Do you regret NC with your toxic mum

[loopyluloopy]

I won't give context as much to outing.

I'm wondering if anyone regrets going NC with their toxic mother?

I didn’t whilst she was alive and I was younger, I very much do now she’s passed away (ten years) and I’m older. If I could “redo” I would have worked far more on healthy communication - I gave up and ran away as she made me feel panicked, never good enough, a failure. But…I’m older and wiser and a lot of that was me still trying to find my feet as an adult. I disn’t empathise with her at all, whereas now I definitely do a lot more.

No regret is the only sad emotion I don’t feel. Genuine disappointment and sadness yes but not regret.

That is very sad for you but I’m sure you were doing your best at the time, you can’t know what you don’t know. I empathised deeply with my own mother but it was used to harm me by manipulating my empathy so while I do feel compassionate for how the situation was for her I deliberately don’t feel as much empathy for her anymore. Too much empathy is as bad as too little in toxic relationships sometimes.

No. Been over 4 years and I’ve never regretted it. I’m fortunate though in that I have supportive siblings (they’re LC with her themselves, but totally understand why I’m NC), and my parents are divorced. My father tried to act as a flying monkey for the first couple of years, but has since given up.

Going no contact is a survival mechanism, most of us feel like we don’t have a choice. It gives us the necessary space to heal. It would be nice to reconnect and accept our parents while maintaining good boundaries but that’s a difficult journey and not everyone gets there

Definitely not!

I went NC over 30 years ago with her and all her family.

Most of them are dead now and I still have no regrets at all.

No regrets. Its been 30 years, she could be dead for all I know, but I have zero interest in trying to find out anything about her or that side of the family. Her whole family was toxic or violent, DV, abuse, probably some narcissistics, so we are NC with that whole side of the family, which probably does make it easier than if I was hearing about her.

Nope.

@loopyluloopy why do you think you might regret doing so? A truly toxic personality adds no value to your life. Are you sure you are not grieving for the mother you wish you’d had? I’d love to have had the relationship with my mother that I have with my own daughter but I realise my mother put no effort into creating one with me and probably wasn’t capable because she’d had nothing to refer to. She absolutely had NPD but obviously as a narcissist wouldn’t acknowledge how crap she was at being a mother. If you’d asked her, she’d have been an Olympic gold medalist at parenting..I could’ve replicated the situation with my own child but thought I’d probably be childless as my mother made it all look so difficult/unsatisfactory/unhappy and I didn’t want my child to experience what I had. So when I realised I wanted to become a mother, I did everything/ read everything I could to create good foundations/understand her because I did not want her to have the same shitty childhood I had. I am content I broke the cycle. DD knows what parenting should look like and happily chats about what she’ll be like when she has children.

Relationships, whatever type need work, effort and commitment from both parties. Truly happy marriages/contentment do not happen by accident - they are formed after years of considerate behaviour and nurturing. If you have a toxic mother the relationship is very likely to be one-sided - what she gets from you. What do you actually get from her? Children of toxic parents feel obligated to maintain contact. You don’t have to. You are entitled to feel sad/envious of others who have a great mother/daughter relationship but for me, putting the effort into my own relationship with my own child has given me fulfilment. I absolutely would not have been as good a mother if I hadn’t experienced my own childhood so I take positives from that. I also didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with my own mother and be a great mother myself. My choice was putting myself and my family first and I have no regrets. My mother is now dead and I can honest say I do not mourn for her nor have any regrets at going LC then NC.

My only regret was going to her funeral to appease my family.
Shouldn't have done it.
I have no regrets about going NC.

No. It’s sad and hard but life with her in it was so much more sad and more difficult. Never quite understand why I wasn’t good enough though and my sister was. Always the one getting the blame. Even now. The NC is all my fault., I’m the one with the ‘issues’

If I'd had a crystal ball and knew she would die a year or so later I probably would have just ridden it out but in all honestly I don't dwell on it and can't say I regret it all that much .

Depends why went NC! If it was for something very serious I wouldn’t but if it was one of these more typical modern cases of just over a few disagreements, or wanting to control/punish parent’s decisions etc then I definitely would regret it! I’ve been low contact with a parent but I don’t want no relationship at all and I look to make the contact positive where possible rather than raking over the past, it took some counselling to reach the realisation that this was far more productive for me!

No, I don't but I very much regret the necessity of it. Deeply. I'd give so much for a loving, normal family.

But there are a surprising number of us in this situation. It's hard realising that whichever path you choose there will be a great deal of pain and regret but as a previous poster said, there is -less- pain with NC (actually extremely low contact in my case, a 2 sentence email at xmas)

Sometimes it's a matter of choosing the least awful of two awful options.

I regret I didn't do it sooner and wasted so many years of my life hoping she would change.

I regret that I didn't have a mother who could love and accept me.

Do I regret NC? Not at all.

Yes. It still hurts to the core but I've been burnt so many times I have to keep my promise to myself.

Why do you regret going? I don’t think I’ll go to mine, mainly because it will involve long-haul travel.

@WildCats24
Hi. We had been NC for around 7 years following my calling both parents out on their unfair behaviour towards me and my children.
When she was dying of cancer I went to visit ( to keep adult children happy). Her last words to me were insulting.
I went to the funeral with my family and listened to what a wonderful mother and person she was. My DH had his hand firmly on my knee to prevent me leaping up at one point.
Right at the end the celebrant brought the event to a close and said that everyone could take their time to leave. As she spoke her last word I was out of the door before anyone else. I waited in the car for my family and didn't go to the wake.
I have had no communication from my siblings ( golden and silver child) or father since. I absolutely will not be going to father's funeral.
I have regrets about being NC. I don't want nastiness in my life.

I definitely don't miss being called a selfish bitch every time I saw her, or having lies told to me/about me, or the gaslighting, or the nasty snide comments and veiled insults, or the stealing and giving my things away to her siblings and friends.

Been a much happier and mentally healthier person since I made the decision to cut contact.

Not me, but my sibling. Our mother was quite a difficult woman. I maintained a relationship with her but my sibling pretty much gave up citing that why try when our mother didn't like them. When our mother died & we were clearing the house we found a lot of stuff that our mother had kept about my sibling and clearly loved them, cherished things about them. I knew that my mother loved my sibling but it was hard being caught in the middle, (sibling felt I sided with our mother & I didn't want to fall out with my sibling) they clashed as very different people. Sibling now quite sad, regretful, feels differently but no chance to put it right. Has had quite an effect. Each to their own but sometimes it's worth trying.

No. I should have done it sooner and didn't realise it was a thing until my hand was somewhat forced.

Never regretted it.

No I don't regret NC. I regret having a mother like her but I don't regret choosing to cut all contact with her.

I went NC early in my adulthood so my mother missed on a lot of my and my DC's milestones. Initially, I felt intense shame and sadness about the NC but now that I am older I look back and admire how strong and brave I was and how perceptive and right it was to cut her off. Most people would pity or judge me and that didn't help but I'm glad I stuck to my decision as some people suggested I get back in touch.
Any 'regret' I felt was about not having a good mother but not for her personally as she was awful - not all the time but where it mattered and for too long until it peaked one day and that was it for me. Some people told me I will regret having been NC when she passes away but no, the only wounds her death news opened was how I wish I had a decent mum in my life and mourning for the little me who endured a mother like her. She's been dead a few years now and I still don't regret it. I will say that she hadn't tried to make contact with me either as far as I'm aware, perhaps if I had pleading letters and texts I might have felt differently... I don't know.. but my mother didn't and I don't regret it. The thing that bothers me the most is that people don't understand the trauma and sadness of not having a parent when they are alive, if your parents have passed away particularly when you are young you get a lot of sympathy and understanding, which is right, but there is so much stigma around going NC with family, particularly parents and even more so when they are old parents. Most people are do not get it.

MiniLoop I feell very similarly and have had similar experiences with other people's reactions to it.

When people have good relationships with their parents or decent parents who just got it a bit wrong on occasion, they just can't imagine it. Child abuse is something that happens to 'other' people or in cetain types of home or something they read about in the news. Most people can't conceive of it happening to people they know especially adults they perceive as being 'ok'.