Do I write a no contact letter? If so, what do I say?

[immersedinfog]

I've been no contact with my parents for 4 months. This is the culmination of a lifetime of toxic behaviour towards me and my children where the final straw was an argument where they threw me out of their house.

I've thus far adopted the policy of simply not contacting them.
I have blocked them on my email and on my mobile. However, it's not easy to block them on the landline (will probably require us to get a new number, which we will do if it's the only option, but will be a hassle).

My mother continues to ring regularly and leaves innocuous sounding messages such as "just ringing to see how you are. can you ring me back".
There was a series of messages asking me to let her know what the children wanted for Christmas. My children are young adults but she has made no attempt to contact them. (And if she did get them presents, she didn't send them).

The latest message however says that they are intending to come and visit and can I ring back to let them know when when are free. I clearly don't want them to. However I can't tell them I don't want them to visit without getting back in contact, which I equally don't want to do.

My brother is also no contact with them, and I know from his experience that they just turned up at his house unnannounced so this is a definite possibility.

So I was thinking maybe I should send them a bland "Don't ring me; don't visit me; don't contact me" letter. There is no point trying to explain as they will just deny everything.

However, I'm worried that sending such a letter might actually escalate things - and make the chance of agressive phone calls and an actual visit more likely.

I'd welcome any thoughts from anyone who has been through this.

Any realisation from them that you're going no contact is temporarily going to cause a massive reaction.

I don't agree with sending letters as they're not direct enough to be taken seriously.

I would leave a voicemail to say that you don't want them to contact you or your children going forward and they aren't welcome to turn up at your house.

You want them to leave you alone and not contact you again.

No, do not write a letter because they will see your carefully worded letter as an attack and will respond accordingly. Drop the rope they hold out to you and live well without them in your day to day life. If they turn up
you are under no obligation to let them in.

I'm sorry, I haven't been through this.
But wanted to say BT do a call waiting/barring thing with landlines. My mum got one to filter cold callers.
If you think your parents will turn up uninvited would you sending a letter work? It sounds like she's not bothered about boundaries from what you've said.
🌺

You can block the calls going forward so you won't have to deal with them.

It would be well worth investing in a Ring doorbell but if they do visit you can open the door and close it again. They might stand there for a while but you don't need to let them in.

Block all means of they being able to contact you and you family. Your parents may use flying monkeys I.e. well meaning but easily manipulated friends or relatives to contact you and do their bidding for them. These people do not have your interest at heart and their own agendas so their opinion should be ignored.

Our provider doesn't do this unfortunately. They would only block if we could prove nuisance calls (not sure ringing up to see how we are, counts).

I do think my parents will ignore any letter I send. The only virtue of it would be that they couldn't claim I hadn't told them. Which is the dilemma really.

If your provider doesn't do call barring, try check your landline handset. My phone handset can block calls via the calls menu.