don’t think it sat well but they did back off.

If you’ve asked them to stop and they haven’t step back, block them if they can’t respect your boundaries you have no choice but to take away your contact with them.

You are doing the right thing remaining no contact OP.

You absolutely DON'T have to do this but if their care was playing on your mind you could anonymously call adult care social services and say what the concerns are. Don't feel obliged to do this though, but it could be a quick action that takes the guilt away. Your meddling relatives could do this if they are worried

Even if you did offer to care for them this would be a very bad idea for all concerned given the history. It would be better for someone neutral like a care home or paid carer to do it.

I still think @CocoKennyshould ask the relatives why they think it’s okay to interfere now but didn’t intervene when she was being beaten up / abused by her mother and her father just stood idly by.