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?

Some of these posts are tragic. Children rarely forgive parents for repeated trauma. It would mean they never have a life of their own. Apologies aren’t going to cut it.

That's a absolute insane take on what the poster said. You really need to stop this.

Well actually I thought the bit that suggested a personality disorder was pretty revealing from a parent who says there is NC. You want to be careful around people like that, imo

I really think you are being particularly cruel to other posters.
Although I do not condone abuse - In any form. As a child that was abused.
You are taking your anger from your own situation out on complete strangers, Strangers that yes maybe aren't handling things the way you would like them to or have varying opinions to yourself.
I think it's really rich that you are high and mighty re abusive behavior but you are abusing people on here.
If you're not currently in therapy might I suggest that you do some more healing.

Victimhood?

Ok, if you say so.

Actually, my children have a very nice life. We live in a 5 bedroom detached house in a very nice place, they have private medical care, regular holidays, a large garden to play in, nannies to care for them all of the time that I am at work and they are not at school. They are loved and adored and told so every day, hugged and given unconditional love and support and we have a very happy life thank you.

I have nothing to be “bitter” about. My awful childhood has been laid to rest, which I could finally do at the time I cut off contact with my mother. Life has been immeasurably better ever since I did.

That does not, however, mean that I’ll stand by and watch other similar “parents” trying to justify their own abhorrent behaviour towards their children and pretend they “don’t know why” their children no longer wish to speak to them or gaslight and victim blame them for the situation, a pattern repeated so frequently that many, many posters on this thread have noted it and - ironically - many of these self-righteous parents have displayed in all its “glory” for us all to see, proving the case.

That’s not “bitterness”, that’s reality.

It certainly does make me angry though, you’re right about that. So angry for the young adults who are still trying to find their way out of these toxic situation and being gaslit and victim blamed, and so furious and sad for the thousands of children who are still living with such parents and totally dependent upon them, desperate to be loved when that will never be forthcoming, and are too young to have any option to leave so will be forced to endure the torture for many more years. That does make me very angry, indeed.

The adult ‘child’ of an elderly mother here. I have not spoken to her in nearly a year. I will not attend her funeral, although it’s unlikely that I will find out if/when she dies. I have come to terms with this. I have realised that my mother never liked me and sought to cause harm to me whenever she could. I am a single adoptive parent and my DD1, who turns 18 next week, is violent, aggressive and extremely verbally abusive. She has caused me physical injuries. It was only when she made a significant false allegation against me, that saw me arrested by six officers and detained in custody for 21 hours in a police cell, that I pushed for my AD to be accommodated back in care. My mother, housebound, immobile and on multiple medications for multiple health conditions, plus being 80, stopped my daughter going into care where she could have received some much-needed therapeutic support. Instead, AD1, a teenager, was housed with my mother, who cannot walk, until, after six weeks, when it all went spectacularly tits up and my mother (hate to call her that now) was diagnosed with stress-induced psychosis, due the pressures of managing my AD1’s extreme and antisocial behaviours.

My mother threw me under a bus. I will never forgive her. It’s taken me five decades to realise that she just doesn’t like me.

No, not quite.

Thank you though, for your concern.

I just cannot stand to listen to the delusional nonsense from such people anymore. It’s so transparent, and yet they seem to think nobody sees through it. But many of us do and so it is rightly called out every single time. The whole “woe is me” act when you’ve utterly failed your children and then attempting to blame them for it, it really is quite pathetic.

I haven’t abused anybody, I may have been blunt but clearly that’s necessary when attempting to “discuss” these issues with people who are so deliberately obtuse that they claim not to know why their own children aren’t speaking to them anymore.

My anger for my own situation is long gone. I’ve moved on. You’ll see from my early posts that they were quite unemotional given the subject matter. Will I be angry when I read about people currently doing this to young adults or children now? Yes of course I will, as would anybody of good conscience.

have been convinced by poor therapists that their parents have been abusive.

It's far, far more likely that it's only in the safe space of the therapy room that the child realises for the first time that they have been abused.

Spare us all from “poor therapists”. This too is the call of the immature parent who does not want their actions considered in any way by any other adult. Red flag

In what way do you believe that you gave your children “too much”?

Your children clearly don’t think agree.

👏👏👏

How could anyone not know why their own child has gone NC? It just shows them to have learnt nothing about taking accountability.

My mum chooses to put it on me (‘you aren’t interested in seeing me’, ‘you are still mad at me’) rather than looking at her own behaviour (tantrums, burning documentation, hate campaigns against other family members, lies, seeing me as competition and basically trying to turn family members against me - subtly though, little breadcrumbs and ‘innocent’ comments so I look bad and she looks good. I can’t go into more detail without it being outing but she’s caused some incredibly serious fall outs for me with ‘innocent’ comments that have no truth to them. This includes starting an argument with me in private while I was having a miscarriage, then crying in public for relatives to see because I had supposedly upset her during that incident) and how it impacts me. She lives in another country so she doesn’t have to live with the consequences of her actions - I do though.

She would say she doesn’t know why I don’t want anything to do with her, that I’m difficult.

If my EC child would communicate with me i would take accountability for any failings.
I have tried to communicate with them, but with no success.

And if you did apologise and take full accountability and they said thank you i appreciate that but the hurt goes too deep and im afraid i still don’t want you in my life as im afraid this will just happen again (based on what’s happened in the past) - would you accept that from them? Honestly?

Like anything else in life there can be very valid reasons and also some very tenuous ones.

I went NC with my father, although it was kind of a bit of him not being interested either. He wasn’t a good father, neglectful and he had very little interest in the day to day work of being a parent.

My DM worked hard to keep the home (he paid the mortgage and small amount of maintenance) but she also reacted very badly when he left. Even though he was awful in many ways she stuck the knife in over and over.

I couldn’t pull apart my relationship with her and him so I ended up drifting from him. He killed himself maybe 10 years later after his life spiralled.

I’ll never not feel guilty.

DM is hard work, not an easy person and we have a limited adult relationship as she struggles to see past herself , but I see her several times a week out of duty.

I’ve learned my lesson - sometimes you need to just confront hard feelings and get on with it. It’s something my generation and younger generations (I’m 50) seem to be losing.

^ This. And I say this as someone who has firsthand experience of going NC. @Accaron I wish you well, but taking out your anger on strangers in a forum isn't the right place to try and find peace.

Look after yourself and try and find a professional to speak to about your frustration.

There is a brilliant podcast on BBC Sounds now about a "therapist" who manipulated her clients to go NC with their loving parents. It's horrific.

I didn't have an abusive childhood though I do have a parent who is complicated and can be unsupportive sometimes, but is loving and kind too. When I had therapy (about something else), I did notice that whatever I spoke about, the therapist swung back to my parent and seemed to relish any negative thing I had to say about them. I don't think the therapist was deliberately manipulative- it's just that modern therapy works like that. When I tried to talk about the real root of my sadness (an abusive teacher), the therapist swung back to my parent again.

This is not to say that there aren't awful parents out there, and that they often pretend not to see the issues that have caused the child to go NC. I'm so sorry to hear of people's experiences on this thread.

i have a similar situation. I was not a perfect mother - undiagnosed adhd contributed in part, my own crap upbringing contributed in part, my own crap choices too. I accept absolutely the ways I let my DC down. I have reached out and apologised for everything I can think of where I failed, I sincerely wish I had been the mother this DC deserved, and have expressed that many times. The other DC and the DCs father, with whom both have a good relationship, have no idea why this child has been NC with me for 8 years.

but you get very little understanding on social media about this.

Yes I would accept that. Honestly I would. It would feel different to me than being cut off by an 18 year old, being able to have a conversation/exchange with the nearly 30 year old, being able to say my apologies to them rather than by text or letter, them knowing the sincerity of my grief at my failings to that child who I loved.

I wonder too if their life will be affected by them carrying this pain forever, how it may affect their ability to love others with flaws, to love themselves with their own flaws. I don’t want their life to be tarnished or blighted.

My mother’s version to others and her children is that she was a good mother and we abandoned her for our dad. Her children’s version is she was unstable and violent to the point that SS recommended no contact until 18 and we continued that afterwards as any attempt at reconciliation was eventually met with the same type of behaviour as before.

My father’s version is that our evil partners/friends manipulated us into thinking we are too good to speak to him as he’s poor and that he endured much worse as a child so we are just being soft. His children’s version is that he is a pedo that killed family pets, attacked us randomly and manipulated/isolated us from everyone else.

Both seem to genuinely believe their versions.

Hi all,
Thanks to all of those who took the time to report in with their concerns about this thread, we have made several deletions. We do understand that the OP's question provokes strong emotions, but we would ask everyone on this discussion thread to remember that their story is their story to tell should they wish to, and may bear no relation to that of others on the thread.
Peace and love, all.

@Accaron reminding you that I offered more information.

You don't really want to know unless it fits what you already believe.

You are dismissing the real-life experiences of others while taking part in a thread that explicitly asks for those experiences. In doing so, you’ve dismissed my own experience as well—despite the fact that I provided information and explicitly offered to answer any questions you had. You chose to ignore that offer.

Rather than engaging in good faith, you filter everything through a narrow, predetermined viewpoint and accept only what reinforces it. Anything that challenges your belief is brushed aside or disregarded.

This isn’t open discussion or genuine inquiry; it’s confirmation bias. By refusing to engage with lived experiences that don’t fit your narrative, you invalidate others and shut down meaningful conversation.

That kind of rigid, one-sided thinking isn’t just unhelpful—it’s dangerous.