Have you ever made the decision to cut your mother out of your life completely

[Ivehadenough]

I have changed my name for this as its so personal and I dont want rl friends on here to know. I have decided over the last few days that I cant have my mother in my life or in my childrens life again. I just hope I can stick to my decision but in the past I have felt sorry for her and given in. Has anyone else been through this and how do you feel about it?

Right.

I'm 25 and haven't spoken to my mother for about 13 years now. It's quite shocking really that there can be that many terrible parents out there. I do not miss my mother, but I do miss a mother figure IYKWIM; I don't know if this will get worse or better as I get older and have my own family? I do find myself wondering things about the future like who will I go wedding dress shopping with & other silly little romanticised things. I also have a young half brother that I've never met and that's the saddest part for me.

My MIL came with me to get my dress. I thought it would be nice for her as she doesn't have a daughter and nice for me as my mother is a cow waste of space.

What a shame this all is, for you, your parents and your children. What bitterness comes across in some of these posts. You all obviously have your reasons, but I can only hope that you do not all regret it later in life, and that your children don't regret it either.

I haven't "cut" my father out of my life, but I don't waste the energy or emotions on him that I once did and as someone has already said, my emotional health is so much better for it.

I don't do this easily, but the benefit of not having to deal with the effect he has on me outweighs the guilt I feel.

Maybe I will regret it. But then IMO he has more to regret and if he was that bothered he'd make the effort to see me.

I will NEVER regret not letting my mother near my children. Never in a million years.

My heart goes out to you guys that have suffered abuse from their parents. My parents weren't abusive to me when I was a child.

My father is self-centred and arrogant and although he had a very well paid job, mother worked full time and supported five of us with no financial support from him.

They divorced due to my fathers adultery after we'd all left full time education, in other words, when my father wasn't legally obliged to support us financially.

They've both remarried, and unexpectedly stepmum is nice. I slowly realised that my stepfather is jealous of any attention we get from mum and will do anything to prevent that.

Anyway, I keep them both at arms length and feel better for it.

Some people are just c**p parents.

"But then IMO he has more to regret and if he was that bothered he'd make the effort to see me."

I don't want to pick on you, AuntieMaggie; it's just that this comment speaks for so many of the people on this thread. But what really upsets me is that the people who will ultimately suffer most from these kinds of rifts are our children. How are we to explain to our children that there are bits of the family who don't have anything to do with one another? It's one thing gently explaining an abusive parent to a child who's old enough to understand; it's another to tell a child that you have decided for them that they can't have contact with their grandparent(s) because you have problems with that parent. I don't believe it's our job to make these decisions, unless we are protecting our children from real psychological/physical harm (though psychological harm is, of course, far harder to put your finger on than physical harm).

I do have a friend whose mother damaged her psychologically, so I do know it's possible, and I don't want to belittle the way that anyone feels. I just think it's so very sad if our children have to suffer in order to make us feel better. My dad and his mother had terrible problems, but he never stopped her from being in our lives (although, as it turns out, he was very strongly tempted). She was a rotten mother to him, but she was a good Granny to us. I think he made the right decision.

Oblomov - I've just re-read your post. It's just possible he will be more receptive than you think. Even if he has done some less-than-impressive things, and even if he doesn't seem bothered, he is almost certainly deeply pained at how things have turned out, and may not know how/if to approach you either. He may feel that you will reject him again. If you are brave, you may both regain something very special.

As a matter of interest what do you all do about other members of your family? Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins? Does that not cause difficulties?

Swedes - that is precisely one of the big problems with this way of 'dealing with' problematic relationships with parents. It affects more than just the two individuals concerned, and puts other members of the family in a horrible position on all sorts of occasions (wedding, Christenings, Christmas etc, etc, etc...). This is one reason why I would urge people only to do it if there really, really is no option and not just because it makes them feel better.

Iwishitweredifferent I haven't spoke to my father for 2 years and as a result he hasn't seen my children, I understand what you are saying about making the decision for our children as I always said I would never do this but unfortunately when someone dosen't give a damn about anyonelses feelings why would I keep subjecting myself or my children to that environment

I would also like to know what other people do concerning family occcasions as so far I have only had to face a wedding which my father walked out of when he realised I was there, he had no need to do this as we were not even seated at the same table

Tolerance

Alot of people in my family say to me you know what hes like just let the kids over to see him
My 1st point, that is how hes got away with being a horrible person because everyone myself included said you know what hes like

2nd, I do know what hes like and now know hes never going to change

People want me to let my father be apart of my dcs life to make things easier for my mother, but unfortunately like you say holyguacamole not everyone is privvy to the whole story, I tell anyone who wants to know, but my mother asked me a year ago did my friends, in laws etc know

I couldn't believe it when she told me that only one of her closest friends know, but I know why, because they don't really like my dad anyway and she dosen't want to tell them anything to make them think even worse about him

My mother would love to sweep it all under the carpet, but unfortnately theres no more room under the carpet!

Def Holyguacamole, I'm fed up with people saying what if something happens to him

Do they think my dh and I have never discussed that

I have my own life, my dd has been in and out of hosp, I have 2 other dcs and we are trying to run our own business I have no room in my life for a 60 year old man who thinks the whole world is against him if they don't agree with him or pander to his every need

My brother appears to have done this, and my sister decided years ago that she was having little to do with her. Which is a bit crap for me, because all the visiting, etc., falls to me and DW. They don't seem to think about this.

UnquietDad - good point.

HolyG - "people do what is best for them and for their children". True, but what's best for me isn't necessarily what's best for my children. It's a difficult one to square.

I do acknowledge that there are two sides to all these stories. However, it works both ways - there is also the side of the spurned parent, whose understanding of things may be very different, and no less heartfelt, than yours. All I want to say is that it's hard to be the spurned parent too. Some of them undoubtedly deserve it, but not all of them do.

There is btw an awful lot of 'toxicity' on this thread. Lots of people are saying they've cut 'toxicity' out of their lives as a result of binning a parent - yet there is real poison in some of these posts, which suggests that the real problem has not been solved this way.

I don't take my decision lightly. Actually I didn't make a decision, as such. My dad never came to the wedding. Even though my dh wrote to him and begged him to.
And I think that my childrens close relationship to both grandma's and my dh's 6 brothers and sisters - and they are BIG on family. Very close, going to stay with his cousins, big family xmas party etc, is one reason why the fact that my son doesn't know his grandpa ( my dh'd dad passed away before I met him), is not as hard to bear as it might be.
But I am sad about it. Wonder whether I should contact my dad again. For the benefit of ds1 and now ds2.

I don't feel I am toxic. I am just saddened.
Both my brothers feel the same about my dad. Maybe it bothers them a bit less, that they have no relationship with him.
But that was my dads decision. He seems to show no interest in any of us. Since, that is, meeting his now wife. He integrates with her 5 children.
So it is a mystery to me, why he doesn't bother with his own 3 children.
Certainly no problem with family gatherings.

Do I contact him ? I go through a yes/no/yes/no scenario regularly.

Oblomov it is a very hard decision to cut someone out of your life and your childrens, my dh invited my dad over to sort something out as I bumped into him at the docs and it was awful, I spent the weekend in bits, my dad refused

Actual words were he was not waiting on an invite to come to my house and would have came to my house if wanted to.

My father says that he cannot forgive me for stopping him from seeing the dcs but in actual fact I didn't, I was just out of hosp from having dc3, my father had left me in tears, then didn't come to visit after 8 weeks he asked my mum to bring the kids over to their house and I said no

My reason being dc3 was being breastfed so she couldn't go, and I didn't feel comfortable letting other 2dcs over to see him when his behaviour towards me had not been discussed, when my mother said the dcs were not allowed over he went mad and said I was not allowed to go near their house or ring again

I haven't once said he can't come to my house to see them, he just knows that if he comes here he will have to apologise and he is not prepared to do that

Anyway my other reason for not letting them go over as dd is now 2, is that I can no longer tolerate his behaviour so it would be unfair of me to introduce him back in to their lives for him to behave badly and them to witness it and me to have to go through the whole process again, it wouldn't fair on the kids

sorry for the rant but its good to get it out there as dh just gets annoyed when we talk about it as he can't understand someone being so hurtful to his children

It is all so sad. My husband has, I think, missed various opportunities to 'make the first move'. His reason is that he can't bear the thought of being rejected again, although I've tried to persuade him that it might be worth risking rejection for the sakes of all our children.

So long as he and his estranged children all feel this way, all we can do for our own little family is talk to our children with warmth and affection of his grown-up children and their young children, all whom they have never met. That way, I feel we do at least leave a door open for them to make contact at a later stage if that's what they want to do. I would not like to decide now that there will be no future contact. I feel that my husband's other family shouldn't be a secret; they should be something to remember and enjoy, even if not in person. I don't know how they deal with this problem with their own children; I fear they will either never mention my husband or will construct some spurious reason why there's no contact.

It is a crying shame for everyone involved.

iwishitweredifferent - I found this thread to be a kind of haven initially for those of us who have HAD to take the horrible, horrible, horrible decision to effectively orphan ourselves, after years and years of being emotional orphans, and who DO NOT take this decision lightly - and there you are, totally siding with the abusive parent (whatever you say, that's what you're doing) and hijacking the whole damn thing. Really pissing me off, and maybe that sounds bitter to you, but you sound like a bleating apologist for gutless parenting to me.

You finally come clean in your last post and say your dh has missed various opportunities to make the first move - and yet he's supposed to be heartbroken? Perhaps his children don't make the first move because he broke THEIR hearts - after all, you've never heard their side of it - and THEY can't risk the pain of further let downs. His fear of being hurt is obviously greater than his love for his children, and perhaps that's the whole root of the problem.

Because you can be sure that this sitation is hurting them too, but if his - the parent's - love just isn't strong enough, then IME there's not much the (adult) child can do. I bent over backwards for most of my adult life to try and work things out with my parents and sibling, but it didn't get me anywhere, and why? Because I really don't matter that much to them - "they're just not that into me". You will never begin to imagine how much that has and does hurt me, but it's the way it is, and I have to accept it, and after years and years of thinking that it was because of me that they were like this, I finally got that it was because of them, and hey presto, I started to have a really lovely life.

I find it really, really insulting that you come on here and try to lecture people who have endured horrendous pain and betrayal at the hands of the people they loved and trusted most in the world, but who have had the courage and vision to try and break free, and suggest that we might not have thought this through very much. Are you kidding? You go and think.

You go and think about why it is your dh, who claims to be so devastated, just lets the chances to reconcile slip by. Why he is prepared to put the dc's you have together in this freaky position of knowing they have another two half siblings who don't see them and don't want to be in daddy's life... for some reason... without doing EVERYTHING possible to change that. You think whether he is really prepared to do whatever it takes to make things right - to listen to whatever they have to say about why they made this break, however unpalatable it may be for him to hear, and take it on board and act on it if necessary rather than justifying/denying/dismissing their views and feelings. Or you could go and think about whether he's actually capable of any of that.

But please stop whingeing about how sad it is that your dh can't be bothered to really make the required effort and somehow offloading that onto those of us who have had to escape really toxic families - for the sake of survival in many cases. It's not his dc's that are perpetuating this sitation; it's him.

There are not many places where those of us who have taken these desperate measures can feel heard and understood by others in the same position because judgement like yours is all too prevalent. Somehow, the poor abandoned parent is never to blame - as others have said, they are soooo good at emotional blackmail and we live in a cloud of denial that parents can ever really be seriously neglectful or abusive, especially when they're cloaked in a veil of apparent respectability and normality. But you know what's really, really, really sad? Some parents are. And THEY are the ones who mess up their links with their grandchildren, THEY are the ones who make the issues of family gatherings really awkward and painful, THEY are the ones you need to be going and lecturing at. Not us. So please can you just leave us alone, unless you're going to start finding some compassion in your heart for the real victims of these situations.

(Hope I'm not presuming too much when I say "us", but a few other people have also expressed relief at finding this thread and feeling less alone with these experiences.)