How do you cope when someone goes NC with you?

[Honeynutcheerios]

I was very very very close to my brother growing up. We had a fall-out a few years ago that I think was mutually hurtful/we were both to blame. I have reached out to him so, so many times and he has not responded once. I have never met his child, he has never met 2 of mine and is my eldest godfather and hasn’t seen him in years. I even apologised despite thinking it was both of us, I took the blame and still nothing back. I reached out to him once when my child was gravely ill, hoping for support and still nothing, which I find very hard to forhive. I am usually angry about it, rather than front up to how much it hurts, but today I saw him in the street (and he saw me, I was in the car) and it hurts. It’s like being dumped, but worse in many ways.

how do people cope with this? How can I square this away in my mind so it’s not that painful? I find it very hard to compartmentalise things and I can be quite emotionally obsessive, which doesn’t help

@Honeynutcheerios I just saw your message about the dysfunctional background.

I don't know if this will help or horrify you (hoping it'll help tho) but several years ago my older sister completely lost her shit with me and never did explain what I'd done. She called my husband a scrounger and accused my kids of being feral and me of being a golddigger.

She ignored me for two years. I was broken and grieving the sister I thought I had. My Mother didn't help and in retrospect, was enjoying watching me be victimised.

Roll on 5 years and I woke up to the fact that my Mother was horribly abusive and still hurting me. I went no contact along with one of my siblings. The previously nc sister made a big show of 'forgiving me' but not our other sister, for doing the same thing.

I am probably the one who is now nc with her because our dysfunctional background makes it impossible to salvage the love I thought we had. I also suspect she is a narc like our Mother.

My advice would be to hold your head high, focus on your husband and kids, believe you did nothing wrong.

I have let two of my siblings go but am very close to my younger siblings, which I'm truely grateful for.

Let your brother go. You don't need him to be happy. And maybe distance your Mother a bit, certainly don't let her make you feel bad.

It's just an idiom.

@Janedoe82 made it quite clear that NC is a totally acceptable response, if not the only one that works, to abuse. It says so in her link. Failure to keep calm in an argument is a mistake only someone rather petty would choose to go NC over.

fuchsteufelswild Thank you X

Fully agree

She’s made it clear now. It wasn’t in her post stating that everyone makes mistakes and only horrible people stay silent after apologies.

I am very well aware how damaging genuinely toxic and abusive relationships can be and do recognise that you do need to step away from people who are causing you harm.

It’s been cleared up we are all on the same page there is no need to keep berating her

I’m surprised by all the raw meat in the trials - how are people not somehow ingesting fluid from it and getting unwell? It’s not like there’s lots of soap

Wrong thread, sorry!

My sister apologised but that did not stop her continuing the same pattern of verbal abuse when people did not dance to her tune. Apologies are easy for some. Treating others with respect can be much harder.

I haven’t berated anyone.

defending myself against people having a pop yes. Berated anyone nope.

In lots of ways I would not want to speak to my brother again because he has hurt me so, so deeply. But on the other hand I would feel so childish and probably regret it if I had the chance to make up and didn’t. But is that unhealthy?

Not necessarily. It might be that you have considered long and hard, been through therapy (it it works for you, and it can be very painful), asked yourself some very hard questions and then looked at the pattern of your behaviour and looked at the pattern of his. Thought about the likely future patterns of behaviour.

You have the right and the power to 'detach with love' and to decide if you want contact, if that point ever came. Deciding you do or deciding you don't - neither is necessarily childish. I think it's far more adult to make a reasoned conscious decision one way or the other, than to be pushed into contact because you're afraid it might be childish to refuse.

The problems in your family go far deeper than him though, your mum and her favouring of him have a great deal to do with this probably. It seems as if she treats him as more important than you, and that's simply not just.

that properly made me chuckle. I was briefly (as I read it) wondering what was being described as raw meat 😂

@Honeynutcheerios Do you think that things would just go back to normal if he replied next time you tried to contact him?

Thank you so much for this post it’s absolutely fantastic and I’m going to save it

😆 yes I’m sorry, it’s in reference “I’m a celebrity”, not some sort of familial analogy or anything more sinister

@JennysMiddleFinger

i won’t contact him again but certainly what happened last time he went NC (over some absolutely absurd - he was complaining about his gf of 2 years saying she wouldn’t date him if he weren’t successful and I agreed with him it wasn’t nice so he didn’t speak to me for 18 months), he showed up at a family lunch wearing 2 halves of different outfits and saying he was “in two minds” as a comedy bit and then never mentioned it again. I think if there were a natural way for him to just start talking again eg the wedding then he would do and pretend nothing had happened.

i can’t do that this time. 3 years and 2 children, one of them so sick, I can’t pretend he hasn’t done this. Totally ignoring his godchild…it’s so fucked up

I think that's why I couldn't reconnect, I can't pretend the past didn't happen and make small talk like she can. I wouldn't want to rake up everything that's gone on but to just gloss over it doesn't work either. Sad situations all round I think.

Sorry to hear your little one is sick, I hope you can move forward and put him into a little box at the back of your head.