How hideous is going no contact?

[NumptyNameChange]

not sure how much to write but after my sister had a hissy fit over nothing and threw me and my son out of her house in the rain without our coats (and with my keys in my coat pocket) in front of her own children (her daughter was really upset by it all) i have refused to go 'back to normal' re: forget anything ever happened yet again.

as a result i've ceased to be invited to family gatherings for over a month and no one wished me luck for an interview or asked how it went and basically i'm being punished for not playing the game/the role/etc that i am meant to.

another posters thread on here has really brought the dysfunctional dynamics of my family to life for me - they were anyway but you know how when you read it in someone else's life it's so much clearer?

anyway my role was always scapegoat and whipping boy (i'm female btw). no matter what successes i have it won't change a thing. things going well or that in any way disprove the role i've been assigned are just ignored.

i have never in my life been asked by my mother how i am or how things are going. i've never had an apology even when she has been absolutely monstrous. i'm pretty sure she is a narcissist - ticks all the boxes etc.

i have built pretty good boundaries over the years and laughingly refer to my teflon coating that lets the abuse slide off but i find myself wondering why on earth i put up with it at all or allow these people who are so keen to destroy me in my life.

could say lots more but not sure if i'll regret putting this out there. my parents are due to go away for a long spell soon, i haven't seen them for about a month despite living close by and i would actually rather not see them before they go away and rather not have my son go there as at the minute it feels really important to me for us to be together and not polluted by all the extended family madness. i suspect the pressure will come on soon or the 'you're such a bad person' trip.

i massively miss my sister's children but i no longer feel i can put up with all the shit i have to take to be in their lives. i'm tired of being painted as someone i genuinely don't even recognise and never did even as a child and having motives and intentions and actions attributed to me that bear no relation to reality. i'm sick of the crazy making of people behaving monstrously and then just lying or pretending it never happened or that i'm the crazy one and it was all my fault somehow. i'm also sick of allowing my son to be around people who don't have the most basic respect for me.

not sure what the point of this post is - maybe just to put it out there.

"part of me feels i'll have to let them back into our lives to one degree or another for the children's sake and pragmatism"

No ,no and no again because that will be a decision you will certainly come to regret. Sod societal convention as well, not all families by any means are nice and kind.

Your children I daresay get nothing at all positive from such people; your job is to protect them from such malign influences.

If your relatives are too difficult or toxic for you to deal with they are certainly FAR too toxic for your vulnerable and defenceless children.

Many adult children of toxic parents feel torn between their parents’ (and society’s) expectation that grandparents will have access to their grandkids, and their own unfortunate first hand knowledge that their parents are emotionally/physically/sexually abusive, or just plain too difficult to have any kind of healthy relationship with.

The children’s parents may allow the grandparents to begin a relationship with their children, hoping that things will be different this time, that their parents have really changed, and that their children will be emotionally and physically safer than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, because most abusive people have mental disorders of one kind or another, and many of these disorders are lifelong and not highly treatable. (Others are lifelong and treatable; however, many people never seek the necessary help.)

The well-intentioned parent ends up feeling mortified for having done more harm than good by hoping things would somehow be different — instead of having a child who simply never knew their grandparents and who was never mistreated, they have an abused child who is now also being torn apart by the grief involved in having to sever a lifelong relationship with the unhealthy people they are very attached to.

(More Here: lightshouse.org/lights-blog/toxic-bad-abusive-grandparents#ixzz2mFTITgHQ)

I honestly agree it is better for your dc to not see you treated that way than them having a relationship with their cousins especially when the cousins will have been fed unpleasant comments about you that are bound to slip out at some point.

NNC,i am two years down the line from going no contact and even though i have had to accept some hard things such as losing nieces and nephews,and being alone in the world except for DH and DC,there is no way in hell i would ever go back to contact.

It takes a long time to feel at peace with the decision but the benefits for your own mental health and well being far outweigh any of the negative aspects.

I have really come out of my shell and become a stronger,more confident person who has actually started to make new friends and get more out of life without all that crap on my shoulders.

Go with your gut if it feels right and natural then that's the right path.Not what the rest of society thinks.

it's about what is best for my niece and nephews too though.

to be fair they've never been abusive to him directly and are much bette the way they treat him directly that could justify them not seeing him. it's way more about me and i know that in reality how they effect me effects him too. but to be honest and transparent they absolutely do not abuse him. i don't get to dress up my decisions and choices on this path as 'for the sake of ds'. it would be infinitely easier if i could as if they mistreated him i wouldn't give it a second thought.

it's possible i guess that my sister's latest overture is about the fact that the parents will be home in the next day or two and/or that they've been away and she's been a bit family starved. who knows.

i know my parents will have brought us things back that they'll have to deliver, plus the whole haven't seen ds for over a month business. that's soon to come. no clue as to how to handle it all currently.

my phone contract closes on the 15th because i cancelled it so as not to deal with the texts - i'm picking up a sim card tomorrow for a simple pay as you go service and am not planning to give my number to family. genuinely a bit lost as to what to do. must admit part of me is feeling like maybe i've overreacted or am being too harsh. obviously another part of me is very clear that that isn't the case and these people are seriously fucked up and i've every right to not want them around me.

random thought but i suspect it would be easier if they were sweary, drug taking, violence inclined monsters. society is more than happy to support you getting away from nasty 'common' stereotypically abusive roots but rather more standoffish if they pay their bills, wear clean clothes and don't smoke or go to pubs.

a chunk of my post got deleted and the second paragraph doesn't make sense sorry.

Oh I agree when behaviour is subtle/invisible to others it is very difficult for others to understand.

Even though they are not directly abusive to your ds he will pick up that they are unkind about/to you. Those little comments that are made etc.

But Numpty your first responsibility is to your own children, not to your nieces and nephews. They have their own parents. It doesn't matter that they don't mistreat your DS, because they mistreat you. Your DS will notice, he will ask questions and he will be influenced. He deserves better.

You've said yourself you are the family scapegoat - is that really what you want your DS to see?

There are some posters on MN whose dc have turned against them in their teen years enabled & encouraged by toxic family members.

My toxic relatives most certainly made a sterling effort at turning my teenage son against me.Luckily he didn't get sucked in but it's awful watching your child being manipulated by these poisonous idiots.

Your immediate family, protecting them body and mind comes first. Direct abuse is one thing; indirect abuse can be and often is just as bad. You can't gloss over it.

Yep. My Grandmother sat me down to gently explain that my mother was an evil bitch who was incapable of love. That was a great moment in my life.

Numpty your post could have been written by me. I have been piggy in the middle for decades with my mother moaning to me about my sister and vice versa and me trying to keep some sort of peace between them.

Now the two of them are as thick as thieves and I am excluded.

I feel like telling them both to piss of and spend time with my lovely DCs and OH.

I'm sorry on your behalf that you are going through the same shit that I am, but glad to hear of someone else in a similar situation

lookingthrough that's awful! how old were you and what did you do? did she really think she was going to convince you?

i've had no reply from my sister to my text and i don't regret sending it as it was honest and healthy i think.

think i'm starting to feel stressed knowing the calm of parents being away for the month is about to end and christmas is approaching. storms ahead. don't know what to do for the best.

am thinking it may be best to facilitate them seeing ds and giving their presents on my terms - re: set a day where they can come over here for an hour or so with other plans to ensure it doesn't drag on. i don't know at the minute.

"it's about what is best for my niece and nephews too though".
No its not and it never has been actually.

Your mother and sister (also narcissistic in terms of personality) trained you well didn't they to put your own self last and that is evident still. It is also not possible to have any sort of relationship with narcissists if indeed that is what they are.

"am thinking it may be best to facilitate them seeing ds and giving their presents on my terms - re: set a day where they can come over here for an hour or so with other plans to ensure it doesn't drag on"

No numpty!. Why subject both him and you to them at all let alone 60 minutes of their rubbish. They see you as a right mug and treat you with contempt. Again this is putting them first over your interests. You do not have to facilitate bloody anything; doing that just keeps you in the scapegoat role that they have made for you to be in.

You can break away from them. You need to rid yourself of the fantasy that one day these two will come good as mother and sister and behave decently towards you. They will not change and you need to completely disengage from them.

i know they won't change and behave decently towards me. i don't have that fantasy anymore honestly.

but yes to the children seeming more important than me. it feels incredibly selfish and awful of me to tell ds he can't see his grandparents or his cousins. any attempt to say it's for his own sake or good reasons just feels hollow and like i'm dressing it up conveniently. it doesn't sit right. he'll want to see them, he'll want his christmas presents as awful and small as that seems to us - he's 6. part of me feels like i just have to do what it takes to get through the christmas thing without it all kicking off and being traumatic for him.

they'd still know things are not going back to normal. i'm arranging childcare so they won't be having him after school once a week as they used to, i'm changing my phone number and i won't be going to any family functions and if they're turning up here i'll have to deal with that head on.

i don't know. it sounds simple going no contact but with children in the picture and everyone living so close together it's really not that simple.

It is not selfish to protect your child/ren from such a malign influence on their lives. What do your children actually get from having any sort of relationship with such people?. It is NOT possible to have any sort of a relationship with a narcissist. Your mother has not fundamentally changed. You would not put up with any of this treatment from a friend, family I put it to you are no different.

You were and remained trained by these people to put everyone else ahead of you.

A percentage of the general population is dysfunctional and/or abusive. That percentage, like everyone else, has children. Then those children grow and have children of their own. The not-so-loving grandparents expect to have a relationship with their grandchildren. The only problem is, they’re not good grandparents.

Many adult children of toxic parents feel torn between their parents’ (and society’s) expectation that grandparents will have access to their grandkids, and their own unfortunate firsthand knowledge that their parents are emotionally/physically/sexually abusive, or just plain too difficult to have any kind of healthy relationship with.

The children’s parents may allow the grandparents to begin a relationship with their children, hoping that things will be different this time, that their parents have really changed, and that their children will be emotionally and physically safer than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, because most abusive people have mental disorders of one kind or another, and many of these disorders are lifelong and not highly treatable. (Others are lifelong and treatable; however, many people never seek the necessary help.)

The well-intentioned parent ends up feeling mortified for having done more harm than good by hoping things would somehow be different — instead of having a child who simply never knew their grandparents and who was never mistreated, they have an abused child who is now also being torn apart by the grief involved in having to sever a lifelong relationship with the unhealthy people they are very attached to.
.

(More Here: lightshouse.org/lights-blog/toxic-bad-abusive-grandparents#ixzz2mJEPjm6o)

how old were you and what did you do? did she really think she was going to convince you?

I was quite old, 14 or so, I think. I cried, at which time spineless grandfather told grandma to stop.

any attempt to say it's for his own sake or good reasons just feels hollow and like i'm dressing it up conveniently.

Have you read any of the books on narc parents? I really think you should. You need to see how the attitude permeates through the entire family, down to the children. It's awful, knowing how upset and manipulated your parents are. It's awful knowing how badly treated they are.

If you do choose to stay in contact, you need to be very clear to yourself about what sort of behaviour you will tolerate, for both you and your son. If you sister is nasty about you in front of your son, you need to take ownership of that action and resolve it clearly. You need him to see that you are capable of standing up for yourself, and it is not acceptable to behave towards you in that way.

I'm semi-NC with my father. He lives two streets away with his girlfriend. He does not visit, and I don't visit him, I don't call him ever. He only has my mobile number so that I can decide whether or not to answer to him. I will not do as he requests in relation to meals, visiting Evil Grandma and so on. Basically, if I see him in the street, I will respond to him as I might respond to a gardener, not as normal people respond to their fathers. I've disassociated him from that role, which gives him less opportunity to hurt me.

He knows no private information about me or the children. He will absolutely, point blank NEVER be alone with my children, ever. This is essential. You need to be there so that you can manage anything that they might say.

I'm quite fortunate because he's not interested really. He doesn't go out of his way to talk to me, so it's easy to keep him at arm's length, though there were a few weeks in the summer when he asked all my siblings and my husband to ask me to go to see Grandma. I did not, and he's temporarily taken that as an answer.

So I kind of wanted to say, it is possible to dial the relationship down without necessarily insisting on N/C. Just decline all invites without giving a reason, and choose not to share with them about job interviews or holidays or what DS is doing at school, and never let them have access to DS without being there to manage it. But you do have to be constantly alert to it, and if you don't have the energy, then N/C might be the answer.

Finally, at 6, he is old enough to understand on a child's level about what is happening. My children know we don't see Grandpa or Granny Fog because they were unkind to Mummy, and we don't tolerate unkindness, ever. They've never questioned it, because the never be unkind thing is emblazoned on their consciences. It's reasonable, in a situation where you have to remove DS from them, to simply say 'no, they were being unkind and hurting Mummy, and we won't let people do that.'

That's awful Numpty and lookingthrough...makes all my in-laws' crappy behaviour pale into insignificance somewhat.
I can't really add much to the brilliant advice so far, except to say this: it struck a chord with me when you mentioned that your sister threw you both out, then texted you the invitation as if nothing had happened.
This is so typical of people who are so due to behaving badly towards others, that they no longer see they are doing it.
Nastiness, jibes, outright rudeness become the norm and sadly the recipient of this abusive behaviour can often feel that they must have done something to deserve it.
My MIL is similar.
Evil bitch.

Sorry, this is not my thread, but your dad not asking how your interview went reminded me of the following.

When DD was 10 months old, she was hospitalised with sceptisemia. It was touch and go for a day, before the antibiotics started working and she was out of immediate danger. She was ill for a lot longer, months, in fact, culminating in mastoiditis, which ended up with an emergency op to remove her mastoid complex (that soft bit of skull behind your ear).

Dad was informed by Mum on the first day. He shrugged it off in a 'keep me updated' kind of way. She told him what was happening at each stage along the way. He never called me, he didn't visit her in hospital, he didn't contact me to find out how she was or how I was.

It was hard and hideous, and was a horrible end to an awful year.

About six months later, I was off work when he happened to come around doing to sort his bit of garden out (I'd given him a section of mine to grow his vegetables - I used to be a good daughter!). I explained I was off with depression and stress.

'What have you got to be depressed about?' he asked.

I explained about Claudia's illness. Oh, he hadn't realised it was that bad. His 10 month old granddaughter was in hospital twice, fighting for her life, having emergency ops, all of which he'd been told about. But it wasn't that bad in his eyes. It's the sort of thing that happens, and you just have to get over it.

Fast forward to two years ago. He had had a long term ear infection, which ended up with him needing to go into hospital to have some investigations done. He came around to explain to me how dangerous this all was. He might have something called mastoiditis, and he was very worried - it might end up with him having sceptisemia and dying. The doctors were hopeful in his case, but he wanted me to be prepared for the worst.

I remember it was at that exact moment that I realised I hated him. The self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed fuckwit of a man. All of the stuff from my youth - the beatings, the manipulation, the control, the feeling that I was owned wholesale by my father, all of this paled into insignificance when I realised he honestly thought he was more important to me than my child.

The areshole didn't even know her name for the first 12 weeks of her life. He kept calling her by something that was vaguely similar to a name on the shortlist that we hadn't even chosen.

And still, he wants the photos to show off to his friends and to put in his album. Even though he genuinely doesn't give a shit about either of them.

Anyhow - like I say, this isn't my thread, and I don't really have the right to put this here. I think, my question to you would be; knowing all that, do you think I should encourage a relationship with this man for the sake of my children? Or do you think I should protect them from the biggest bully in my life?

what i really need is to move away and it would be so much easier to just organically erase them from our lives.

medium to long term that is gonna be the plan and ideally far away - i'm thinking ireland maybe if i can find a vacancy next year. i have a good friend there who is also a single mum and we could help each other out and stuff.

sounds a bit fantasy-ish i know.

it's damage limitation and do the best i can for now what with being so close in proximity. i think realistically NO contact is going to be impossible but extremely low contact will not be. i shan't be accepting any invitations for example or sharing my private business with them in any way and they are not having ds anymore and will have zero contact with the school because they won't be picking him up once a week and so will cease to stick their noses into that anymore.

i need to think it through and think of short term, medium and long term plans itms.

I think OP only you know what is best for you & your child. In your situation it would be almost impossible to cut contact completely but what you can do is make sure it is done on your terms. Take control back from them. The first thing I would do is make sure your sister apologises to you for her appalling behaviour to you & your child when she threw you out. No negotiations, just an outright apology, nothing less is acceptable and then they will all start getting the message.

Numpty it isn't a fantasy. I am very close to people who have done this - moved to be in villages with friends who can actually help them, away from family who are useless. It isn't a total solution but it can happen. It might take time to happen, but YOU are in charge of your life.

And Looking it all seems so clear when you say it like that - 'They were unkind and we don't allow people to be unkind to us.' My husband, children and I all have a tendency to be doormats, and that suddenly seems a really clear way to address it. Thank you.

Oh, and Numpty it doesn't have to be explained to your son in a dramatic way. You can, if you want, just fudge it for a while til you can move. Just say things like, 'Oh, I'm sure we'll see them around.' or 'Yes, we haven't seen them in a while, have we? Do you want to go to the cinema at the weekend?' or whatever. At some point you will probably need to have a conversation but it doesn't have to be right while you are in the middle of it, I don't think.

thank you.

Numpty I have learned how friends are far more important than so-called family ie people you just happen to be related to through no fault of your own.

I am fed up of all the lies and broken promises and realised today that I will have minimal contact.

I have great friends and workmates, a lovely OH and 2 super DCs - as far as I'm concerned my mother and sister can sod off - I can then enjoy my life without the constant backstabbing and rubbish that went on before.

Good luck with your situation