Out of the blue contact

[CookieDoughKid]

Posted before but deleted to make this new post shorter.

Has anyone experienced non-contact with a family member for a very long number of years and then discovered he/she was on their death bed or died? How did you feel? Did you feel regretful? Do you wish you could have turned back time and tried again? Or was the issue in the first place non-resolvable that there was no resolution? Did you get to go to their funeral? Was you welcomed? Did you see this person one more time and did it help?

I'm asking because my dh has gone nc with his real dad and his dad keeps asking why. His dad does know the why. The issue is still there. Unresolvable. Dh said he would be regretful if he didn't speak to his dad next 30 years and he discovered his dad was dying or dead.

We are not sure what to think, it's just that we know for now - we are happy where we are (non-contact). Thank you.

Others will be along who have more direct experience with it Cookie, but it sounds to me as the dad keeps asking 'why' as a way to restablish contact & control your dh. By placing himself as the victim he hopes to make your DH guilty enough to resume contact.

If your DH has done what he can to resolve the issue but the ball is firmly in the dad's court & is therefore unresolvable then your DH should not feel bad about the NC. Even if his dad dies DH will know he did everything he could & ultimately the fault is not his. I think the 'one more time' thing is open to abuse & I've not heard of a relative like this suddenly giving in or surrendering & admitting fault, sorry.

I'm nc with my mum and have thought about this a lot. I thought I would more morn the fact that she will never now have an light bulb moment and become the mum I have always wanted.

But I know she never will and I morn that while she is a live as well. I think I will feel relief as well.

The main problem I have is that people don't understand why I have gone no contact. There is the whole 'you only have one mother' 'you should respect her' and so on. Now my husband cuts that conversation short with a quick 'Aussies mum a b*tch' it shuts that up quickly. It's not their fault, they have not had the horror of a parent deliberately setting out to hurt their children. But it hurts me to hear that and I don't feel I need to spend ages convincing them.

There are a few threads on here about people who have actually gone through this. Some are sad, some are relieved. But few regret going nc

My mother was mostly NC with my grandmother for many years (40+) and for very good reasons. They reconnected briefly when GM was in her nineties and DM also attended the funeral. As my (large, imposing) DB went with her to the funeral no-one dared give her a hard time. :) I'm sure she has regrets that she didn't have a better mother but I know DM's values and I know that 'doing the right thing' at the end was important for her. It's an individual thing.

CookieDoughKid - I saw your post last night and have been thinking about it ever since - but couldn't put any coherent thoughts together last night (and still can't, at the moment).

My dad died a few years ago, having spent the previous 50+ making my mum's life a misery (the usual stuff). I feel like I've spent most of my adult life in impotent rage about his behaviour.

Please don't delete the thread - I'll post again when I can get some thoughts in some kind of rational order....

As I said, my Dad spent 50+ years making my mum's life miserable - constant philandering and EA mostly.

Over the years I tried everything to try and make him change his behaviour, including various periods of NC. But it didn't really achieve anything.

I was going to tell the story of the events around his death but it was all really too horrible to recount right now, and not at all relevant to your situation.

It seems to me that there are 2 kinds of NC -

• One where person A goes NC with person B because of something that person B has said or done to person A.

• Or where person A goes NC with person B because of something that person B has said or done to person C.

This latter case seems to cover your DH's situation and mine, and it's difficult to see how it will achieve anything.

Your DH is NC with your FiL/his family because of the apalling way they treated you after the situation with his younger brother.

I think you should encourage your DH to resume contact with his father.

This doesn't imply any acceptance that their treatment of you was anything but grossly unreasonable, and doesn't alter the fact that - by any rational assessment - you were absolutely in the right. And he should say as much.

But overall, I think talking is better than not talking.

In your case, I think you've got a couple of things that will help -

• Deep down, your FiL and family know that you did the right thing. There's no way that they can't. Even though it was painful for them at the time, they know that the situation with your DH's li'l bro was always going to blow up sooner or later - and probably better to be addressed while he was a juvenile.

• It was a one-off situation, which recedes further into the past with each year (assuming that the authorities have still got the situation under control). As time goes by, the feelings of shame that upset them will fade, but the fundamental truth of the situation (that you did the right thing) stays the same.

If you're really talking about 30 years (i.e. your FiL is only in his fifties) then you needn't worry too much - you've (hopefully) got plenty of time.

But I wouldn't leave it until he's on his deathbed - that's stressful enough as it is.

"You're a long time dead" - as the saying goes...

I had this with my dad. He got back in contact the first time after a heart attack and it was all very bitter and nasty. I kept my distance for another few years until I found out he had cancer and only had a short time to live. We did reconcile for a few months before he died.

I do regret that I didn't have a better relationship with him as an adult (we were very very close when I was a child).

However unless both sides are prepared to forgive and forget it just won't work. And alot of the regrets I have would still be there even if we had been best friends. He missed my wedding and my DS due to cancer.

If I could have the time again I would have been more enthusiastic to mend ties earlier, but as I said it would have required my father to feel the same way.

Good luck, I hope you get it sorted so everyone is happy.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. Definitely food for thought. I don't know if there could be a peaceful coexistence of DH being back in touch with his dad and me on the sideline.Especially as his dad and family have no interest in reconciliation with me (no matter who's fault it is and not mine anyway. I just think there are some things that can't be reconciled.)

What kind of positive relationship can be had between dh and his father. I'm worried about dh handling of the situation where I am forced to stay at home, and dh takes himself and our kids to visit his dad and ultimately back into the home and perpetrator..where the very crime was committed? I'm not sure what kind of relationship that can be.

Ultimately I'm not sure what this is going to achieve. I can't see the bigger picture yet.

Not going to drip feed but for those that don't know my story, dh's brother committed two acts of crime one of which involved our 3yo DC. Dh's parents completely lost the plot and I got scapegoated and blamed cos I refused to be silenced (and no, I don't mean Facrbooking all to the internet).

I think all nc parties have to have a level of admission, forgiveness and enthusiasm to mend the ties. If dh's father is even questioning why the nc in the first place ...well then, we haven't even got past first base have we?? Its putting the blame on dh for going nc rather than admission or even acknowledgement or apology.

Maybe his dad has memory problems. Let's not rule that out either.

Is life as nc better than being IN- contact? Or should we stay in contact because they biologically produced us and thus, we feel we owe it to them?

Difficult. As I can't ever imagine a situation with our children like this.

Thank you FBxL5...will think more able what you've said.
Draw why do you think your dad never showed enthusiasm to mend? Was it selfishnes laziness??

I had sporadic contact with my father (every 1-2 years) he died around 20yrs ago but it was another 2yrs before I found out. Due to other issues within my family I struggled with it so ended up having bereavement counselling for a time which was massively helpful. I feel that I'm now a lot more objective about the capabilities and failings of both my parents, and I'm able to remember the good stuff as opposed to just the bad.

Hakky Are there any lessons learned here or do you think there was no other way as to how the sparodic period was handled??

If he's claiming not to know why you're NC then he is not accepting even a pinch of responsibility or understanding for what happened.

I don't believe that you want to put your children anywhere near that. Why not tell DH he can do whatever he likes but you and dc are off limits?

I totally agree with the poster up thread who said asking why is just feeling you in. Arguments are still contact.

*reeling

My mum was NC with my grandma for 10+ years. She had very valid reasons and nobody on either side wanted to make the first move to reconcile. My mother thought that it was her mums fault, and therefore she should apologise and make the first move. My grandma thought that it was my mother who went NC and as such, she should be the one to make the first move. It was fairly obvious that they both thought that they would, eventually, get back in contact with each other.

My grandma was then killed in a hit and run accident. She hadn't gotten ill, giving either of them time to mend the bridges. It was very sudden, my mum was legally my grandmas next of kin so the police informed her the day that it happened. That was nearly 5 years ago now and my mum is still trying to come to terms with how her relationship was with my grandma at the end of it. She has just been diagnosed with depression and started counselling, but there is every possibility that it could take another 5 years for her to start to heal. And that is primarily because she feels guilty that their relationship was so bad right at the end.

I think it's important to consider how your husband would feel if something happened suddenly, and he didn't have even 20 minutes to have a last conversation. My mother frequently used to say that if she ever found out her mother was ill she would go care for her, that she wouldn't want her in a nursing home and such things. That was her time limit on how long she would let things go. So when things happened so suddenly it caused a massive amount of problems.

I'm worried about dh handling of the situation where I am forced to stay at home, and dh takes himself and our kids to visit his dad and ultimately back into the home and perpetrator..where the very crime was committed?

Good grief No! I was only thinking of them talking on the phone, at least to start with.

But again, time helps you here - your DCs will grow up (sooner than you think!) and become less vulnerable.

In the meantime, I think some moderate, if awkward, contact would help protect your DH from the unexpected death scenario.

It looks like your FiL is still in denial. But to be absolutely honest - if I found out that one of my DCs had done something like that to one of my DGCs, I really don't know how I would cope with that.

I think that restoring some contact with his father would be good for your DH's well being in the long term, and maybe less so for the DCs ("why don't we see Grandpa X?"), but if it can't be done, it can't be done. Not everything in life can be fixed.

I'm sorry - it's all very difficult for you - but your 'safety first' approach has been right all along.

No direct experience, but once we go NC, then it should be definitive, in that it doesn't matter what happens to the person.
Why should things change if his dad was dying or died?

If he thinks he is being cruel in not being in contact with his dad before he dies, then he should be in some form of contact.
And if his dad was dying, what would he say? Forgive him? Say sorry? Just be there for him?

If he is that worried, then he should be in some form of regular contact while keeping his distance.

As an example, my grandmother is toxic, but she is 103 years old. We still support her and are in contact, but very much keep our emotional distance. My mother feels it is her duty to be there every day (she's in continued care), but that's a whole other story.

Thanks everyone for your input.. It's really interesting to read your perspectives. For my dh I think it's important he processes his perspectives now and be prepared for his father's death. Its a long long time away but I think it's healthy to reflect. I think for dh's peace of mine he will get in touch with his dad at some point. I don't think we will ever have or event want to have a friendship with the family cut off buy for peace of mind, I will want dh to do what he feels best. Which may be to send his respects and acknowledgement to his father when alive.

I went NC with my mother (and by association my father, although that was not my choice) and 6 months later she died of a heart attack. It was bloody hard in the short term, not least because I, and other relatives I later found out, thought she had killed herself, and because these other relatives were reeling from their own experiences of her utter dysfunctionality and what that meant for their own grief. It all made for a very weird situation in the months after her death and I only really understood what had been happening over a decade after her death.

Although it was horrible, at no point did I regret going NC. I still don't. As time went by I came to the conclusion that going NC was actually a good thing and her death did not change that. I am so thankful that she will never know my DD and that she will never be part of my life.

I do not wish her dead (although at times before I went NC I did). I feel compassion for her. But I have no regrets.

(Going NC was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done and I did it after a prolonged period of trying to get her to just meet me half way. She wouldn't or couldn't.)

cardamon it seems you are in a good leave now? You articulated well.

I went NC with my narc father.
My brother called me saying he was in hospital dying but yo be honest my father used to pretend to be dying a lot so I was kind of used to it!!!
I was also heavily pg and not very well.
I didn't go to see him or to the funeral and I have never regretted it even for a second.

I went nc and was contacted by a relative when this person was on their deathbed. I went , but only to support my my nice relative. I also went to the funeral , again for my nice relatives sake. Apart from bringing it back for a couple of weeks it really didn't affect me. I wouldn't do anything differently.

Does fil not acknowledge at all that what he did was wrong ?

FIL - he refuses to acknowledge wrong because his wife will leave him. Its really his wife that is the issue. She refuses to have anything to do with me because she wants to keep a lid on the whole sordid peodophile acts from her son to protect his welfare. And because I'm the victims mother, probably very powerful in her eyes, she and her family wants nothing to do with me. Tricky situation. That's why I think this is not solvable.

erm if he sexually abused your boy then there is no question that there is contact. No contact, ever, in any circs. Non-negotiable.

Sounds like your DH is getting reeled into the family poison re FOG: Fear Obligation Guilt.

imo toxic people rarely acknowledge they are toxic so it's a useless exercise to expect them to. I think sometimes we can have (very loose and distant) contact with a toxic relative IF we have good coping strategies in place (which takes professional training imo). But if paedophilia is in the mix then definitely no way. At all. Ever.