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?

Exactly this. My poor dad had a horrendous childhood, but he was impacting my children, so there was no option. I actually banned him from the house on the advice on my midwife after I had a high blood pressure incident at 6 months pregnant with DC2 when he had a heart attack while staying with us because he ignored all medical advice, wouldn’t take his medication and insisted on climbing four flights of stairs in a museum without using his prescribed 24 hour oxygen, three weeks after being discharged from hospital with a PE. That was a couple of years after he had a stroke over lunch with me when I was 8.5 months pregnant with DC1 because he’d decided (two months after two major brain haemorrhages) to run the length of Paddington station to catch a train when he could easily have waited for the next one. The paramedics that day were as worried about me as him. For him it was all about defying aging and proving to himself he could still do everything he could when he was young. His words when I asked him to slow down after the heart attack were “always pushing”. He never changed. Sometimes the only option is to preserve yourself.

Just a comment on estranged children “doing the work”

It doesn’t necessarily mean the outcome will be a desire to reconnect.

I was lucky. Forgiveness, when it came, was effortless. And, annoyingly enough, every bit as freeing as people had told me it would be.

But the 40 year old “black hole of pain” in my solar plexus remained. And I was so damn tired of carrying it 24/7.

So I “did the work”. Again, I was lucky, good match with the coach. It was fast and did not involve me having to pick at old scabs. The pain lifted and the gratitude I feel for the peace I acquired is felt every single day.

But all the work was to help me live better so I could let go of myself as the child in the equation. And focus entirely on being the parent, without the ghost of the broken girl I was lurking in the shadows all the time.

There was always the possibility that “doing the work” might open a path to reunification. But, for me, it did not. I need this peace like I need air. I can’t risk human fallibility (including my own) sending me back into the prison of pain I’d spent most of my life in. Not now I know what it’s like out in the sun.

I can’t risk any backward motion, not as a parent, not as the child I used to be.

Just like “Sorry!” doesn’t make a dead man alive, “doing the work” doesn’t magic a shiney new bridge in place of the one that got burned down.

That is so good that you were able to salvage something from it all. Becoming a parent yourself does absolutely change everything in my opinion, it seems to be such a common pattern that this is when the reality of things finally becomes clear to adult children who have grown up with parents like this, and this is when it usually becomes impossible for them to continue to tolerate the treatment from their own parents. Then the parents say this “came out of nowhere” or was because of one minor incident that was the last straw, deliberate refusal to see reality of decades of their own behaviour and the inevitable outcome of it. It is heartbreaking but entirely their responsibility and my wish is for all children who have lived through such awful experiences to stop blaming themselves.

The one thing I have learned from my relationship with both my parents is that God forbid if one or both of my DCs should come to me as an adult and tell me I got something wrong, I would open my heart and ask forgiveness without reservation, then seek to change my behaviour. That would have made all the difference from DF and is the reason I still have a relationship with DM. I would always choose my children over my pride.

One of the challenges on this is to understand what kind of behaviour does prompt NC; and in the cases I have seen it is nearly always things like;

use of alcohol around children
lack of basic care such a regular mealtimes
screaming or shouting at small children for having the needs of children
rigid discipline which the parent uses to regulate their own dysfunctional emotional state
boundary pushing as the child gets older to stop natural independence
use of family events to centre themselves and their need to be the centre of attention
punishing children for making mistakes which are basically normal behaviour
telling their children they are wrong, or have mental problems for disagreeing with their parents

If that is your childhood then having a parent who approaches you as an adult either denying or seeking forgiveness is to take you straight back into being a receptacle for their emotional dysfunction.

A healthy adult should say no. You get one life.

You just described my DM!

You and others on this thread appear not to believe people can change.

And you appear not to understand that “but I’ve changed” doesn’t entitle you to any sort of relationship with the person you hurt - and if you think it does, then you haven’t changed in the ways that really matter at all (not you personally, the hypothetical parent in this scenario).

im not saying I want them to “do the work” for ME, but for themselves, to get over the damage. If that means they stay NC with me, ok.

They may or may not. We shouldn’t pretend that after a childhood is gone and the child is grown is a good time to address difficult issues in ourselves. There is such a thing as being too late because of the short nature of childhood. The damage is done then. A change later doesn’t do much for the child.

Kale Queen, yes thats exactly what happened and ive sadly accepted their wishes.
That doesnt stop the hurt, sadness and how much i miss them

@Bonden i believe people can change. I’ve also seen that my parent didn’t change, wouldn’t change. I accepted so many apologies to then have exactly the same thing happen again. Eventually you are allowed to walk away. If she’s changed now, great for her, but I’m done.

Not evasive.

Not projecting my behaviour.

No personal attacks either, though I note you have had many posts deleted by MNHQ.

Textbook: denial, denial, denial. Then attempt to deflect

Very predictable, very tiresome, very transparent.

Exactly. Ironically, numerous posts on the thread by estranged parents are extremely revealing and have unintentionally answered the OP’s question very clearly, even though these parents remain oblivious to how their situation came about (or pretend that they are).

Absolutely not. I have nothing to deny or deflect. I shared our circumstances.

I wrote about our circumstances addressing the OP, sharing that we do know why our DC dropped contact rather than agreeing with ‘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’.

I challenged your view that lack of contact is nearly always to do with abuse and trauma.

You weren't happy with the level of detail, even though I had explained the circumstances. You continued to press for details of childhood trauma and abuse, even though I said there was none.

You are dismissing information that does not fit your narrative. Yet saying I am the one in denial. Shutting me down.

A friend I’ve known since age 7 has low contact with her parents and step parents. Over many years I heard from her about and directly witnessed just some of the awful things that led her to take and maintain the decisions. My friend’s siblings, including the ‘golden child’ took similar decisions.

My DM is a former friend of the parents and step parents. She chose to maintain contact with them as acquaintances, mainly to ‘look out for’ the (then DC, now adult) DC.

With people who don’t know them, the parents pretend they see their DC regularly and that all is well. With those who know about the situation, they express bafflement and self pity, as described upthread. In their case it’s either false or they are deluding themselves.

In my experience of this situation in my wider family and close friends, there is almost always wrong on both sides.

Or alternatively, a parent who just does absolutely nothing to try and repair the relationship at all and has often been a distant parent for a very long time so when the relationship dies nobody misses it because actually they'd hardly spoken in years.

In the dramatic flouncy 'I am going NC!' version, usually the parent has been a bit shit in some respects but also the child /person going NC is one of those people who does take absolutely everything as a super duper personal dig at them, sees a slight in almost every situation, and has their own issues going on which contribute to the situation.

A close relative is largely NC with a parent, it wasn't something that happened suddenly but the relationship simply wasn't nurtured for literally decades, so it wasn't a case of an active choice to 'go No Contact' they just realised after some years that was what had gradually happened. I think if the parent started getting touch and attempts were made to repair the relationship it might be possible, but the parent does not seem to have noticed to be honest.

My mother knows why but she tells everyone she doesn’t. Needless to say my extended family think I’m a horrible person.

I think you have got to be real about what causes NC. Mostly the lower end of it will be not active physical abuse but something like emotional or psychological abuse and neglect.

This treatment of children in our society is hidden from public view. Children do not understand it when they are children. But on reaching adulthood they begin to because they talk to other adults and realise that their childhood had not been “normal”. That is why it comes when it does. And sadly it is the only time when the adult child can do anything for themselves. It is also a horrific realisation that your parents may have treated you badly deliberately or not cared about you but put themselves first.

We live in a more emotionally literate time than 50 years ago, but the causes of people not seeing or having low contact are the same. The social shame of being a “thankless child” is diminished a bit. You can still see it here, the effort to shame, pathologise or blame the child as an adult. Their childhoods will have been similar. The “I don’t know what I did” is about a rejection of responsibility. That is the shame as when this person had active responsibility to a child that they did not meet. That is why no contact is inevitable.

“I challenged your view that lack of contact is nearly always to do with abuse and trauma.”

It’s not “my view”. There is robust academic research demonstrating that this is the case. What is your “challenge” to that research, other than continually tagging me in your rants when I’ve made it clear I’m not interested in interacting with you further.

”You are dismissing information that does not fit your narrative.”

How ironic.

So many of the posts on this thread demonstrate precisely the gaslighting behaviour which often leads to estrangement.

Why should the child care though, or take the risk, that you might have “changed” if a parent has wrecked their entire childhood and caused them lifelong harm?

Why should they risk subjecting their own children to similar by exposure to such a grandparent if they have, against all the odds, managed to build a decent life for themselves and their own children despite their parent causing them such immense harm?

Again, this perspective is entirely centring the parent’s preferences, wants and needs and shows a complete lack of any understanding of or concern for the impact on the child; a continuation of the precise behaviour which made the parent a terrible parent in the first place.

I think that there are times when NC is entirely justified but many more where I suspect both parties might be to blame. Relationships are complicated and people carry baggage with them and have different ways of dealing with things. I spent some time being very angry with my dm, she was a but domineering and can be difficult when she doesn't get her own way. I also had a lot of anxiety about upsetting her because she has a breakdown when I was a child for some very justifiable reasons, so I tiptoed around her and never felt I could say no.

Then one day, something happened and she had an epic tantrum. I snapped and stood my ground and told her she was in the wrong. I didn't apologise for the thing which wasn't my fault. The world didn't end and eventually she came and apologiesed to me. Slowly, the more I asserted my boundaries but also recognised her trauma related behaviours our relationship improved. I realised that my lack of boundaries and discomfort in saying no was as much of the problem as her overbearing ways. I think too often people entirely blame the other person with no reflection on how they are contributing as well.

I honestly really don’t think you were just as
much to blame here. I’m really sorry but the fact that you somehow feel you were is a testament to the damage her behaviour has had ❤️