Looking to understand peoples experience of cutting contact with their parents.
Bit of context, I am male in my early 40s I left home at 18.
Never had the best up bringing typical council estate in the 80s little money about both parents unemployed with no ambition to do anything with their life, other than repeat their own parent’s path of just existing! I knew I didn’t want that for my life so left to make sure I didn’t end up that way.
Fast forward to my 20s and I could go weeks and months without seeing or hearing from my parents, I fell in with the wrong crowd became money orientated and thought materialistic wealth was a way to prove my success in life. (safe to say I was t*t then). Why this grates on me is that my dad went down the wrong path in his early years and new exactly were this would take me and not once did he offer any advice.
Happy to say after a couple of years I met a great woman who is now my wife, we have children both have great jobs and everything we could hope for in life. My life literally did a U turn when we met and I walked away from all my old ‘friends’ overnight.
My kids are both approaching double digits and my parents were dipping in and out of their lives at key times of the year Christmas birthdays etc., they had only ever seen the kids in my home and had never so much as taken them the park or had them alone for a few hours never mind overnight.
Around 1 year ago I made the decision to confront my parents and tell them that I had had enough of them, that they were useless parents to me and my siblings and that I would not allow them to have that impact on my children, as they deserve more. Things were said on both sides, and I left.
Fast forward one year and they have never made any contact, they just accept this is how it is. And in my opinion that shows that I was rite to cut them off as they don’t really care it was all just smoke and mirrors with them.
My problem now is my kids are asking about them for example, ‘ we will see nanny as its Easter she always comes at Easter’
I don’t want to influence my kids, but I also don’t want them to accept that my parent’s behavior is normal, and I am unsure what to say to them now, as just because I don’t want them in my life doesn’t mean my kids won’t want to reach out when they are old enough.
My kids have a great relationship with my wife’s family and see them multiple times a week so I would rather they focus on that positivity whilst they are young and influential.
So, to cut a long story short, my question is - if you have cut your parents off, do you regret it?
We all know life is short and one day that call will come to say they are gone. Right now, I feel nothing even thinking of that, and in a way that is sad in itself but could my kids resent me for not seeing them when they grow up and understand better.