Have you cut one or both parents out of your life?
Meaning stopped speaking to them, seeing them, trying to get in contact with them?
What did they do, why did yout do this?
What would justify doing this, to you, regardless of whether you’ve done it.
I did it about 2 years ago. I have a lot of conflicts about it, but mostly I feel it was/is/has been the right decision.
I can’t imagine doing that. But I have really good parents. Evidently you don’t. If you’re conflicted, why don’t you consider trying to reconcile?
My husband recently cut off his father. His parents are divorced but he lives around here. It’s very hard on him, but he feels he has come to the point where there is no other choice. He does still keep in contact with the other relatives on that side of the family, and they for the most part understand and support him.
It is still a recent thing and I don’t think his father understands this is for real, even though my husband has told him clearly he no longer wants to talk to him and why. He still tries to talk to him at family functions, and tries to get me to talk to him. It is still hard. My husband’s brother is getting married this summer and he will be there.
I can’t go into the whole details of why, but his father was physically and emotionally abusive, and continues to be emotionally manipulative. He has tried counseling (with his father and alone), and given him every chance, more than anyone else could expect.
My husband is resigned to the way it must be, but I know it is still hard. He is a very loving and forgiving person, and it goes against his nature to do this. It hurts me to see him long for his father. My parents both love him, and he has a great relationship with my father, but I know it does not replace what he has lost.
I think what justifies it for each person is different. Some people would have cut off my father-in-law long ago, others maybe would just put on a front when he is around and endure it for family peace. People need to do what is best for themselves and their own emotional peace.
I have not and would never cut my parents out of my life. They are good people and I love them.
If my parents weren’t good people and I didn’t love them then that would be enough to justify cuting them out of my life. Life is too short to spend time dealing with difficult people you don’t like.
I wouldn’t think twice about cutting abusive, criminal, or mean people out of my life even if I was related to them.
My aunt cut the entire family out of her life 20 years ago. She carefully wrote each of them a letter detailing all the things she felt they had done to them – mostly things that happened in childhood, and none of them involving any kind of abuse.
Some years later we sent word to her through her daughter that her parents had died. She had absolutely no reaction.
Eight years ago she cut her daughter out of her life. She’s in her 80s now, still angry. She has a granddaughter, who she’s never seen.
Maybe less frequent contact would occur if I had an abusive parent. But I try to understand people as they get older. Some parents may have problems that are not expressed. Or they could be getting conditions like senile dementia.
This seems incredibly selfish. Your parents have done a lot for you. You owe them.
I am not saying that there not extreme situations which would justify cutting them off. But the idea that “Life is too short to spend time dealing with difficult people you don’t like” applies to parents is morally unjustified.
My parents certainly have done a lot for me and I would never cut them off.
But, I don’t think that you “owe” your parents just because they gave birth to you. You have no obligation to spend time with people you don’t like. Please explain to me why you think it is morally unjustified.
There are no parents, parents-in-law or grandparents left in my life. None of them were perfect, but who is? I miss each and every one of them on a daily basis. You can probably imagine what Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays are like for me.
Sometimes if you are decent to people, you receive the same treatment in return. Sometime, not. Such is life. And life is short.
Take it from an older and wiser person. Forgiveness is a powerful
and empowering thing.
Forgiveness is a powerful thing. But does forgiveness have to include allowing people into your life who make you unhappy?
I had issues with my folks for years. They were both immature nitwits when they got married and had me. I dealt with different sorts of abuse from both them and step-parents for years after that.
It all culminated several years ago to a big falling out during which time my life fell apart.
But now we’ve all settled down into better lives and I speak with them every now and then. I usually see them every three or four months and during the holidays, but I don’t feel obliged to do them any favors beyond that.
No.
Sometimes it is better to forgive and let go, and not get sucked into a cycle of raised hopes and disappointment. There is a point when you have to say, enough.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut people off because of one argument or spite. But you also cannot allow other people to ruin your life or continue to cause you pain. Sometimes the only way to stop them from doing that is to cut them off.
When my mother died in 1989, we discovered that my dad screwed her over big time when they were divorced in 1972. I never forgave him for that. Through my sister, my dad and I started talking again in 95. But last September after his second wife died, he started blaming me and my siblings for her demise. He thought if we had treated her like a mother, she would still be alive. She died of cancer, nothing any of us could have done about that. He has had a lot of family and friends die in the past 10 years, but instead of living life with those that are left he spends his time mourning over those that are gone. He won’t get help and unfortunately for him, his is going to die a bitter man himself. At Christmas I sent him a card and told him that if he needs someone to talk to, call me. But don’t call if you need someone to rake of the coals. I am fairly happy with my life at this time and if he does not want to be part of it, it an fine with that.
YMMV, but in my life people don’t make me happy or unhappy, I’m responsible for my own happiness. I can tell you childhood stories that would curl your toes, don’t get me wrong. And I had extended periods of estrangement from my relatives. But then one day I got off my pedestal and sent my Dad a card that said it’s never too late to make up.
I’m really glad I did it. We were both at peace when he passed suddenly a few months later.
Because I think you do owe people because they gave birth to you. And because they fed you and clothed you and woke up for you when you cried at night. And read you stories and helped you with your homework and bought you toys and put up with all sorts of brattiness and temper tantrums out of you, and generally went out of their way for you in numerous ways as you grew up.
My situation is extremely similar… no phyical abuse, and he lives far from here, but otherwise dead on. Oh, and I may not be as forgiving as your husband, though my wife might disagree.
Every time I think about it, I get in a loop of how I really do miss him, and he means well, but then I get to the past and how many times I’ve given him another chance and how he always blows that chance also. The final weight is that I have a family now and I feel it would be wrong to expose them to more of him-- I’m convinced that only pain can come from it.
Yeah, but they also made you be alive when you didn’t ask them to. They decided to deal with all the stuff you mention, you didn’t make them do it.
I didn’t, but my twin brother did. We haven’t heard from him in over four years. I still keep tabs on him though, through a variety of sources.
The whole story is a little convulted and probably a little bias as I’m involved in it, but what the hey, here it goes:
It all started a few months after graduating HS in 1996. My brother started dating this girl. Things were great, she got along with my parents for the most part and vice versa. Unfortunately the good times were not ment to be.
I’m a little fuzzy on when it started to happen, but my brother and his girlfriend were always together (not necessarily a bad thing), which my mother had a problem with: She’s not that confortable talking to new people, and she’s not really that social. On many occasions my mother asked if just her and my brother could go out together, to bond. My brother would agree and then either show up with his SO and become indignant when my mother questioned him, or he would call to cancel it. This coupled with the frusteration that my brother would refer to him and his SO as one, lead to a little bit of resentment. As it was we hardly saw him, I mean, he still lived at home but he was never there. He wouldn’t return our phone calls and basically shrugged us off as much as possible (or so it seemed). Still though, everything was pretty much fine, a few bitter feelings, but nothing major.
Then comes Christmas. My brother’s SO was supposed to be going down to UVA (we live in Fairfax- a bit of distance away) to attend college. So my mother gets her a fairly expensive present (a ring or some other piece of jewlery), with a card. The card says something to the effect of we (my parents) will miss you while your away, and we will see you at… (I can’t recall what it was, suffice to say though it was a month or so from the date of the card). My brother thought it was a sweet gift and everything was fine.
Around the same time, my mother began to get upset because she was basically never seeing her son. She’d see him for a few minutes, once every other week. My brother would stop by, with his SO, and instantly say they had to leave quickly. This upset my mother and she said to him something along the lines of “I need to see you more than 15 minutes a month, I feel insulted that you don’t want to see me”. This set my brother off, and he threw the Christmas card back into her face, saying that it was overwhelmingly obvious that his SO wasn’t wanted, that my parents couldn’t wait for her to leave.
They both huffed and puffed and the argument went on for a while. My dad, the dumbass that he is, would call up my brother (or talk to him when my brother visited his old room-which he still “lived” at) in a drunken stupor and say that he was upsetting my mother and why couldn’t he just see her without his SO occasionally.
It all came to a head when my mother called and left a message asking him to come over so that they could work out there difference. My brother brings his SO, and my mother feels intimidated and says that she doesn’t feel comfortable discussing this in front of her. At this point my brother starts ranting and raving and yelling. I’m downstairs at the time, macking on a chick and I go upstairs and ask him to calm down. He starts physically threatening my father, saying he’s going to kick his ass and what not. I step between them (my brother is standing, my father is still sitting) and say to my brother that he has to leave, or else I’m going to kick the shit out of him. My brother relents, says “why are you on their side”, to which I say that he’s acting irrational and he’s in a violent mood when no violence is warranted (okay, I didn’t say exactly that, but it was something to that effect). I should mention that during this whole time my brother’s SO is smiling and taking pot shots at my parents, telling them that they raised me wrong and that they were bad people.
My mother tries to call him later, to no effect. Since that incident I haven’t heard from him since. My Grandmother died about two years ago (roughly) and we tried to get in contact with him them. My brother’s SO’s parents told me that my brother now lived in indiana (or ohio) (for the past few months)and that they couldn’t be reached. This was an out right lie , I know so because my friend recently moved some furniture into my brother’s SO’s parents house and had the opportunity to talk with him.
There’s a lot more to this story, but these are the basics.
I think this attitude is selfish and morally unjustified. YMMV.
My parents are divorced. I cut my father out of my life for three years from when I was 13 until I was 16. The main reason for the split was a religious difference.
To this day, I regret my actions. The horror of what I’d done didn’t occur to me immediately upon our reconciliation. It was something that I gradually came to realize as I grew older. The reality of what I had done came into sharper focus when I became a father and tried to imagine not seeing my son for three years, a thought that I simply cannot bear to dwell on for more than a few seconds. Yet, I made my father live it for three years.
Over the years, we’ve slowly reconciled. We get along now and enjoy each other’s company when we spend time together. Yet, I know that even though he doesn’t bring it up anymore (he only brought it up once in the last 15+ years, and then only as a side-metter, not to discuss it), I pretty sure he hasn’t forgotten the matter and probably hasn’t completely recovered from what I did. I know that this is something that I will regret to the end of my days.
Zev Steinhardt