Estrangement : Have you ever Gone No contact with a Parent , child or close family member?

I read other peoples stories and I am amazed. Not sure why I guess. My little brother and I used to be so close and even after all these years I think what could I have done differently. What would have changed things. Guess we’re both better off apart.
Guess when I meet my maker I’m going to have to atone for how things worked out. I believe in reincarnation and think about us having to fix this in next life.
 
Estrangement : Have you ever Gone No contact with a Parent , child or close family member?
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I'm no stranger to estrangement, although I was not the one to initiate it. My adopted daughter took sides in the divorce of her mother and I, so contact with her has been infrequent( a couple family crisis's). We had a nice reunion at my daughter's celebration of life, but I don't foresee relations between us ever becoming closer....even though I still love her as my daughter, I accept that our lives have gone on different paths.
 
NorthernLight said:
You say you were "told" you were holding your granddaughter wrong, but you didn't say who said those words. This made me remember how my father didn't want my mother to have anything to do with her own mother. Just because.
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Isolation is terrible. My stepfather told me recently (sorry if I already mentioned it) that my mother hated his mother. I knew this. I told him mom hated his mother for one reason: She existed. His mother never did anything to be hated. She was a sweet lady to me and the only grandparent I ever knew. Then my stepfather said that my mother told us kids not to call my stepfather's mother 'grandma.' I've been wracking my brain to remember if I remember this, but I can't. If that's true, it was horrible on my mother's part, but it sounds like her.

I also told my stepfather that I was a kid, that house was all I knew, yet I knew it was wrong. And I knew my mother's behavior around his family was terrible. Yet he was an adult who didn't seem to get it.
 
hollydolly said:
I had a similar story... when my mother died and my youngest sister was just 10.. I raised her.. until I left to get married by which time my father had married again anyway.. my sister came to visit several times, and then 3 years after I got married, she came and asked to stay overnight.. when I got up in the morning, she was gone, and so was every item of my clothing, including coats and shoes.. she'd disappeared, completely with everything.. I had to hunt her down through her friends.. and when I met her at her work to collect my things, which she'd bundled into a trash bag.. and asked why she did it.. I got no reply.. .. 3 years after that she broke into my rear garden and stole the bike which had the babyseat on for my little girl... :mad:
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You have to wonder what her thought process was. Just taking your stuff because she wanted it or taking it to hurt you. Regardless that's very shitty behavior.
 
The flip side of this thread are those that maintained relationships with family or friends when the relationship was toxic and every one was miserable. The relationship should be ended but doesn't due to feelings of obligation or personal weakness.

My ex wife's family was like that. Someone was always not talking with someone else, yet they would all go on a yearly vacation together....and literally not talk to each other the entire trip! Sit in a room or a resurant and watch people totally ignore one another, that was some of the strangest family dynamics I ever experienced.
 
Alligatorob said:
Not sure its that sad. My first reaction is to appreciate how fortunate I have been in my life!
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Agreed. Into every life a little rain must fall. The more relatives one has, the better the chances some won't get along well. My estrangement from one sibling is sometimes painful but mostly a shrug of the shoulders by now. Truth is, the relationship got to be more trouble than it was worth.

I'm fortunate to have peaceful, supportive, close relationships with my husband, children, children-in-law, grandchildren, my other siblings, a few circles of friends, a handful of neighbors and even some on this very forum whom I consider good friends. More than that I could not ask.
 
C50 said:
The flip side of this thread are those that maintained relationships with family or friends when the relationship was toxic and every one was miserable. The relationship should be ended but doesn't due to feelings of obligation or personal weakness.

My ex wife's family was like that. Someone was always not talking with someone else, yet they would all go on a yearly vacation together....and literally not talk to each other the entire trip! Sit in a room or a resurant and watch people totally ignore one another, that was some of the strangest family dynamics I ever experienced.
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I don't agree it's a total flip side but you are right, people do stay when it would be better that they didn't. The main moderator of the forum I go to for children raised by a borderline parent, never went no contact with her mother. She's a bit younger than me I think but when we were young, there was no internet to find people who were experiencing similar. I had no one who ever told me, this is a nightmare you are in.

I was also isolated and so verbally abused in my upbringing, I had nothing when I reached 18. No self worth, self confidence. Nothing. I'm not pretty, comforted myself with food since 8 years of age. I was right where my mother had wanted me to be. Looking back I would have ran the day I turned 18 but the reality is, that' 18 year old couldn't do it. People have mentioned on that forum it's like being an infant or toddler when you reach 18 because a borderline never wants their child to be an independent human. And that's how they raise them. It's not actually a weakness at that point, it's conditioning from abuse. It takes years to unwind it.

FOG: fear obligation guilt. I'm actually there with my elderly stepfather. I'd love to yell "bye" but I can't.
 
C50 said:
Someone was always not talking with someone else, yet they would all go on a yearly vacation together....and literally not talk to each other the entire trip!
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Now that's almost funny and reminds me of my family.

I hesitated to tell about them for fear those like Holly and Remy with truly horrible situations would think I thought they should "make_up" with their nasty abusers. No way, but there are people like my brother who use "not speaking" as some sort of childish weapon to tell one and all just how butt hurt they are over some slight.

Way back, about 1972, my brother used the f-word in front of my mother and my father punched him for it. He never spoke to my father again. This meant all sorts of contrivances when he would come to visit the rest of the family. He remained close with my mother, but didn't come to her funeral in 1990 for fear everyone would think he had forgiven my father. Just a few years ago he quit speaking to my other brother over something petty and kept it that way until he died.

One time he got mad at me over something, told me I was the worst person he had ever known and other awful things and announced that he would never speak to me again. I waited a week and called him and just started talking. I don't play that.
 
@Della Your experiences with family do remind me of my mother. She could sure dish it out but she couldn't take anything in. So many nothing things were big slights to her and she would go on and on about them. But her behavior was nothing.
 
We still speak with our youngest son,, send cards to the grand daughters & his wife.
He will be staying with us for few days to hunt deer.

Because of his brother's handicaps, I'm sure he thinks we favor him over he & his family.
My oldest son over came his handicaps, club feet,,missing fingers, is a busy young man.

We do try to go to his home,,as there are no family members where he lives.
 
Capt Lightning said:
After my mother died, the last fragile thread that joined my siblings and me was broken. I have had no real contact with my brother or sister for - I'm not sure how many years 20? 30? something like that. It doesn't trouble me. We all chose different and irreconcilable paths to walk and I have no plans to ever see them again.
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I have a brother who is 16 years older than me, we were never close but there also was never any drama between us. My mom's funeral in 1998 is the last time I saw or spoke to him, I reached out a few times but he never responded so I let it go. I think he simply decided to wash his hands of his past and family. Truthfully it never bothered me though I wonder occasionally if he's still alive.
 
C50 said:
You have to wonder what her thought process was. Just taking your stuff because she wanted it or taking it to hurt you. Regardless that's very shitty behavior.
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well I can only surmise she wanted the things.. like a magpie who sees shiny objects ..she certainly had no reason to hurt me, to this day and she's 60 this year she still thinks of me as her surrogate mum...but she did go on after that and steal money from another sister...
 
C50 said:
I have a brother who is 16 years older than me, we were never close but there also was never any drama between us. My mom's funeral in 1998 is the last time I saw or spoke to him, I reached out a few times but he never responded so I let it go. I think he simply decided to wash his hands of his past and family. Truthfully it never bothered me though I wonder occasionally if he's still alive.
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I have 4 half-siblings (2 brothers, 2 sisters). I am in contact with sisters. The 2 eldest .. brothers, were 16 and 14 yrs. older than me. I had contact with one, but the other wasn't interested in meeting until 5-6 years ago. Before he passed away, last year, the eldest filled me in on a lot of unknowns about how and when our mother met my father. This was all hush-hush, throughout my life. It's rather sad that we didn't have contact for most of our lives.
 
Yes, I did not see my older sister for many years. After our father died, she did something to our mother that was not something I could forgive her for. I told her how I felt about is and said I was through with her. I don't think she thought I would do it, but I had no choice. She passed away three years ago. I did not find out until her daughter called my 18 months after she died. I have no regrets...we fought all the time anyway including when we were kids...
 
Pinky said:
I have 4 half-siblings (2 brothers, 2 sisters). I am in contact with sisters. The 2 eldest .. brothers, were 16 and 14 yrs. older than me. I had contact with one, but the other wasn't interested in meeting until 5-6 years ago. Before he passed away, last year, the eldest filled me in on a lot of unknowns about how and when our mother met my father. This was all hush-hush, throughout my life. It's rather sad that we didn't have contact for most of our lives.
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Sounds like my family. I have four half brothers and a half sister (all dead now) who I never knew about until I was in my teens. My dad's entire life, his parents and siblings, his first wife and those five kids are mostly a mystery to me, his previous life was never really discussed.

Thru one of those ancestory sites a granddaughter from that family reached out to me last year ( we are the same age!). She filled in a tiny bit but she said my dad was always a mystery to her family as well. All she knew is he left right after the last kid was born and never returned.
 

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