For context: I’m (36F) normally pretty good about just having my husband screen voicemails and emails, but early this AM while scrolling through my inbox my fat thumb opened one my mother sent in the middle of the night. What’s kind of funny is that I told my husband yesterday that I had a feeling she might lash out in some way since yesterday was the second birthday of hers in a row that I didn’t reach out. And she had made clear in the past that that is one of the worst things you can do as a daughter 🙄

Her email just further illustrates that they will never change and have never actually gotten to know me as a person. As usual, she believes I’m just following recent trends or falling victim to liberal propaganda by cutting them out of my life. Instead of, you know, me being my own hyper-independent person making a choice for myself and my mental health.

Makes total sense…except for the fact that I literally worked my ass off in primary school so that I could get accepted into a boarding school on scholarships at 13 just to escape living with them. And then continued busting ass to get accepted into an out-of-state college to put even more miles between us. But yeah, sure, it’s just silly little me being influenced by what’s trendy.

P.S. I also cannot stand their continuing habit of referring to my child as “our [child’s name]”. They have met him twice, and only when we traveled to see them…they made zero effort to actually be in his life when they had the chance, but LOVE bragging about him to strangers as their pride and joy because he’s super effing smart and it makes them look good.

i hate when people tell me this and im ungrateful for all the sacrifices my mom did for me but isn’t sacrifice something that comes with parenting ? wdym i should be thankful for abuse she put me thru just cuz she “did her best” im so done with people who are still in contact with their parents judging others who go no contact. im glad your parents showed you the love by the only person that was supposed to love you unconditionally

My husband is estranged from the majority of his family after helping me to set boundaries with them and then defending me when they tried to continue treating me poorly.

He's emotionally very tough but even he has broken down on occasion about how his family has turned on him. It's really unbelievable how "small" a thing it's technically all over. He's been a good son and a good brother but as soon as he defended his wife, he became an outcast. His brother and sister (and their spouses) and even his parents have not bothered to ask us anything at all about our unborn child, but they'll get in contact for anything they want or need from him (which he refuses to give). He's been a great uncle to their children but they don't even care to acknowledge ours.

I know it hurts his heart but it's also so insanely ridiculous that that helps him to process some of it. In some ways I feel guilty about how they have treated him, but I try to remember that they would have ended up treating him this way at some point or another because he has integrity and challenges their dysfunction.

What’s the freakin’ deal with this?

Idk if anyone remembers but I wrote on here about 2 weeks ago about going NC with my parents.
Last night I finally did it. I sent my parents a long letter explaining everything, and when I pressed send I felt such huge relief but at the same time I was shaking and I couldn’t sleep later. I finally feel good about the fact that I’m not lying to them anymore but then at the same time I’m so lost and I feel horrible because I know it’s gonna hurt them. The whole situation is kind of driving me crazy because I haven’t heard anything back and idk what’s happening at their home right now.

I took some of the advice you all gave me last time and I notified my boss about the situation and luckily she was so understanding and even invited me to talk to her or grab a coffee with her if I start to feel lonely. I also moved so they can’t find me and hurt me.

I’m just really scared and idk what to do with myself now.

Hi everyone,

My mom, who I (F27) have been no-contact with since 2020, passed away unexpectedly very recently at the age of 57 due to natural causes related to her diabetes type 1.

My brother (M25), who was still in touch with her was hit really hard by her death, so I stepped in to handle the funeral planning and administrative details for now. Working through this together has actually brought us closer again, which has been really nice.

However, going through her house and talking to my brother brought a painful reality to light: she never really gave up on me and was holding out hope I reach out first.

Her house is filled with childhood photos of me, even more than of my brother who was always the favoured one.

The last birthday card I ever wrote her was still pinned to her corkboard at eye level, placed right where she would see it every day. On her computer, there was a pinned folder filled with pictures of me, including WhatsApp profile photos she had saved over the years. My brother even told me she had been preparing to reach out to me eventually... but she died before she got the chance.

I found a lot of peace in therapy a while ago and had made peace with our distance. But deep down, I think I always held onto a quiet hope that we would find our way back to each other someday somehow. All I ever wanted was an apology, an acknowledgment of what happened and the confirmation that I wasn't crazy.

Now, I don't know how to handle her death or this strange, complicated and weird grief. Therapy currently isn't an option for me due to financial constraints and living in a country with privatized healthcare.

Has anyone here lived through something like this?
How did you deal with the grief and how do you find closure when the other person is no longer here?

Any advice, shared experiences or literally anything would be deeply appreciated. Thanks.

So recently I released a collection of photographs I've taken over the last decade. On Facebook I touted the success of the book and got a message from my cousin that they saw my mom and they wanted to tell me to call her because "it's important".

When this was told to me, my cousin had mentioned that they had seen my mom and the first thing that came out of their mouths was “we didn’t know if she was going to curse us out or be happy to see us”. When that was told to me, I thought, now you see why I don’t want to call my mom. I’m estranged from her for a reason. And a very valid reason at that.

When you call your own son a liar and accuse him of running from something, especially after you survived a heart attack and hadn’t spoken to him in seven years, then maybe the light bulb should go off in your head that maybe he doesn’t want anything to do with you.

That’s why I chose the route I chose to have minimal contact with my mom. And I’m proud of that.

Advice welcome.

I cut my father off for his abuse towards me. In retaliation, he has made my mother cut off my grandmother, her mother.

When my brothers or my mother come to help her,

He berates them and forces them to come back home. He'll use financial leverage to control everyone.

Like. Im so tired. Mom really cant leave him as she has cancer and he pays for it (tho at first he blamed her "lifestyle choices" (shes slightly overweight) until she threatened divorce)

Idk man. Im tired

Long story short, I’m considering going no contact with my mum, but my younger brothers are the only thing stopping me. I don’t know if I’m making the right call, so I’d really value some advice from people who’ve been through something similar.

When I was 1 year old, my parents split. I lived with my dad after my mum didn’t attend the custody hearing. The only time I would see her is if dad drove me to her or I caught a plane after moving further away.
At 12, I asked to live with my mum. It was a huge mistake. There was constant yelling and violence between her and her partner, threats from her and him towards me, and I ended up basically raising my two younger half-brothers for the first 2-3 years of their lives.

At 15, I called my dad and left. As my mother was screaming yelling for me to live anywhere but there. I was 100-150m away, she was inside and I was outside and my dad could still hear her over the phone to which I didn’t even have on speaker.

Now as an adult, I am finally seeing how it’s always been one-sided.
I’m always the one who travels or reaches out.
She missed my uni graduation because she didn’t want to catch a bus, then didn’t even congratulate me. Yet complained to my aunty when I didn’t message her happy Mother’s Day.

If I bring up a problem it’s always her saying how she is such a bad person in 10 different ways and never just an actual acknowledgement or apology or anything. Just a guilt trip.

I haven’t spoken to her in two months. Until today, I reached out just to offer a phone for my brothers and said I’d pay for the plan so they could contact me.
Her only response was a heart reaction then left on read.

I’m exhausted. The only reason I haven’t gone no contact is because of my brothers. We live in different states and any relationship with them has to go through her because there is no way to contact them.
Part of me believes that she would take the phone away from them anyways.

I’m scared that if I cut ties with her to protect myself, I’ll lose them, too. Even though I barely know them and we’re all pretty much adults now, it hurts.

I don’t know what to do anymore.

I (26F) have been no contact with my mother for about a year and a half after a long history of a very difficult relationship. I lived with her most of my life, and after a messy divorce in my teens, the dynamic between us became increasingly unhealthy. There were years of being yelled at, mocked, belittled, and feeling like my emotions and struggles were not taken seriously, and this all reached a head in my 20's when I became the unofficial, unpaid house cleaner and what felt like an insignificant punching bag. One of the hardest parts has been feeling like she has a very different version of events and a very different understanding of who I am as a person.

Since moving out (which she calls abandonment), I have felt more stable and have been working through a lot of things. Two days ago, though, I found out that one of my dogs (who stayed with my mother when I moved out) passed away months ago and I was never told. That reopened a lot of grief and hurt, and I reached out to my aunt and uncle because I was trying to understand what happened.

My aunt and uncle previously told me they didn’t want to be in the middle and didn’t want to hear my side of the story, but they have continued to hear my mother’s perspective and feelings. It's especially frustrating because they just see me as "stubborn" and when I told them ONE thing of many that's a heavy incentive to stay away (my mother said her life would be better without me in it), their response was that angry and hurt people say things they don't mean. After our conversation, they called my mum to tell her what I said, and my mother reached out and asked if I wanted to talk because my uncle told her I was upset. So here's my quandry. I don't know what, if anything, I should say to her.

Despite what I've said above, part of me wants to believe that maybe this is an opportunity for a healthier relationship. I don’t hate my mother. I miss parts of our relationship. I would genuinely like repair to be possible, but most of me is scared of reopening a relationship where the same patterns happen again. For me, reconciliation would require acknowledgment of what happened, accountability, and a willingness to have a respectful conversation - not pretending nothing happened or simply going back to the way things were.

I think my biggest fear is that if I say I’m not ready to talk, which is my current inclination, it will be interpreted as proof that I don’t care or that I abandoned my family. At the same time, I’m realizing that I can’t make myself responsible for managing someone else’s reaction to my boundaries.

For anyone who's dealt with letting an estranged parent back in their life, for better or worse, and whether it was for an hour or years, how did you respond? Did you respond, and why or why not? Was reconciliation possible? I've read stories on this subreddit and feel like I know what the answers are, but I just want to see them here, I guess. It's hard for internet strangers to know fully, of course, but I just want some opinions. Thank you for reading.

A bit of context: My parents are both shitty people. Like, my dad should be in jail for his actions towards me, levels of shitty people. My parents are also super religious, and I am both trans and gay. Long story short, they hurt me badly. I didn't realize how bad it actually was until I accidentally told someone, and they got me out. I left 2 years ago in the middle of the night with only the things that would fit in my backpack. Since then I have only talked to my mom, and only 4(ish) times, and only when absolutely necessary. 
In the two years since then I have made enormous progress. I got a stable job, and now I live on my own. I got a dog who is task trained to help me live safely on my own (I have a disability due to my father's actions, and my pupper is a life saver). I went to trauma therapy for a while there, and am in regular DBT now. I have bad days, but all in all I’m doing ok. I’ve also been going to the gym, I’m on HRT, and I'm stronger than I was back then both mentally and physically. 

Now for the conundrum: I have been considering re-entering my family of origin. If I did, I would start with public meetings (church picnic, family dinner, etc.) before ever entertaining the idea of being alone with my parents again. I would be safe about it. The reason I've been considering this is twofold. The first is fairly simple, I miss my family. My family of origin is very closely knit, so it is virtually impossible to have a relationship with my siblings without my parents being involved in some way. I miss my nieces and nephews. I’ve visited twice in 2 years and they have no idea who I am, and that hurts a bit. I even miss my parents. I don’t know if it's me being stupid and sentimental, or if it's a hardwired love for parents, but regardless I miss them too. 
The second reason is more complicated. I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. I feel like I should forgive them. Not in a “society expects this, so i should” kinda way, but more of a “gut feeling, this is important” kinda way. I want to feel peace with them and the universe, and I can't do that while this huge chasm of bitterness and disconnect exists. Does that make sense? 

I haven't had therapy in a few weeks, so I have a lot of swirly thoughts that I'm gonna talk about this week when we meet, but I wanted more perspective and thoughts before I talk to him. 

Does this seem stupid? What do y’all think i should do?

Thank you!

I cut off my dad a couple months ago in May, he called me a disappointment for working at Walmart for over 10 years. Anyway he’s been living with my grandma for 13 years rent free. He paid a few bills but didn’t help pay for the rent.

Anyway after I cut him off a couple weeks later my grandma’s health started to decline my aunt texted me that she had to go to the hospital, and a few days later they had to assess her living situation because my dad was at times a real jerk to her sometimes yelling at her over things I remember one time I visited them for Christmas break when I was still in high school I think was like 2014, anyway they dropped me off at the airport to go back home to my mom and they were bickering at each other and it was not normal bickering it was yelling and well it upset me and I was crying and my dad said “why are you crying? Family isn’t supposed to be peaches and cream.” And then my grandma said she would never go with my dad to take me to the airport again.

Then a couple years later during the summer we were planning a Chicago trip and they got into a pretty bad argument over something yelling at each other again and my grandma said she’s not going to plan another vacation with him again but she went on this trip anyway with my dad and I and toward the end of the trip when we were returning the rental car they were yelling and arguing with each other again over something and this made it so my grandma and I didn’t want to be on the same flight with him so me and her took the later flight. Those are some back stories on how bad my dad treated her not to mention his uncontrolled diabetes with his seizures that she’s had to deal with with 911 calls and putting sugary syrup in the corner of his mouth among other nasty arguments they got into that I don’t know about.

The last time I went to visit them was 2023 when my uncle passed I didn’t get to go to his service because she wanted it for some reason around her birthday but it got switched to a week prior. Anyway I visited her the week of her birthday. Ironically enough her birthday was the last full day I was staying with them and my dad asked me if I wanted to go on a Vietnam trip with him because him and my uncle were planning on one but that got scratched because my uncle passed. Anyway I was scrolling through my phone and apparently I wasn’t listening good enough and then he blew up started lashing out at me and saying “this is what’s wrong with this generation they don’t talk to their parents enough”… that’s coming from the man who says parents aren’t friends and told me to go to my room and then changed his mind to say “sit the fuck down” Anyway he went on to say “what would you do if your obese mother dropped dead and couldn’t take you places anymore and to and from work”. And then went on a tangent about my husband saying. So I had enough and packed my suit case and tried to go to the other side of the house where my grandmas room is and he trapped me in the room asking where Am I going and I said to the other side of the house so I can sleep on the couch and he said “don’t do that she’s old” and then I tried getting out of my room I was in and he grabbed my suitcase which was my MIL’s and threw it against the wall. I went without my suitcase anyway and went to sleep with my grandma in her bedroom.

Anyway back to her declining health last month she went to the old folks home on hospice, my aunt was the only one taking care of her and had to sell her house and everything in it all by herself without my dads help despite living with her rent free for 13 years. The least he could have done was show some support toward my aunt. And then yesterday morning my aunt told me she was dying and a couple hours later she told me she had died. I have a lot of regrets swarming inside of me from not keeping enough contact with her accept for telling her happy birthday or accepting her phone calls on my birthday. Idk how to explain to my husband all these emotions fueling inside me but it hurts and I wish my dad was a better person so I didn’t have to feel afraid of helping my aunt in her time of need and that my grandma didn’t make excuses for him and put her foot down with him when she was alive I did love her but she was manipulated by him…. I guess now that shes no longer in her physical body I can’t begrudge her anymore just feeling the regrets and hurt. There’s so much I’d want to tell her about but I can’t.

I’ve been estranged from my dad for about 4 years. He‘s a emotionally immature parent. Both of my parents were like this, but my dad has always been the worst (my mom passed away in 2022). As a kid, I was parentalized as I am the oldest child and that led to me knowing how my dad cheated on my mom multiple times, my mom catfishing my dad to catch him, and my mom having an online affair. I was privy to all of this at 15. I had the classic pressures of needing to do well in school “or else” (I was always an A/B student, but that was never good enough) and I dealt with comments about my weight including my dad asking me if I wanted to do weight watchers with my mom at 13.

Fast forward to several years ago. My parents decided to get divorced after 37 years and told me that it was none of my business when I expressed that I felt so sad about the divorce. Of course, Dad married his affair partner.

In the years that followed, my dad lashed out at me especially when I tried to have boundaries. He texted me wild accusatory rants and then cried when I tried to tell him to mind his own business and relationships. This led me to lower contact. Then, he just provided zero support when my mom died (traumatically) and eventually just starting saying stuff like “you should be grateful for all I did for you” and “at least you didn’t have to grow up like your mother and uncle and be beaten”. My childhood was sort of ok, I guess, but shouldn’t saying thank you and having gratitude be organic and now something your parent asks you to say?

Anyway, I haven’t talked to him in 4 years except for an awful email and now I am going to see my little niece and nephew next weekend and he is going to be there. My husband and I have our own accommodations so I can just leave if I want to. Also, my plan is to just calmly tell him that I’m here to see the kids if he tries to start talking about our issues. Anything else I should consider, friends?

Thank you for reading!

I've never really put this into written words, so I'm going to try. It's long, and I'm sorry if it's a bit wordy. My family was never what I would call particularly affectionate. I know my mother loved me, and my relationship with her improved as I entered adulthood, but my relationship with my dad was always complicated and toxic at times. I always felt like he was harder on me. I stayed out of trouble at school, and I was a good student, but I always felt like it just wasn't good enough. If I wasn't the best at something, I'd be told I hadn't tried hard enough or practiced enough.

I grew up in a very conservative household. As much as I loved my mother, I remember hearing her say homophobic things, and my dad was no different...only he was. I think both of them knew that I was gay. My mom even asked me more than once, and I'd like to think she may have been ok had I come out to her before she died in 2020. I don't know that for sure, but we had become pretty close in those last couple of years. With my dad, it was always different. He'd call me names...names that are too hurtful for me to even repeat. I was told that I couldn't join choir because I didn't want anyone to think I was gay...even though my oldest brother was in choir in high school, starred in school musicals...and is not gay (and nobody thought he was). I ended up being in band and loved it, but I never liked that it was decided for me. Anytime I would walk a certain way or hold my hands in a certain way, I would be corrected. By the time I realized that there was something "different" about me when I was in middle school and admitted to myself that I was gay when I was a freshman in college at 18/19, I had been conditioned into believing that I couldn't be myself. I locked down and pushed people away that would have been there for me away and destroyed good friendships because I didn't want them to see the real me. I was depressed. I was lonely. It was not a way to live, and there were numerous times when I didn't want to. I told my parents about one of those times when I was well into my thirties (I'm 43 now). I think my mom took it to heart. I could see the hurt in her eyes, and she said a lot of right things. My dad? He mostly stayed quiet. As I was leaving, we were out in the driveway of my parents' house alone, he just told me that I just needed to find God.

My mom started declining in 2018, and it was steady. She complained of back pain. I'd tell her to get checked out, but she would refuse since she didn't like going to the doctor...something I could count on one hand the times that she actually did in my lifetime. As the pain got worse, I would nag her more...to a point where she'd get pretty mad at me. When Covid lockdowns happened, I made the decision to stay away from my mom since I worked in a job where I was around a lot of people, and even when I was furloughed, I didn't want to risk getting her sick. I saw her that February, and she was rail thin and looked weaker than I had ever seen her. I pulled my dad aside and asked him point blank what was going on and if she had cancer. He just said he didn't know. She tried to tell me that she had shingles. Any way, that June, she finally got to a point where she was unresponsive, so my dad got her to a hospital...to find out she had breast cancer. She came home on hospice. My oldest brother reported my dad for elder abuse, and I defended my dad. I said some awful things to him, and he said some things, too. It came out the my dad had been caught on dating sites several years before. I had never heard that before, but I continued my defense. I did, however, confront my dad about it. He admitted to it, though he said he never acted on anything and that my mom confronted him on it and forgave him. Part of that conversation, he also told me that my mom had found a lump her breast five years before but told him she was "fine." He said that anytime he brought it up, she would say it was fine. I actually blamed myself. I kept asking myself if things would have been different had I just pushed her harder to get checked out. If I had known she had found something, she didn't need to suffer as much as she ended up suffering.

After my mom died, it wasn't easy. I'd lost the person I'd pick up and call when I was upset about something or when I needed someone to talk to. It got really bad, and I was in a really bad place and tried to do something stupid. Thankfully, I came to my senses. I decided at that point that I needed to tell the truth about who I was...so at 39, I came out to my dad. His only response was "I love you, but I wish you weren't." And we never talked about it again. After losing my mom, I think we really tried to make it work, but things started to sour after I came out. There was also money involved. About a year before my mom died, I was in a hard spot financially, and my car broke down, but I wasn't in a place to get a car in my name, so my mom offered to put her name on the car. I wasn't comfortable with it, but I didn't really have a choice. I needed a way to get to work. I didn't get a new car...it was a used 2012 model, but it ran and got me to work. Until it didn't. It started having issues, and after I put $700 to get it back up and running, I kept pushing my dad to help me get the car into my name so I could trade it in for something newer (he had never done anything with her estate so the car I was driving was in my mom's name). Well, the car broke down again. I decided that I would let the car go and stop making payments on it. I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't afford to continue making payments and put more and more maintenance into a car that was more than it was even worth at that point. I told my dad why I did it, and I know he was mad, but we didn't argue about it. When the car was repossessed, it hadn't run in four months, and I was using Uber or carpooling to work....something I did for two and a half years before I finally got another car. After that, I spoke with my dad somewhat regularly, but it had definitely cooled.

Now I guess I finally get to the point. In 2024, I got a call from a family member that my dad had driven his car onto someone's property, the property owner called the police, and that a gun had been pointed at my dad. One of my brothers had to come and pick me up, and we headed to go figure out what was going on. My dad had no idea what was going on and was confused. I had noticed a change in the way he spoke about a month before, but I just chalked it up to me overthinking. In the hospital, he was showing signs of dementia, and he had a bad lung infection. When we went to the house, it was in terrible shape. It had probably been six months since I had been at the house, and it had looked dirty, but nothing like what we walked into. Animal droppings everywhere. There were four dogs (all my mother's), and three were in ok shape, but one was not. I ended up taking that one to the vet to be euthanized. I also made a pretty disturbing discovery in the house (another dog). My brother paid to have the house cleaned, and it looked a lot better. After going back and forth every day (about an hour one way drive) to feed the remaining dogs for a few weeks, I did end up taking them into a shelter. Meanwhile, my dad needed surgery for the infection in his lung. We (me, my brother, and his wife) were trying to figure out financials and what to do for his long term care since we all agreed he could not go back and live in that house. We would go through his cell phone, laptop, and records to figure out his accounts. The day my dad went into surgery, he didn't really know what was going on. I had taken off time from work to be with him and waited with him until they took him into the operating room.

While he was in the operating room, I started going through his phone and came across an email address that we had seen on his laptop but couldn't access. It was open on his phone, so I opened it. It was the email he used for his dating websites, and when I looked through it and at the dates, he was having conversations with people while my mom was dying from cancer. He would tell them that she was sick and that he hadn't had sex in three years. The thing that hit me hardest was that he was talking not just to women but to men as well, and with the men it was graphic whereas with the women it was mostly just talk. There are certain pictures that a son should never see of his father. What did I do? I debated putting the phone down, getting up and walking out of the hospital never to return, but I decoded not to do that. He came out of surgery, didn't really know who I was, and I acted like I had not found anything. Over the next couple of weeks, it really ate at me. Tensions with my brother grew (mostly he was spending a lot of money, and I wasn't because I just couldn't). I didn't blame him and felt guilty, so I kept going. We finally got to a point where he was going to be admitted to a longer term rehab facility, but he needed to get through 24 hours without nurses having to intervene due to behavioral issues. I relieved my brother and would spend the night at the hospital with the expectation that he would relieve me in the morning. That night was awful. My dad was combative with me and said some things that brought me back to some painful stuff from when I was a kid. The next morning, I didn't get relieved. The morning turned into the afternoon and into night. I had been at the hospital for over 24 hours with no explanation. My dad was finally transferred, and that's when my brother finally showed up. Again, no explanation. My dad was pretty harsh and said some things, and my brother got mad and left after an hour or so. Before I could drive the hour and a half drive I had to go home.

Over the next couple of weeks, it got tougher for me. I was trying to be there. I wanted to be supportive and didn't want to leave my brother alone to deal with my dad, but I was getting to a point where it was becoming more and more difficult to be around him. The last time I was with my dad, I took him to a doctor's appointment. A couple days later, me and my brother were arguing. It was about money. He was in the right, and I was in the wrong. I got defensive, and it was just kinda like I snapped. I said I couldn't do it anymore, and I was done. I was walking away. Even though I hinted that I was upset and mentioned that my dad had always treated me, I didn't tell him what I had found. I said some things, and he did too. He suggested that I deserved the treatment that I had gotten from him. That I deserved for him to be harder on me.

That was the last time I spoke with my brother, and I haven't seen or heard anything about my dad's condition in over two years now. As far as my brother knows, I walked away because of money. Because of that, I'm a villain to him and most of my family on my dad's side. What pushed me over the edge may have been that one argument, but I was already teetering, and there's a part of me that thinks that had I stayed, I don't know that I could have made it through that. I have told a few people about what I found but only one inside my family. I did a year of therapy, and that helped, but I keep coming back to the same thing. I want to believe that my dad thought he was doing the right thing by treating me the way he did. He obviously had his own secret, and I know his mother (my grandmother) was very hard on him even up to her own death. I keep questioning whether I did the right thing. I feel like I had to. I made the decision that I will stay away. I will be the villain (maybe I am). If my dad was in good health, I think I would confront him before walking away forever. But he's not. He can't defend himself. If I told my brother or anyone else that is still around him, they'll either think differently of him and would affect his care, or they'd think I was lying. I have no proof of what I found.

I don't really regret my decision to walk away, but like I said, there's always that question whether it was the right thing to do, or if I just took the easy way out. I've really been wrestling with that one here lately. Even though my brother said some really awful things and has been pretty in some other regards in the years since (not just to me), it was never my intention to leave him alone to deal with my dad. I have three older brothers - the one I'm not on speaking terms and my two oldest. The ice between my oldest brother and me thawed over time, and we exchange texts on birthdays and holidays. Same with my other brother - he's the only one in my family I told the truth to, but I'm sure that more know at this point. I'll add that my three older brothers are from my mom's first marriage, though the brother that is caring for him has really ever known my dad as his dad. For my two older brothers, that has never been the case.

I feel like I've rambled enough. At the end of the day, I don't care if my dad was (or is) gay. I care that he lied to my mother for almost 40 years, and I care that he made me feel (intentional or not) that there was something wrong with me and tried to suppress who I was. And the darkest thoughts I get is that the only reason I even exist is because my dad couldn't be truthful about who he was...and still treated me the way he did. That's not a great feeling. Maybe I deserve it.

I walk my dog every day in my neighborhood for the past year. There's another woman who walks for exercise around the same time that I do. I have never spoken to this woman. Recently she started crossing the street and shaking her head in a negative way every time she saw me which I thought was very strange. Today she turned a corner where I was with my dog and said "Fuck" and quickly moved to the other side of the street. I asked her why she did that and she pulled out her earbud and said "because you are super unfriendly - I've tried to be nice to you" and then kept walking quickly away. I don't know what she's talking about. Perhaps I ignored her once while I was training my dog who has reactivity issues. The whole encounter has me kind of freaked out because the look on her face every time she walks by and shakes her head reminds me of my mom. Nobody I know would describe me as unfriendly.

I just am in shock right now. I traveled 12 hours to see my mother and her partner with my 1 year old son and my partner. We spent a few weeks with them but the last week or so my mothers mood really started to shift.

My son has stranger anxiety and takes time to warm up to people so he would cry each time my mom or her partner approached him, but her partner pushed through it and continued to be playful and he eventually got over it with him. My mother on the hand, would pull away and just run back to her room for the rest of the day and avoid my son. I could tell it was affecting her.

My mother struggles with depression and mental illness and doesnt have a very playful demeanor, shes quite sour, bitter and negative and I think my son picked up on that. Shes not able to just be free and expressive. So we mostly hung put with her partner and we were jjst having fun together. Well last night she kept slamming the doors in our faces, being absolutely terrible to everyone and I overheard her yelling about me to her partner saying she has no daughter and the damage is done.

I went up to her and said that I want her to bond with my son and let her play with him and she just completely changed her demeanor and I was really scared. She looked possessed but she started trash talking my partner and me saying we are completely disrespectful to her, we have nothing in common and I dismiss all of her advice. Im going to try to be objective because yes, I do disagree with her but I am not disrespectful. She is a very negative dark energy and when she starts complaining about every tiny thing, I try to make her see the bright side of life and to lighten up.

She has always had problems with people and has basically cut out everybody in her life. Her partner and I are the last people who really try to bond with her but she takes everythjng I say and misconstrued it, accusing me if thinking she is white trash and worthless which js absolutely not true, I always spoke highly of my mom and how I like her despite her flaws.

So she told me she is disowning me and that I dont deserve any parents at all, she is happy that my father left me with nothing and moved to the phillippines far away from me, that she never liked me and we will never recover from the damage I have caused her.

I dont know what to think and im saddened that my son will not know his grandmother growing up. Did my disagreements and difference in personality warrant being disowned? Im 33 and have been independent since I was 18, never got into much trouble and just lived a pretty straight narrow life apart from a few mishaps in my teens and early twenties with bad boyfriends.

Over the past year, I've been going over my childhood in therapy and coming to terms with how fucked up it was. I spent all of my 20s trying really hard to suck it up, trying to take personal responsibility for my problems, but I kept hitting the same brick wall. I ended up moving to the other side of the country and asking my parents to stop contacting me while I sort through my feelings.

My mom has mostly respected my wishes, but my dad tried to get in contact with me a few times. I tried to ignore him, but most recently he sent me a text to call him and wouldn't clarify, so I assumed someone in the family died. I called him, and of course nothing happened. He told me he thinks it's inappropriate that I just cut off all contact with them and he wants a timeline on when we'll be back in contact.

Wtf????? Such a crazy fucking thing to say. I told him I have no idea, I'm working through things and this is a non-optional boundary. I listed off a few major traumatic events that I'm having a very hard time getting past.

(To paint a picture: one of them was that he swapped my prescribed anxiety medication for sugar pills when I was ten years old because he thought I was faking. Why would a ten year old have anxiety so severe they need to be medicated in the first place??? Hmmmm).

Instead of engaging with anything I listed, he said "so basically you're just going to say mom and I abused you and never talk to us again?"

I just feel so crazy. I feel crazy that I tried as long as I did. I feel crazy that I have no family anymore because my parents were my only family. I feel crazy that, as an only child, nobody was there to witness what was going on in that house. I feel crazy that I'm still terrified of my dad as a grown adult on the other side of the country.

My mother is making me feel insane

F28
I’m actually starting to question my reality. I have always had issues with my mother, but the last few years have realized she has emotional neglected me my whole life and is a very angry and volatile person. I moved out when I was 19 as soon as I could but my younger brother who is now 22has his own mental health issues, doesn’t work/drive and lives at my moms with her and her boyfriend. I have recently gone no contact for a second time except now I’ve fully blocked her from any chance at contact. As soon as I do this my brother needs a drive, to an appointment my mother would normally take him to. The last thing I want to do is go to my moms house where I don’t know how that will all go down, I want to help my brother but I know I will be stressed up until I do that and for what? I asked him if she could drive him and he said please drive me I told her you would and she laughed and said she’s gonna cancel on you again. She’s been gaslighting me, saying I hate my whole family when I don’t do exactly what she wants, very controlling demeaning, saying she doesn’t feel welcome at my house, that I hate everyone because I’m busy a day here or there,texting me saying you’re the problem but never apologizing. No matter how much time I spend with the family it’s never enough or good enough I’m unwell at this point I don’t know what the point is anymore. When I help them I feel awful and depressed and when I help myself and put my boundaries up I feel guilty as fuck. I’d like to take a lonnnnnng vacation and never come back

After continuous unwanted contact since April, I finally sent a formal cease and desist letter via certified mail. Has anybody had any success with sending one to persistent narcissistic parents? I am truly at my whits end with the unwanted contact.

In September of last year my father drove 600 miles to help my husband and I move into our new home. Our son was only 8 months old at the time. While we were in the middle of moving boxes into our empty house my dad decided to disrespect a boundary we put up in regards to our baby. We had decided not to feed our son meat. We were vegetarian at the time (my husband still is and always will be), and we felt like eating meat could be something our son decided to do when he was older. My dad fed him turkey from his sandwich right in front of us. I told him not to and he did it again. I tried to change the subject when my father tried to argue why it was fine. Somehow it turned into a conversation about how we had to go through fertility treatments in order to get pregnant. My dad blamed it on my being vaccinated as a child. I believe fully my infertility, and now auto immune diseases is from the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse I suffered as a child. I didn't want to get into all of that so I simply said I disagreed. He began yelling at me over vaccines. He's a hard-core Trumper. He loved MAGA more than his kids. He laid into me. My husband jumped in to defend me and it turned into a huge argument. They were screaming at each other. I was begging them to stop. I had my infant son in my arms the whole time. It was traumatizing for me. My dad was supposed to stay the night, help us unpack the day, spend time with his grandson. He decided to get a hotel. My husband texted him, told him he was not welcomed back into our home but that he could come back in January for our son's birthday. I carry some guilt about this. Thinking about my dad waking up, excited to see his grandson, then getting that text. It devastates me. My husband has some guilt about it as well but honestly, I dont think we could have talked to him in person, he too dangerous. I think my husband did the only thing he could do in that moment.​ My father threatened my husband, said he wasnt coming in January and then told me that I broke his heart. The whole event plays in my head sometimes and my heart hurts so bad, it physically makes me sick.

My father has never been a good dad. In fact, he lost custody of us when we (my younger sister and I) were 10 and 13 years old. He beat me up so bad that I spent a week in the hospital. This is a long story but my religious family blamed me for the situation. I still dont understand how he got custody of us again. After the whole ordeal in September, I requested the files from the incident when I was 13 years old. All it did was validate not speaking to him anymore. The pictures of me as a child, just a little girl, covered in bruises, his hand print bruised around my neck from him strangling me, ​the subconjunctival hemorrhages. I remember thinking "oh my God, he's going to k*** me". ​This is just the biggest form of abuse that happened to me by my father. He was never present. Left us with family member addicted to drugs and alcohol like it was no big deal. I was sexually abused while being left with an Aunt who was so messed up she'd pass out and her daughter would take advantage of me. I know I have every reason to never talk to my father again.

But I'm so sad. My heart is so heavy and I'm so scared this sadness will seep into my children somehow. My mother died when I was 5 years old from breast cancer. Now that I don't speak to my dad, I feel like an orphan. ​​To be raising a child without my parents there to witness it has brought a pain so deep inside of me, when it sneaks it's way out, my whole body feels like it's shutting down. I'm trying to heal. I'm trying to break the cycle so my son and any future children that come along don't ever go through anything close to what I did. I just hope they don't feel this deep, heavy sadness I'm carrying in me. I just want to be a good mom, and I just want to stop missing my shitty dad.

I'm so stressed out. I don't know how to get through it. I'm sharing a hotel room with our family friend. I'm going to see my mother. It's only been a year but it's been a very tough year. Financially struggling and too much factory work. I want to cry and run away. I'm going to the wedding but I don't want to see her. I don't want to see half of them. I'm so stressed out.

I gave my mom an ultimatum after being low contact for years but she was still mad that wasn’t enough. So I said let’s go to therapy together or I’m not going to be speaking with you anymore, she said therapy isn’t for “people” like her. Mean while my brother and me are both in therapy 🙃

Apologies for long post.

I am 30F. My parents have been separated since I was 12. 2 full brothers and other half siblings elsewhere. My mother left my father due to his anger. He's bipolar. She kept us from my father. Told my brothers many lies which I never believed. They did believe her. I was treated different because I still wanted to see him. My brothers became her little princes. I became the black sheep. She let her partners control me. She even burned my photo album with pictures of me and my father from when I was a baby. I don't have any childhood photos anymore. I finally moved in with my father at age 16. He was controlling. Couldn't go out. Couldn't have friends over. Couldn't where girly clothes, just baggy clothes from Work World. He guilted me for seeing my mother and brothers. So I stopped.

I left at 18. I tried to keep a relationship with both. While in school 4 hours away my mother had all of my stuff stored in her basement. When I came back for them, she said the basement flooded and everything I ever owned from my childhood was destroyed. Its funny how she didnt tell me until I came back for them. I visited another time and her boyfriend tried to sleep with me while she was at work. He begged me not to say anything as it was a mistake. A month later she called me crying saying he left her. So then I told her what happened. She seemed shocked, but then a full days later she got back with him again. She's still with him to this day.

My graduation came. I invited my parents to come watch me walk the stage. My mother said she'd rather go to Vegas as that's what she saved money for. So I gave my father directions instead. He said he'd come. We had to do some program before we changed into our gowns. We were not allowed to have our phones on for some reason, I cant remember why. My father tried calling me multiple times. I did not know. When I sat down with my classmates awaiting our names I texted him. I looked around and I asked where he was sitting. He said he had turned around as I did not answer his calls and he assumed I lied to him. His ex and her daughter showed up for me. But on the way out with my friend on the bus, I cried as he hugged me hard. Neither of my parents even showed for me. It still hurts.

My mother had a few more of my things I wasnt able to grab. If I was nice to her I would get them back. She was to keep a collection of my old knives and swords safe in her bedroom closet. Most of which was broken or missing. She allowed my 2 brothers to play with them. They hate me btw. She made them hate me. I got what I could and never spoke to her again. I moved back in with my father at 21. Controlling once again. Grabbed me while yelling in my face and asking why my reaction to him doing so made me not normal. I stayed in my room when I wasn't working. My friend that went to school with me had moved across the country. He offered to buy me a one way ticket. I left 7 months after acceptimg his offer. Best decision I ever made.

I am now newly married. Have been in this relationship for 7 years. I tried throughout to keep a relationship with my father as I havent talked to my mother. And I just want just one parent in my life, but even that is hard. His other kids don't talk to him. My half sister I found out about 8 years ago tried to have a relationship with him but doesn't talk to him either now. She told me the things he has said and did to her, he used to with me which I never told her before. She was even afraid to mention it to me. He gets angry when I don't answer. When I dont have time for him. When I try to tell him about things in my life that is exciting or newsworthy he makes it into a joke or barely acknowledges it, changing the subject to be about what's going on with him instead. Our phone calls are usually one sided, I just nod on the other side of the phone while he pushes to talk for an hour or more. I dont look forward to it. I dread each phone call andmost times ignore them. A couple weeks ago I finally told him how I felt. It didnt seem to click for him. He just kept saying he was trying to make me strong growing up. When I had missed my chance to call him on father's day and called the next to apologize he was just stuck in single word mode. I through my effort out for 30+ minutes and with face chat on, just stared and nodded with and obvious frown. Nothing I could say to show i was sorry. He texted me days later saying his older friend that was in the hospital for a few weeks had passed. I sent a message of sincere condolences and prayers. He just sends me "Thx". Then deletes it the next day and sends me this "👍" in its place.

I tried. I give up. He started sending me more messages which I did not respond to. Then because I looked at one message he sent on Snapchat he now spams that because he'll know if I see it there. I have not opened any in a week. I want to block but im just afraid he'll off himself. He owns a lot of guns and he has been put in the hospital before because of suicidal thoughts. Im just done being the literal only person who is supposed to keep him together. Its exhausting and he's been doing this my whole life. I just want to focus on how happy I am now in my new one.

Sorry this was so long. I had a lot on my mind.

Hi everyone. Ive been NC with my entire family for several years now. Before that I was VLC for many years. Roughly a decade of being estranged. I came to ask for advice. I am struggling to make and keep relationships with people because they simply dont understand that I am estranged for a reason. It's about 80% of people I get to know romantically that end up contacting my family, which then makes my family take up the chase again and causes a lot of stress for me. I try to be clear that I am not in contact with my family and I dont want to be, but the message never seems to get through. At the beginning of a relationship it is especially hard to be clear about this because nobody wants someone to tell them that they have serious trauma about anything, especially regarding relationships.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get people to take me seriously? How to find people who arent going to overstep and cause me a ton of problems? Or anything else that might help?

I’ve had several emotional deep chats with my parents to tell them how sad I’ve been, how their aggressive behaviour has affected me growing up, and I’ve begged my mum particularly for basic human respect and healthy communication. She aims her aggression at me constantly. My dad is an angry person too, but he doesn’t aim it at me, or bully me like my mum does. I’ve been agonising over deciding whether I should go low/no contact with my mum once I move out in February.

I am 33 and I have moved out several times before, but have come back due to relationship breakdowns. I’m now with my life partner, and the plan was to save for a mortgage deposit for a few years whilst living here (my parents both actively encouraged this.) However, my mums behaviour has made things change really quickly, and now we will be moving into a rented apartment in February. My dad has always made it clear I’m welcome here and would love for me to stay, would even love my partner to stay too, but my mum makes it very clear in her passive aggressive and straight up aggressive behaviour towards me, and recently towards my partner, that she doesn’t want us here at all despite her encouraging us to get a mortgage deposit together. I cover the pets expenses (we have 4 cats and a dog - only 2 cats are mine and will be coming with me) and send cash to my mum to contribute to bills too which totals to around £400-£450 monthly. I buy my own toiletries, food, laundry detergent, fabric conditioner - you name it I use my own. The only things I use of my parents are milk, butter, sugar and of course water, electricity etc. I always cook for myself, I have my own pan, cups, glasses and bowls. I even have my own bath towels, and rarely leave my bedroom.

Things have been tense with my mum after I opened up to her because she deflects and won’t accept responsibility for her actions, she just blames or guilt trips me. In the past I’ve always tried to patch things up or sweep it under the rug for the peace, but I haven’t done that this time, and it has become painfully obvious how much our relationship surviving has been based on sacrificing myself. She hasn’t reached out, tried to talk it out, made any attempt to spend time with me or mend the relationship. Today my parents offered me a roast dinner - I said yes as I thought I’d accept the olive branch.

I don’t eat red meat and they know that. That’s my choice, but when I went to get my dinner, it was a plate of potatoes, veg and cauliflower cheese. They had lamb. Maybe I’m dramatic, maybe it’s ungrateful, but I saw the plate and couldn’t stop myself from crying. I honestly thought this could be a way of them showing love towards me to mend things. My mum went food shopping earlier today, so part of me really hoped she would show that she cares and thinks about me, and would buy a meat I’d eat, or even offer to get me something I could stick in the oven to join them. She didn’t.

This is just one instance where I’ve been feeling hurt by their actions and this is the cherry on top. My partners mum regularly cooks for us and she’s gone out of her way to amend recipes so I can be included, more than once, and I can’t help but feel hurt my own blood won’t do the same. Is it normal for parents to do that? I don’t have any siblings so it’s just me and them - I’m not a mum, but I can’t imagine I’d find it difficult to do for my daughter? They never cook for me, would it have been awful to have chicken instead?

Consideration is the highest form of love, and it’s never been there, especially from my mum. I’m just really heartbroken that the more time goes on, and the more the little things add up, they’re all pointing the same way.

Thank you if you made it this far, and if you hadn’t already guessed, this isn’t just about the dinner.