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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

NC

5 replies

TurnUpTurnip · 18/11/2021 11:47

Why is it that when you cut contact with someone they wont accept it? If someone didn’t want to talk to me again I would leave it. Has anyone gone NC with someone and the person won’t accept it and has made several attempts to continue to contact them?

OP posts:
EmergencyHydrangea · 18/11/2021 12:15

Because they don't care about what you want. My parents still intermittently send me birthday and Christmas cards after 13 years of non contact.

TurnUpTurnip · 18/11/2021 12:24

Wow 13 years and still sending! This persons has sent Xmas and birthday gifts for my children for the last 2 years we haven’t spoken, I was hoping they would get bored, I don’t give them to my children. It’s true they don’t care, I just can’t imagine trying to keep talking to someone who wanted nothing to do with me.

OP posts:
HoundofHades · 18/11/2021 12:44

Have you told them why you don't want contact anymore, @TurnUpTurnip? Often, people who go NC - and they're quite entitled to, for even the most spurious of reasons - simply stop communicating/"vanish". And the other party is confused, doesn't understand that the problem is them/their behaviour(s)... so they continue to try to communicate.

My maternal grandmother, aunt and two uncles went total NC with my mother a few years ago - and she didn't understand that it was because of her behaviour towards them/their families. She pressed for contact with them, citing her mother's age (she's in her 90s, but totally "with it") and alleging kidnapping. It took the police telling her, after she'd asked for a welfare check to be carried out, that they didn't want contact anymore before she'd drop it. Why? Because they're all still in contact with me/my children. That it's my mother's behaviour and attitudes at fault never occurred to her - despite my being very LC and my two brothers NC with her for the same reasons her mother and siblings cite. She simply cannot understand that she is at fault, even when it's spelled out to her in simple terms, but the communication "we're NC with you, for these reasons, please respect our decision" worked. Well... for now. I fully expect my mother to start trying again when my grandmother dies... if she's even informed. I know I'll be told, as will my brothers, but wonder if my grandmother's oldest child will be.

If this is a parent, or inlaw, OP, then the gifts for your children may even be their trying to "be the better person". Any issue is with you, not their grandchildren, if you see what I mean. Which is ludicrous because you're the parent and right now, it's up to you whose gifts they receive. But if you haven't already communicated the "why" to them, maybe it's time to?

Flowers
TurnUpTurnip · 18/11/2021 12:58

Oh yes they definitely know why

OP posts:
HoundofHades · 18/11/2021 13:26

@TurnUpTurnip

Oh yes they definitely know why
Then I'd say it's about control of the situation - and an attempt to present themselves as the "better" person, perhaps even thinking they have a wider audience in so doing, For example, you complain to "Aunty Jane" that "Nanna Peg" has sent your child a birthday gift, even though you've gone NC with her... "Aunty Jane" then says to "Cousin Nicole" about it, both conclude that "Nanna Peg" is being kind enough not to forget the grandchild/show them she still loves them despite "Mama Turnip" having severed all contact.

My mother persisted in sending my oldest nephew birthday cards for years for exactly the reason above. When I asked her why, she said "because I don't want other people to look at me like I'm the one at fault". Except, she was the one at fault. My brother went NC with her because she threatened to flush his then-toddler son's head down the toilet when he was misbehaving one day. Which might sound ridiculous to some - but she literally washed this brother's mouth out with carbolic soap and water when he was 6 years old for telling her to "bugger off and leave [him] alone". My brother knew she was capable of doing what she threatened to his small son. He and his family immediately cut contact - but she still sent cards, so that "other people" would view her as being rational/favourable/what-the-fuck-ever. These "other people" all knew she was batshit and abusive. I suspect that whoever you've gone NC with is looked at much the same way.

My then-SIL burnt anything my mother sent to my oldest nephew, incidentally... but my mother undoubtedly still thinks he has them squirrelled away somewhere as treasured mementos of her. Truth is, he's in his 30s now and has no memories of her whatsoever. Because his parents protected him from her batshittery abuse.

Stick to your guns, @TurnUpTurnip. Flowers

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