LC - how to find a graceful excuse?

[nc121525]

I went LC with DM a year ago - just stopped responding to direct emails and texts. Still see her a few times a year at family events and send birthday cards etc.

She knows we have a difficult relationship and we weren't high-contact before, though we'd have an occasional lunch or phone call. I don't want to discuss the LC or reasons explicitly with her, as I know it'll create drama.

Currently DM is cat-sitting for us while we're on holiday. She has messaged to ask if she can stay the night we get back and cook us supper. I really want to say "no", but can't think of a good reason.

How do I find a graceful excuse? I could ignore the email, but that'd risk her being in the house when we get back. I don't want to say explicitly "I don't want you to", as I risk a scene.

Curious how people who go LC manage this. What do you do if the person you're LC with wants to see you, but you don't feel comfortable telling them you're LC?

Just agreeing that you are doing low contact wrong. I’m VLC with my mum. She doesn’t have my address and she certainly wouldn’t be coming in.

i understand what you are saying about boundaries. Get them in place and stick to them x

@redskyanight "I would think the number of people that just "dump" their parents for no reason is extremely low.

The number of parents who refuse to accept or acknowledge the reason, on the other hand, is very high."

Do you have any data/evidence to support that?

Seems a lot of MNs dump their parents for trivial reasons, of course you will say one is not allowed to say anyone’s reasons are trivial if they don’t perceive them that way. It’s sad to think all a woman throwing up for weeks, preparing all the clothes for her baby, giving birth and weeks cuddling their baby through the night, through illness, choosing birthday presents, days out organised, thousands of meals cooked and perhaps as she didn’t sing her love every day from the rooftops, have some unsolicited advice, visited the adult DC sibling a little more often, have her honest opinion or whatever else they are just deemed as worthless to the adult DC. There used to be a taboo to behaving like this unless there had been actual awful abuse, ahh well just makes me think of the Mike and the mechanics song

I understand that what you want is a low stress relationship with your mother that doesn’t involve dramas or you having to deal with her difficult ness. I can see how you have got into this situation where you let her cat sit as a kind of low key way of being in touch.

unfortunately with dramatic, difficult, emotionally volatile people it isn’t possible to keep them at an arms length and yet keep up the contact - in my experience. I think you are probably either in (all the drama) or you are out (got to deal with the responsibility of causing some pain). It’s not easy at all.

With my own difficult relations I’ve chosen to be OUT. I can’t deal with the emotional ups and downs that a disregulated person causes and all the chaos. But I have to deal with my conscience over that. And that’s not easy and simple either.

The cynic in me may interpret the OP’s behaviour towards her Mum as a way to safeguard an inheritance.

Highly sophisticated manipulative persons like OP are rarely able to maintain boundaries themselves because on some level they like to hold all the power in relationships, albeit in a silent assassin type persona way. Manipulators like the OP are always seen as the rational one and the relative they are manipulating is always seen as the irrational one.

The kindest thing anyone can do for a person in these circumstances is to be honest with them however, manipulative people like the OP are often unable to be honest with themselves so the destructive cycle continues.

So very sad. OP set your mother free, be honest about how you feel and give her the opportunity to mourn you as you obviously care very little for her feelings anymore.

Actually I'd say the taboo is around saying that you don't wish to have a relationship with your parent. Because so many people jump to "but she gave birth to you, and looked after you" and "but she's your mother" ...

I think it's healthy that people realise that they don't have to put up with dreadful relationships even if there is not "actual awful" abuse.

We used to say that women had to stay married to their husbands regardless. There was only any sympathy if they had beaten them to a pulp. Nowadays, it's understood that emotional abuse and coercive control are equally abuse even though listing individual instances seem "trivial".

Just a shame that it's not more widely realised that parents can emotionally abuse their children too.

OP says she has been to therapy with her mother and identified behaviours that she can't put up with. These do not get negated because the mother sang to her and organised birthday parties when she was a child.

@redskyanight "I think it's healthy that people realise that they don't have to put up with dreadful relationships even if there is not "actual awful" abuse."
I do too. I just don't think leaving another person in limbo is OK.

@redskyanight these behaviours OP can’t put up with anymore are negated when it suits her though or so it seems. Nobody is denying that OP has the right to go NC or LC they are simply questioning what sort of a person OP is when she strives to ‘gracefully’ manoeuvre her mother into believing that a daughter mother relationship still exists? This veneer OP presents to her mother is giving her mother false hope and that is cruel.

You’re sending her mixed messages. I could have my DM provide childcare for free but I don’t because I don’t want to spend too much time with her. If she picked up my kids after school she would be in my home when I got home from work, she would want dinner etc and want to catch up. I don’t want this so I pay a childminder who I am not expected to socialise with!

I know people who have had awful experiences with their parents and can understand in some circumstances why it must be too painful for the child to maintain contact when they’ve opened their hearts and forgiven previous abuse but then get constantly let down thus reinforcing previous rejection. It’s heartbreaking to see.
However the reasons people seem to give on here are ridiculous, perhaps if people made an effort to also focus on the positive attributes and love given by the parent or partner that odd irritating comment by them wouldn’t seem so significant. I think when your young you do sometimes blow the odd little comment or the often mentioned ‘lack of support’ by a parent or in law out of all proportion, it’s feels the end of the world if a partner hasn’t gone to town on your birthday. Most people grow out of it but sad if too late by then

In my experience, in real life there's a huge social pressure not to cut off a parent (not to mention the innate bond of child to parent which makes most people want to hang on to the relationship).

Like a friend of mine, virtually everyone around her pushes her to forgive & forget and the whole blood is thicker than water thing. Yet it's such a dysfunctional irretrievable relationship, but even close friends who have known her for years don't really seem to "get" that she can't magically have that idealised family tie.

I can't really imagine her being able to succinctly explain why it's so toxic in a couple of posts, so my inclination is to assume posters have their reasons, which may not all be laid out for you.

I think there's a long way to go before there's an epidemic of cutting off relatives for trivial reasons. More likely it's the tip of an iceberg and most people try really hard for a long time, often too long for their own good.

you are being unfair. You go LC but accept the offer to cat sit

sick it up, let her stay for one night

The thing is I have seen it done for trivial reasons which echo what I read on here. Often it seems an issue of control of parents time, resources and opinions by the adult DC and resentment of the parents if they don’t meet some exalted expectations. It’s actually the adult DC who are abusive and coercive ones, usung LC/NC as a ‘punishment’ if the parents don’t carry out their wishes or dare it express an opinion. Even worse is the emotional abuse the OP thinks is acceptable towards her mother as she has already categorised her mother into not being worthy of being treated any respect. I think its actually seems to be becoming more socially acceptable to treat one’s parents in this way. Imagine if parents treated adult children this way, they would be given very short shrift.
Yes or course there are instances when parents have been genuinely hurtful to their adult DC (as opposed to just irritating) and most people do understand that and are sympathetic from what I’ve seen. In all these cases ironically the sweet adult DC didn’t contemplate going LC/NC and it’s been a joy to see karma bringing them other joys in life.

I guess it's good to have a mix of views.

Also, can you really know the nuts and bolts of family relationships from the outside? Or even the inside sometimes - family members can have very different takes from each other on the history and current situation. Just because it seems to you to be one way, it doesn't necessarily mean there isn't more to it. I've seen families close ranks against a young person who was abused rather than the patriarch abuser.

Very easy to look from the outside and think that's petty or think one's the aggressor or selfish one, when it's in response to how they're treated out of sight. Often people can appear very charming or put upon (the street angel), yet to their families, they're the home devil.

My granny for example was really well-liked and pillar of community type, but very domineering and difficult to the family.

Of course it can go from either direction and I daresay there are people who just CBA with family for little reason, but without being a fly on the wall it's difficult to know.

I think you're a cheeky fucker and feel sorry for your mum

Well you don't need an excuse - just keep contact minimal. But, for goodness sake, you are taking the Michael by asking her to cat sit - that is ridiculous! Ask someone else, or take the cat to a cattery.