If your child has gone NC

[fintangle]

If you’re a parent of an adult child who has gone NC with you, do you know why?

I’ve read so many accounts, on here and elsewhere, of parents who seem completely baffled and heartbroken by it, can think of no reason at all.

But surely for a child to do something as drastic as cut all contact, you must have an inkling why?

I think some people absolutely know why, but do not want to confront it, maybe out of guilt. If you don't ask what you have done, than clearly it is something. There are usually warning signs before it, maybe they went unnoticed, or were ignored.

Sadly for some, it is easier to sweep under the rug and bury their head in the sand. I could never do that with my children, I would be on the doorstep asking, write a long letter, try and salvage a relationship, and I wouldn't give up. For parents to not even ask, or just as bad assume the reason, I can never understand.

I saw the link I’m sharing on another thread about going NC and it really stuck with me. I wish I could remember who shared it and thank them. But it talks about how often, people have been told exactly why an adult child is going NC, but since they didn’t feel the reason was “real” enough, they just ignore it. The article is called “The Missing Missing Reasons,” and shares several examples of this.

www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

I suspect my dad thinks its because he left my mum for his affair partner (3rd affair I knew of). In actual fact its for the years of abuse (physical and emotional), emotional carried on into adulthood, (so much so that I thought it was normal until teenager dd pointed out how wrong it was). So I stopped contact to protect my dc. He'd say it was keeping his dc in line, getting them to respect their elders.
He hasn't once asked me, not contacted me once. He has however sent some grandchildren gifts (but seems to play a game of treat them differently). One gc got £50 for their birthday, another a key ring, another just s card. However all chose not to see him and all cousins (teenagers) think its hilarious what he does and a competition has begun (who gets the worst present-and its never the one teat gets nothing).
I actually believe in our case hes emotionally immature and therefore doesn't know /need to know why.

It doesn't happen out of the blue

The language on both sides seems to always be so lacking in specifics.

The parents of the adult children talk about having no understanding at all, completely unwarranted accusations, the child is difficult, always has been etc.

The adult children in turn say the parent was abusive and/or narcissistic and/or toxic and/or emotionally immature.

No one ever seems to say exactly what happened to lead to these conclusions.

I can't say for sure it was me under one of my many name changes, but I have shared this on MN and was going to share it here, but you got in early!

Well hey, just in case it was you, thank you! It really spoke about something that seems to happen so often in NC situations, and thank you for sharing it with others who needed it, like I did.

I'm NC with both of my parents.

Mum says she understands why but she can't accept accountability for my childhood as it's all too much to think about and it would kill her, Dad says I'm an ungrateful C*nt and should be grateful he put a roof over my head for 15 years ( While abusing me the whole time I might add)

It’s the ones who know exactly what happened - having been told many times, many times - who are terminally “baffled”. Their bafflement is the only way they have of keeping the drama alive once the other party has stopped playing.

I think people have explained it well. They may not see the child’s perspective. Also I want to add that sometimes the child may also not have it right

I think if you are speaking to a parent who has had a child go NC with them, you’ll see in the article I shared that often that person will discount the reasons, even if they were told point-blank in a prepared speech or letter.

If you’re speaking to an adult child who went NC, and they’ve chosen to start talking about it already, you can ask them if they would be all right with giving you an example. Often there is a pattern of abuse that makes people go NC, so they no longer focus on individual events, but will have a countless stories that illustrate abuse and/or neglect, ruined special occasions, and whatever else.

I just want to say how sorry I am. I’m sure you know this already, but you didn’t deserve that treatment, and you’re worth so much more than how they treated you. I hope NC has helped and you’ve been able to heal. Also, it’s pretty fucking rich that your da says you’re ungrateful for not appreciating 15 years of having a roof; um, that’s BELOW the 18 years of mandated housing that he legally owed you for bringing you into this world. What utter horseshit, and I hope you know that ♥️

Aw thank you!

It's taken a lot of therapy, which I'm still in and I think always will be.

As a daughter I desperately want my parents to love me, take accountability and apologize.

But as a parent now myself, I will never forgive them. I will never understand how they could feel the way they did about me. My little girl is the spit of me, and she's now the same age as I was when the abuse started. I could never imagine shattering that innocence in such a way 🥺

I have a friend whose daughter went NC but she had no idea why. The daughter started distancing herself for a few months beforehand and then she pushed a letter through the door saying she wanted no further contact and just like that, she was gone for 5 whole years. My friend refused to give up and every year on her daughter’s birthday, she’d send her an email reminding her daughter she was loved and welcome home any time. Incredibly, out of the blue, the daughter suddenly got in touch. Turns out the daughter was in a secret controlling relationship and he’d convinced her that her family was toxic. When the daughter finally got away from the relationship, she went to rehab and eventually made contact with her mum (my friend) again. No words to describe the complete elation and joy when she hugged her daughter again.

Oh yes. That.

My mother allegedly has “no idea” why I went NC with her over a decade ago. Apparently she has some kind of amnesia and has forgotten that she stood by while my step father abused me. Aside from the physical and sexual abuse I was frequently locked out of the house, ignored as though I did not exist for months at a time, siblings taken on holiday and me left behind, siblings given birthday presents and Christmas presents and I would find a lump of coal in my stocking on Christmas morning because I “didn’t deserve presents”.

I was a straight A student who never got into any trouble, but was demonised and scapegoated throughout my childhood. They constantly threatened to put me in care and then on my 16th birthday I came home to find everything in my bedroom thrown into black plastic sacks and a note on my bed saying that if I didn’t leave the house within two weeks they would throw my belongings into the street.

So I left. And after several years I tried to reestablish contact with her. She never acknowledged what she had done. After I married we were planning children and I had to address this with her because I had some therapy and had finally realised just how abusive my childhood had been and obviously could not have her around any children of my own if she could not at least acknowledge and take responsibility for what had happened. When I tried to talk to her about the abuse she stood up from the table and walked away. Until that point I suppose I had always tried to convince myself that maybe she’d been oblivious to most of it and not realised that her husband was sexually assaulting her 13 year old, and had gone along with his emotional and verbal abuse because she is weak and was scared of being alone. But her reaction to being asked directly to discuss it with me - walking away - made it clear she had indeed known all along, otherwise she’d have responded with horror and shock.

She then sent me letters accusing me of lying and making it all up. Years later - after her husband had divorced her - she suddenly and miraculously had a change of heart. 😒 I’d moved house so she didn’t know where I lived. She looked me up through my professional information and sent letters to my work, saying how “sorry” she is and how “if she had known of course she would have left him immediately” and about how hard it is for her. How she “believes me now”. 🧐

My siblings still see her occasionally and tell me her woeful and self-pitying stories about how “confused” she is about how I could be so cruel and cut her off and “deny her access to her grandchildren”. Clearly such a woman is baffled by the fact that as a mother protecting my children from abusive people is my priority over her self-inflicted loneliness.

I presume that this is the type of parent you are referring to, @fintangle. They are always, allegedly, “baffled and confused and heartbroken about why their cruel children cut them off for no reason”. It is quite obvious that a child doing that would be vanishingly rare. We are pre-programmed to love our parents and it’s clearly not plausible that adult children would choose to cut off contact unless the circumstances were extreme. I see my friends with their mothers and wish desperately that I had that, but eventually you have to accept that the parent you are mourning is the one you wish you could have had and that the one you actually have can never be that person. It is self-protection that is essential after a childhood of abuse that leaves lifelong scars.

People use vague and general terms to describe it to you because these are extremely personal and upsetting things that nobody wants to discuss except with their therapist or those extremely close to them. If you asked me in person why I don’t talk to my mother I would answer exactly as you’ve stated that people do: that she’s toxic, abusive, narcissistic. Would you really expect people to recount such upsetting details to you in person, unless you are their partner or one of their closest friends?

Surely you can understand why people are “vague” when you ask them such deeply personal and upsetting questions? Doing so in the first place is quite insensitive given the trauma that would almost always be involved in someone having to make such an extreme and final decision about ceasing contact with their own parent.

This is the thing, isn’t it? Children accept their reality as normal and it takes many years to process what has happened and realise how abusive it was. Then when you have children of your own the true horror of what your own parents did becomes so clear. When you experience yourself the natural protectiveness every normal parent feels for their own children, how much you love them, the abhorrent nature of the abuse is thrown into sharp relief and becomes truly clear to you and I think it is very difficult to get past that. Prior to having my own children I had slowly realised that what my parents did to me was not my fault or deserved and was an awful thing to do to anyone. But when I had my own children I realised my parents hadn’t done this to just ”anyone”; to some random person or acquaintance. They did this to a vulnerable child who was completely dependent on them physically and emotionally and for whom they were meant to be the safe space, the source of unconditional love and self-worth and I realised how any average parent would rather die than allow their own children to suffer like that, let alone be deliberately causing that suffering to their own child. And then blaming the child for it.

I think that for many people who have survived abusive childhoods, how truly unforgivable their parents’ treatments of them was only fully registers once they have children or their own and they feel the love that exists in a normal parent-child relationship for the first time, so they then stop trying to make excuses for their own parents and focus instead on making sure life is completely different for their own children - which includes keeping abusive people out of their lives. My general method of parenting is to think what my mother would do and then do the complete opposite. So far it seems to have worked very well.

Husband is no contact with his parents, his mum turned up to meet our newborn drunk with vodka in her system. Throughout his childhood he had to directly deal with mental health episodes whereby his mum would take an overdose and then call him for help to deal with it, called him a bad son if he disagreed with anything.

His parents divorced when he was an adult, his dad was never a positive figure in his life. Both parents would play him and his siblings off against each other. One was always chosen as a favourite of the week, I witnessed this and it was very uncomfortable to see. This started to happen again in his adult years and after we had children, my husband felt he couldn’t live with the emotional toll the relationship took on him.

I believe his family as a whole will blame me, but I also believe his dad will think it was due to money. Shortly before my husband cut contact his dad gifted his sister a significant amount of money and him not a penny. At the time our financial situation was no different to his sibling however his dad had assumed we would spend the money on a holiday.

There was physical abuse in his childhood also, but I think from my husbands perspective he’s made his peace with that, it’s the damaging behaviours that have had a lasting effect.

A lot of people replying on here to say why they’re NC with their parents but that’s my point - that side of the relationship is always very willing and able to explain it.

My question was to those who are on the other side, those who have been cut off - do you really have no idea why?

Oh my goodness @Accaron your childhood sounds almost identical to mine. I’m also NC with my mother and she also pretends to be baffled as to why (to others, extended family for example). I went through a phase of “trying to make her see” and then realised how pointless this was , and how I was just torturing myself and setting myself up for rejection again and again. So much better to be NC.

I have a young adult DC who is no contact with their other parent & has been for 5 years.

Other parent has his version of why DC is NC...which is very far removed from the actual reason.

I'm sure he knows exactly why DC is NC - he just chooses to believe his own reality.

My dad was an abusive physically verbally emotionally and the majority of the time was unpleasant. No one liked him
because he was a know it all, expert at everything and would rub everyobe up the wrong way. People avoided him
like the plague. He wouldn’t ever do anything for any unless these was something in it for him. He was selfish in every aspect and would tell us how much his new gadgets were and how of the range they were, then would give his grand kids £10 for their birthday if they were lucky, but even that was hit and mostly he wouldn’t remember- because they weren’t important enough. I never got even so much as a text on my birthday, so I didn’t bother either but he’d have the vhhek to complain. His version of reality is warped. Never helped in any way shape or form

Just a few reasons I have nothing to do with him. He brings me no joy or anything positive to my life yet had the cheek to think he’s hard done by.

My mother either knew why my brother went NC but couldn’t admit it to anyone else or herself, or had no clue. Either option were part of the reason why he did it - no ability to hold herself to account or admit mistakes / apologise.
she has dementia now and is in some respects not really ‘her’ anymore (still vile to my dad though), but he still refuses to see her. What a sad end

My parent would tell you they have no idea why I am NC. They think I am a selfish, unkind and ungrateful bitch and I don’t understand them.

In reality I tried to explain it many times and eventually gave up and just blocked them.

I see that you wrote that in your OP but in your second post you wrote:

”The language on both sides seems to always be so lacking in specifics.

The parents of the adult children talk about having no understanding at all, completely unwarranted accusations, the child is difficult, always has been etc.

The adult children in turn say the parent was abusive and/or narcissistic and/or toxic and/or emotionally immature.

No one ever seems to say exactly what happened to lead to these conclusions.”

My posts were really an answer to that second post, which seemed to be claiming that the adult children aren’t clear about their reasons for their decision, either. I was trying to explain why they wouldn’t share these details with you unless you are someone extremely close to them and why it may take them until quite far into adulthood to realise that they must go NC with their parent for self-preservation, or to protect their own children.

I don’t think it is fair to say that “no one ever seems to say exactly what happened to lead to these conclusions”. The adult children aren’t clear trying to deal with a lot of trauma in the vast majority of such cases and aren’t going to discuss this with people except the very closest people to them and nor should you expect them to do so. The very fact they have cut off contact is an extremely strong indicator that they have very good reasons for doing so; it’s not a decision anybody takes lightly over a trivial disagreement etc.

“The language on both sides is lacking in specifics” is (perhaps unintentionally) conflating very different motivations from the two parties involved: the children dealing with extremely deep, personal and private trauma and not wanting to share their most painful memories with you, which you should not expect. This is why they speak in “vague terms”.

In the case of the parents, the “lack of specifics” comes from denial, obfuscation, and a deliberate attempt to continue to deflect blame onto and scapegoat the child rather than take responsibility for their own behaviour - a continuation of the precise pattern of abuse that abused children are subjected to throughout their childhoods, re-traumatising the now-adult child every time they interact with the parent hence them having to cease contact. These parents are incapable of self-reflection, incapable of genuine remorse, incapable of acknowledging the damage they have done. That is why they want to be vague and pretend the child is “making unfounded accusations” or that this “came out of nowhere” and they are “baffled and have no idea why it happened” even when - as in my mother’s case - it was explained very clearly prior to cutting off contact. She still pretends that she “has no idea why”. It is a pattern repeated again and again.

Per the original post in the thread I can see that your purpose was to get the perspectives of the parents who have been cut off, but this second post (perhaps unintentionally) seemed to conflate the motivations/ language/ behaviours of these parents with those of the adult children who’ve had to do this, which I don’t think is ok.

I hope some of these allegedly “confused” parents will respond to you and provide with their reasoning as to why their children allegedly cut off contact with them randomly and they have “no idea why this happened”. I suspect that if you receive any such responses at all they will all be full of self-righteousness, self-justification, accuse their children of being irrational/ difficult/ mentally ill/ whatever other excuse they can think of to try to deflect any blame and paint themselves as the victim.

@FFSToEverythingSince2020 That’s a bizarre article. It’s very much saying it’s the fault of the parents and they have failed to analyze their failure as parents. Clearly some dc aren’t pleasant either and like to punish their parents. It’s complex. Reason won’t be in their vocabulary. They aren’t reasonable dc. They can become totally unreasonable even with great parenting!