If you went NC with your parents after having DC, was there a particular trigger/catalyst?

[possiblenchelp]

Hi all,

Struggling with this since having my first DC a year ago. My relationship with my parents hasn’t been good for a long time - superficially, it looks as though we get on OK, but there’s never really been any depth or support, mainly due to my mum’s very volatile behaviour and my dad’s refusal to stand up to her/for me. I had my first DC a year ago and it seems to be this 12 month point where I’m suddenly seriously assessing whether I want to maintain contact with them. I’ve tried lowering contact in the past and the drama from my mum, who then ropes in the wider family, is awful.

After another family gathering where I felt like the black sheep and as though I was being judged and blamed for the poor relationship, with no accountability or awareness from my parents or wider family and the expectation to all play happy families together, my patience is wearing very thin.

My mental health is noticeably better when I don’t have to have much contact with my parents and I feel like a better mum to my DC as I’m not second-guessing everything trying not to be my mum, if that makes sense?

Can anyone relate? If you went NC after contemplating it for many years and finally really understanding that you couldn’t take any more, how and why did you end up doing it?

Hopeful bump x

It wasn’t strictly after I had a child (my dc were 2 & 7 at the time), but it was because I had children, yes.

My mum facilitated contact between a convicted child sexual offender and my dc, especially my dd, knowing he had sexually abused his own daughter. It’s much more complicated than just that - though of course, that’s bad enough! She also went around telling people that I had mental health problems and that Dh and I stole a ridiculous amount of money from her and then blocked her from seeing her grandchildren to blackmail her into giving us more money. 🙄

This to garner sympathy for her from people for how sad it is that she doesn’t see her grandchildren (she’s still in a relationship with the paedophile though, so she’s not that desperate to see them!).

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak. I would not have gone NC if not to protect my children, and there was no way I could do anything but go NC given the circumstances. But it was only after I had some distance from the situation that I could appreciate how dysfunctional my childhood had been. Left home to fend for myself for days at a time. She stopped taking me to school for a whole year when I was 10/11 because she couldn’t really be asked with getting me up and to school. I used to just wake up alone and she had already left for work (my school was in a town like a 20 minute drive away, no transport, someone had to drive me there). She didn’t really provide proper meals. I ate ice cream for breakfast for about 2 years because it was easier than actual breakfast food. 🤷🏻‍♀️

None of this because we were poor. We were comfortably well off. I went to private school. I had a pony. She just wasn’t very stable. I think she probably loved me, but I needed a calm, stable, functional home life, not stuff. I actually didn’t realise how bizarre all of that was until I started going to therapy after all the above happened. Now I recognise that this wasn’t a one off bad decision, but a long history of dysfunction.

It’s a shame. I have no family. My dad is long dead, no siblings. No one. But I can’t tell you how wonderful the peace is. It’s been nothing but a positive to not have a relationship with her anymore.

I have but my children were teens. We'd had many periods of no contact but i always tried again.

Beforei had ds i thought that i had a great relationship with dm and dgm but as he aged and i thought about my life at his age i couldn't reconcile how i'd been treated with how i treat ds. I just couldn't ever do to him what i had done to me.

The final straw was after i'd said i needed space etc for my mental health they started to repeatedly call ds while he was revising for his gcse's at 15 leaving messages about my dm being suicidal. He had 16 missed calls in the space of 30 minutes before he showed me (his phone was on silent). I knew then that i had no choice and it was best to completely cut off and block in every way inc ds' phone. If he chooses to make contact with them later thats his choice but i doubt he will given what he's seen and heard.

It's hard and you have to mourn for what you haven't had and there will be other fallout with othet family members in all likelyhood.

It does hurt but i feel calmer and more at peace.

We took you to stately homes threads are fantastic for advice with this sort of thing. Your mother sounds like a narcissist and her recruiting family as her flying monkeys. Have a look for the threads, some fantastic advice on there x

I didn't have my parents around when I had my children. My mother was already dead and my father disappeared. However, I ended up in therapy at that point because my long-held belief that maybe I'd understand them better when I had children of my own instantly evaporated. I could understand them even less than ever.

My therapist said that it's very common for relationships to finally end when you have a child because your own protective instincts toward your child amplify the fact that your parents behaviour toward you was absolutely not normal.

I’m NC with mine. It was after prolonged verbal abuse over several days - insults, lies, yelling at me. I knew if I stayed in contact with them that this would be my life forever, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

My only regret is that I didn’t move away as well as go NC. They still effect my life (because they spread lies about me to explain away my NC). So if you are going to do it I would advise to move far away so that they can’t effect other aspects of your life. It’s very hard to live in the same town as family you are NC with because it enables them to smear your name, stalk you and later on harass your kids.

It was actually being pg that made me go NC with my Father.
I decided that he did not deserve access to my child/ren