If your child has gone NC

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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?

Why did he state that he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore?

What are these “failings”?

When did you realise that you were making these “failings”? Did you do anything to address them at the time?

What did you do to try to make amends for this once you realised? Did he have to bring it up to discuss it with you or did you do so? How did you try to rectify the situation?

How old are the younger ones? Like I said it takes many years into adulthood for many people to realise how abusive their parents are, so if they’re still under 25 I wouldn’t count your chickens just yet, if you exposed them to any of the same behaviour that has made your oldest child feel like this about his family, which should be people’s greatest source of joy and comfort.

Adult DS has been no contact with STBEXH for 5 years. For 4 years he ignored it but come FDR divorce hearing it’s all apparently my fault and my duty to explain the reasons why and encourage reconciliation because he is so sad. DS is an adult. It is his decision. He doesn’t need to explain himself to someone that plays the victim and minimises. He wants out of the manipulation. This is why he is NC.

STBEX claims it’s out of the blue and that he has only given unconditional love. That’s his starting point. And his end point. Communication where he understands the experience and viewpoint of another is impossible so NC makes total sense. He stills gets to play the misunderstood victim but DS has no contact with him so is not personally affected.

Aha, the old ‘well I can’t be that bad as my other children (who I didn’t treat like shit or who learned how to avoid the shit by watching the eldest get treat like shit) still love me’

Exactly. “See, I am a good parent, because I only abused one of my children so it’s obvious that the one who says I did is making it up! The ones I didn’t abuse are fiiiiiinnnnne.” 🙄

Yup. If mine wants to know why I'm NC all they have to do is look back over what they know of my life. All the things they said and did. All the things they were a part of and there while it all happened. They already have the knowledge. They don't need me to tell them. If they can't see it by looking at it, they're not going to see it by me saying it. All they'd do is argue about how I'm supposedly wrong, minimise how it wasn't "that bad", cry about how they want forgiveness, attempt to manipulate me into giving them yet another chance to be abusive , give half-baked apologies that aren't actually apologising or taking responsibility for what they did and stalk /harass me until such point as I physically removed myself from their presence to a location unknown to them. What the heck is the point in going through all that, for me? So no, no having a conversation about it, no writing a letter, if they want to know they can sit down and have a think about it, because at the end of the day they know exactly what they did.

I cut my whole family off.

It just really grinds my gears when people
leap to all sorts of assumptions
when they haven’t been in the situation of having an adult child utterly break their heart . Many children go NC for good reasons. I did this with my parents for some time for good reasons. Then there are those who have mental health issues or are in coercive relationships or have been convinced by poor therapists that their parents have been abusive. It’s not a simple issue. Good parents who give their all can be cast aside and broken because their child has lost all empathy and judgement for many reasons. Those who have never been on the receiving end of it often make sweeping judgments and congratulate themselves for not being ‘bad’ parents.If only it were that simple. For many people on these boards it is that simple. If your child cuts you off it must be that you refuse to look at the reasons why, or you have been abusive to them. Life is much more complex.

STBEX dumped DS2 like a hot potato when he relocated 400 miles away and rented a 4 bed house for GF he was financially supporting so her grandchildren had a bedroom when they visited twice a year. We separated when DS2 was 14 and H deliberately rented a flat where DS2 couldn’t stay - I had to pay travel and meal expenses for DS2 to visit him (DS had to travel of course) for a couple of hours every two weeks.

Now that the new partner has dumped him and we are in FDR, DS2 is suddenly his priority. Wants to claim hundreds of pounds to travel to meet him or even claim higher rent to be near him even though he’s now 19, at uni and has his own life.

I’m furious on his behalf.

I honestly don't know the answer to that.

That's a healthy way to look at it

The Majority of children wouldn’t chose to go NC with parents without good reason. What would be the gain by going NC with supportive, loving, good parents? That’s the idyllic family set up. The aspirations and it would also benefit grandchildren, having loving and great parents.

There would he no gain to go NC for the sake of it whatsoever. The majority of parents will have been selfish at least and abusive at worst a their adult children will look back on their childhood and think that was not great or damn right abusive.

As has already been mentioned, it’s easy for the parents to say “I’ve no idea why? I couldn’t possibly guess….!?” That’s because A- They have a good idea but no one wants to acknowledge their failings and B- Even worse, they are that self absorbed they they think they’ve been a good parent and genuinely can’t comprehend the fallout…

My dad once said to me “You’d think I’d bloody abused you in that way” - he meant sexually abused me!!! No he didn’t but fucking hell, he’s suggesting that I should be grateful that I didn’t suffer that. FFS, children deserve parents who care, put their needs above all else (within reason of course) aren’t abusive, physically, emotionally, who aren’t toxic.

It’s not a hard ask really, it should be instinct but sadly not alway the case and here we are….

Sometimes the gain for them is to project their own issues on to others to avoid looking at themselves. To protect fragile self esteem and feelings of unworthiness.

I wrote a post earlier. Definitely no abuse or early trauma.

But I am not an alcoholic, I didn’t beat him or neglect him etc

I’m sorry, but that is a very low bar. And I’m sure there was a period prior to them going NC when they tried to engage with you about how you’d hurt them. There generally is.

Nobody is “convinced by poor therapists that their parents have been abusive” when they have loving, kind families. If you believe that is the case then, as the OP stated, please provide the specific examples where adult children of parents who have provided them with wonderful childhoods, weren’t neglected or abused and instead had warm, loving, supportive, kind and respectful treatment from their parents suddenly ceased all contact with their parents.

I have never come across a single such case personally, but of course such a case may exist. Perhaps you will enlighten us with a story of one… preferably a tale of something that actually happened.

I’m afraid it isn’t remotely believable that one day a child who had an idyllic childhood just woke up with their alarm clock at 7am and “lost all empathy” and decided “I know what I’ll do today, I’ll cut off my relationship with my parents forever! That’ll be fun!”, suddenly made allegedly “sweeping judgements” out of nowhere (ironic, from someone making generalised comments and yet refusing to provide the specifics of the situation to which they are referring, but quite happy to imply that it must be some failing on the part of the children and the parent <cough - you> is allegedly blameless - precisely what the OP was referring to in her original post).

How can anybody “look at the reasons why” when you refuse to discuss them and prefer to insinuate that your child is to blame and, what? Woke up one day and decided it would be a laugh to cut off contact with their supposedly loving family for no reason?

If you actually have any explanation then you could respond to the OP’s post properly and tell us what it is. Or, true to form for all such parents I’ve ever encountered, you could continue to pretend you are the victim and attempt to blame your child, their therapist, their partner or the moon and assert that you weren’t a bad parent at all (while putting the word “bad” in inverted commas, of course).

It’s not “complex” at all. It’s very transparent.

It would be interesting to hear your definitions of “good” and “bad” parenting. But I bet we won’t hear those, either.

Hilarious.

Has it occurred to you that it might be YOU that is projecting here?

Classic gaslighting.

The reasons for your situation become more evident with each post.

Nope. He was young when he cut me off.
im not going into details and I didn’t mean the bar was low.
I’ve accepted my failings. I accept I let him down.
I would do anything to it right.
I can blame others. I can deflect but I hold my hands up to not being the best parent I could have been.
as for whoever questioned about my other children. Nope they won’t go the same route. We are very close.

So what did you do that made him cut off contact?

What were these “failings”?

When did you become aware of them and how long did it take you to rectify them after that?

Did he have to raise the topic with you or did you address it with him and apologise as soon as you were aware that you were failing him and become a better parent, or did you carry on as you were and pretend everything was fiiiinnneee and wait for him to raise it with you?

What did you say to him when it was clear how much you’d hurt him? What did you do to make amends to him?

Or did you just wait until it was too late to do so?

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

Yes I do, she’s in a coercively controlling relationship. She cut the whole family off. We jumped through her partners hoops for years, said nothing, lavished kindness on them both and put up with very hurtful and disgusting behaviour from them both for a very long time. Her brother challenged him and the next day we were blocked from everything, Watsapp, text, social media…. We can only hope that one day she wakes up and realises what’s happening to her.

I’m not answering all that. It’s private and personal.

I'm nc with my whole family

My mother is a narcissist and the whole family defend her and her actions

I was the scapegoat and growing up I had my grandad-he was my rock

My rock crumbled when he died and my mother really went full throttle-everything was my fault and his death was funny apparently

Golden child brother tried to kill himself-my fault
Same brother was hit by a bus-my fault
Somebody stole money-it was me (even though I was 100 miles away at the time)
Her car broke down-my fault
She lost her job-my fault
My brother is a drug addict-my fault
My sister in law lost a baby to miscarriage-my fault

The list goes on

I'd always known she didnt love me and I didnt love her

She threw me out as soon as the child benefit ran out (claims she didnt) and I spent a period homeless

She thought it was funny and told everyone that she'd offered for me to stay at hers,but I refused (bullshit)

She also took the side of my ex who was an abusive arsehole and if anyone did anything wrong to me,I must have done something to make them do it

It all came to a head over a phone bill and I snapped

I was done trying to gain her love when there was nothing there

She went nuclear-the smear campaign started and she turned everyone i loved against me

I have rebuilt my life and she still tries to gain control (the latest one is to try and ban me from my hometown) and is trying to contact dp and his family to 'tell the truth'

Shes best ignored-i honestly didnt think she could be so evil but she is

Ill never know why I was the black sheep but going nc was the best thing I ever did

Having seen this dynamic a few times it is nearly always where the parent believes because they are the parent they dictate the child’s reality. It’s an immature attitude by the parent that allows all sorts of other poor behaviour towards the
child which is then supposed to be forgotten by the child or forgiven.

This sort of person doesn’t understand the responsibility of parenting; children are little recording machines, they note every thing you do. They won’t forgive you on a word or command.

The parent goes on about the child having being influenced or being deluded or whatever. As if this outcome is nothing to do with them. It’s everything to do with them

I mean perhaps for the minority, but the vast majority of people want loving, stable, warm, mutually respectful relationships in general and especially with parents. I’m not saying that’s the case in 100% of NC situations and the blame is always with the parent, but I definitely think the parents behaviour creates the NC is the vast majority of situations

My mother recently sent me a hate letter after 8 years NC. It was eye opening. She is delusional - I wouldn't be surprised if she has schizophrenia or bipolar at the very least some kind of personality disorder. Letter went straight in the bin. There is no point engaging because I am and always have been the bad guy. I don't blame her, I think she's ill, either that or for the last 8+ years she has been lying to herself to the point where she now believes her own lies. 🤷

That works the other way too. Receiving hate mail from a much loved child .