What made you finally go NC with your parent(s)?

[Thatsajokeright]

I am currently very low contact with my mum after a lifetime of toxic behaviours and poor treatment, once again, I'm being given the silent treatment.

I think I would quite happily never speak to her again but we live very close so it's difficult.

I also feel a bit unjustified, it's 'only' the silent treatment so that's not a good enough reason to end things.

If it were a boss, or friend, or partner I'd have cut them off years ago, but I've never got to a point where I felt like the I'd be justified.

What was your final straw?

I don't think it's productive to compare notes with other people because it's not a competition, relationships are much more nuanced and complex than can be articulated in a comment and fundamentally, it doesn't actually matter whether someone's reason is considered 'good enough' it has to be the right reason for yourself and you're still in the mentality of 'what will others say'.

You need to understand that even if your parent abused you, there will be people who tell you you should forgive them or make excuses for the parent's behaviour, you need to be ok with not justifying to others and not caring that to some people you will never be understood and you will be judged for not talking to your parents no matter what they have done to you. For example a lot of what is considered justifiable in Western cultures would be considered not worthy of cutting contact in most Eastern cultures. In some religions and cultures, parents can do no wrong and there is never a justification. You will not get support for your no contact decision from everyone.

If you are unsure, and it's fine to be unsure, I would detach as much as possible and go very low contact rather than no contact. When she gives you silent treatment, you also give her silent treatment but don't say you've cut contact just say you've not heard from her or something vague. If she gets back in touch engage as much as is comfortable with you maybe answering by text or email only, maybe a short call instead of a visit or a short visit instead of a longer visit. You can put boundaries and centre your wellbeing at the interaction with her without cutting full contact. However, if you do cut contact you don't need to tell or justify to everyone. Just a vague answer or a lie to people who don't need to know about your life and those who know you well and like you you could tell them the truth of the situation if and when you felt like it.

One thing for sure is that people will take sides in your circles about the no contact, you might be surprised about people siding with your mum who you thought knew you better than to side with her, that is painful.

Bottom line is you just need to not care what others think of your reasons and you don't need to justify it to anyone or discuss it with anyone. Your judgment is good enough, nobody knows your life as well as you do.

I agree with @IshallCometh . Your reasons are valid, whatever they are. You don't need anyones approval or validation. You can't compare stories. No one is going to have your story, and no one is going to handle it exactly like you do. The only person who you should be considering, is you.

I can say that for me it was a seemingly small thing. From the outside it wouldn't look like a very good reason to go NC. But it was the build-up after years and years of narcissistic abuse from my father, years of being manipulated and threatened.
One day he called me to blame me for something he feels I had done wrong. A silly thing. But I suddenly felt that I no longer wanted to waste any more of my time being torn down by him. I was 30 and had just had a daughter of my own, and I couldn't imagine ever treating my daugther that way. But I also didn't want him to take away any more of my energy, because I needed it to be the kind of mum I want to be.
So I hung up and decided I'd never talk to him again. 5 years later it's still the best decision I ever made.

Similar reasons although it’s always more than just the “silent treatment” really. My final straw was when they pulled this shit on my kids. I was properly done in that moment.

I don’t feel bad about it, it’s a relief to know I’ll never have to feel that way again in their presence. Fortunately they are not the type to try and get in touch.

Thanks all. You're all right, I know. It does no good comparing.

I'm just in a difficult place with it at the moment and I just don't know what to do next.

Like a lot of those with difficult parents, there was some good growing up. She was mostly emotionally negligent but there was a lot of coersive control and emotional manipulation. Parental alienation against the whole side of the family, not just my dad. She told me details of her sex life I should never have known, nothing graphic but too much.

But she, and we, suffered some massive traumas in quick succession so for a long, long, time I put it down to that but having my own children put things in a context I'd never seen before that frankly, I'd never behave towards them the way she has and does towards me.

It's just never felt 'enough', you know? Like I wish she would do something dramatic so I could just cut it off.

So many things, few examples.
Pretending to be dying (several times)
Stealing from one of my neighbours which resulted in them shouting at me on my doorstep
Trashing a car and giving the owner MY details which involved them tracking me down at work
Stealing paperwork from my house and then trying to use it against my Mum in their divorce, and telling her I offered it to him
Selling some of my brothers posessions and trying to blame me bacause he didn't have house insurance - I cancelled it when I moved out and told him
Putting his utility bills in my name and not paying them, resulting in a CCJ I knew nothing about until I tried to get a mortgage.

Final straw was surprisingly not really major though, I thought I would give him 1 last chance and met for a coffee. I was recovering from a chest infection and was struggling to breathe, he insisted on chain smoking and when I asked him to stop just for half an hour or so he told me I was being ridiculous.
I never saw him again and didn't go to his funeral. No regrets at all

A massive argument about racism. I know some people manage to maintain a relationship with parents who are racist, but I think that depends on there being love and respect on both sides. During the course of that argument I realised the absolute contempt my dad holds for me and my opinions, and it was the final straw.

Such a wise post @IshallCometh. I've been NC with both parents for thirty years. It was a matter of survival for me, both physically and emotionally, but the burden of being NC with immediate family members is a heavy one and not to be taken lightly.

Even if you feel justified in going NC, you will be spending the rest of your life working around society's expectation that you have a relationship with that family member. You will have to find ways to manage what society thinks are polite non-invasive questions which lay bare the heartache youve experienced. You will have to process a loss that most of society will not acknowledge - or accept.

I don't regret my decision and I've had a fulfilling adult life - however I would say that is despite, not because of, these profound ambiguous losses.

For me it was a combination of events that led to me going full no contact with my mother, after decades of very low contact:

-After the death of father she tried to commit fraud/hide assets when selling the family home (could have also got me in trouble with tax authorities as a joint heir if I had not spotted and stopped it with my solicitor's help) and also casually mentioned she had read and destroyed a letter that my father had left me to read after his death. After that there was no trust left as it was clear that for money she would happily lie to her own child, do illegal stuff and not even respect her dead husband's wishes.
-Her side of the family being equally toxic and thinking they could just insinuate themselves back into my life after 30 years of totally ignoring me.
-Coming to the realisation that I had never really loved her or developed any kind of true emotional bond with her due to her manipulative, controlling and frankly often crazy behaviour. I was just keeping contact out of guilt.

But really your situation will be different from anyone else and there is not a specific reason or dramatic incident that you need to cut contact.

Prioritising your mental health and cutting toxic people out of your life is a perfectly good reason as far as I am concerned.

I would also concur with IshallCometh's post.

Abusers are not nasty all the time but their nice/nasty cycle of abuse is a continuous one. Now she's using silent treatment (this is a form of emotional abuse) in an attempt to further control and manipulate. You also write of emotional neglect, coercive control, emotional manipulation, parental manipulation, she making you her confidant re her sex life when you were a child. This all became your normal. There is never any justification or excuse for abuse.

You've written you would not behave towards your children in the ways your mother has and does towards you. BTW is she and your dad still together?.

What if anything do you know about her own childhood, that often gives clues.
She has not changed fundamentally since your childhood. Your mother had a choice when it came to you and she chose to do the same old that was likely meted out to her. You mention traumas in quick succession yet she has seemingly never sought nor perhaps wanted to seek the necessary help, instead blaming you for all her inherent ills. You also do not need her approval, not that she would ever give you this anyway.

50 years of indifference. Of wanting me to run around after him even though he wouldn't put himself out in the slightest for me - an example was the 40 mile round trip he expected me to do to take him to the hospital 5 minutes drive away from him. Toxic overnight texts telling me just how crap I was and he 'couldn't understand what he'd done wrong'. That I'd turned his grandchildren against him (!). Expecting me to drop everything (including work and looking after my children) and go and look after my step-mother because he was feeling under the weather.

Telling everyone who would listen how proud he was of me, how much he loved me, how much he provided for me. Except none of these things were true.

Regrets? None. Except I wish I'd done it sooner.

she died! i know that sounds horrid, but i should have gone NC with my abusive mum but it was back before we had social media and mobile phones etc.

This has given me food for thought; thank you. I still want to go NC but we always lived in 'nice' houses in good areas. I was always well dressed and fed.

And I still live where I grew up so so many people around here know my mums history and the trauma she's endured. If I were to actually go NC then there would be a lot of disbelief because all the abuse I suffered was invisible.

Thank you everyone; I really appreciate you sharing your experiences.

I had a counselling session with a new counsellor (my old one retired!) who after hearing just a couple of stories pointed out it was abusive behaviour and had I heard of the abuse cycle (I hadn't but it made immediate sense.) All of which was hard to hear because who wants to believe their mum is a perpetrator.

So I'll see where counselling leads.

Best of luck with your new counsellor @Thatsajokeright - your best move now is to do what's right for you. X

The Farage posts during Brexit on FB

I found out that she was going around telling people that the reason we don’t let her see her grandchildren was because Dh and I stole money from her and got angry when we couldn’t get more.

The real reason she doesn’t see her grandchildren is because her partner is a convicted paedophile. I held on to a little bit of a relationship with her because, despite the hell she put us through and the risk she put my children at, she is in a toxic relationship and I hoped I could help her get out of it.

The spreading lies about Dh and I was the final nail in the coffin, especially given literally the only ones who were being honest and making good choices in this situation was the two of us. It showed me she’d always put a man ahead of her family and she’d never take accountability for what she did wrong.

It’s exactly as you say: if she’d been a romantic partner, there were so many red flags, that I would have dumped her and run for the hills years ago.

The peace I have not is wonderful. It’s been 3 years and I can’t tell you the positive difference it’s made in our lives. There’s no drama anymore.