Aaah, yes. Although I must say that even small doses can be “too much”. Deep breaths and thinking “this is how I must practice patience” help.
I cut two sisters out of my life. One I posted about here extensively as EBS*.
I miss their kids; I don’t miss them or their spouses. I don’t miss having their absence when I teach my kids right from wrong, when I have friends of different races & religions over for birthday parties. I don’t miss their vitriol-filled phone calls.
Oddly enough, I got a VM from each that seemed vaguely human on my birthday. If it were just me and if I were completely friendless, I might consider giving them a second chance. But I won’t throw my children, my wife and my friends under a bus just so ‘blood’ can come over, get drunk on my wine, and then proceed to spout their brand of ugly evil racist shyte.
“Am I sure your 7-series will be safe in my neighborhood? Why No, EBS. Why don’t you park it in Hell and see if its safe there…!?”
.
.
.
.
.
.
*Evil Bitch Sister
I think after the wedding I’m just not going to contact the people I don’t like anymore and leave it at that. I have also decided I’m not going back to Texas for holidays anymore. Now the only problem is that eventually the fiance and I want to adopt a kid and my parents are going to want to know about that and meet our future child. I don’t want my kid interacting with people who feel like the government should be rounding up and gassing illegal immigrants but how do you tell your family that you don’t want them in your child’s life because they are horrible people?
Adopt a kid whose nationality matches the illegal immigrants your family wants to gas. 
You say, “I do not agree with your values and do not want my child exposed to them.”
I’m going through the tie-cutting now. I’m living with family, which makes it harder. When I’m not any more? I half jokingly say I’m going to end up with just 3 family members when this is all done.
A few family members have been extremely verbally abusive to me, one even telling me to die in front of a small child. But most of my other family members are like “oh, but families fighting is a normal thing. You can’t stay angry forever.” The hell I can’t! I’m the one who’s rocking the boat because I’m saying enough is enough and I’m done. I’m told I’m too dramatic for not just pretending we’re happy.
But you know what? I don’t want to pretend any more. It’s gotten beyond the point where I can pretend. Being sworn at daily isn’t normal. They’re all so used to their dysfunction that they can’t see it any more. If you’re not treated with respect and dignity, it’s not ok. I don’t expect to be a pampered princess and have everyone I know kiss my ass, but I’d like to go more than a month without someone screaming at me. Yelling might be normal. Screaming isn’t.
And I get a lot of pressure because of how hard I make it on everyone else. But why is it me who is making it hard? What about the person who crossed the line? People say they’re not getting involved, they won’t take sides, but it IS taking sides. If someone throws a fucking table at me and you invite them and me to a family dinner, how is that not taking sides? I know a lot of you probably disagree with that, but that’s how I roll. If you’re not with me, then you’re against me, to a certain extent.
I think I’m not going to regret the tie-cutting. I know it’s the right decision. Toxic people bring me down too. It makes me sad that people can’t just be decent and that NO ONE is standing up for me. I’d rather be alone than with these people, but I’ll always be sad that it has to be this bad and went beyond the “just pretend” threshold.
I’ll miss the people who aren’t crazy and abusive and enablers.
I was going to start a thread about WHERE the line is when you should cut ties. When is enough enough? How do you know it’s time? What is normal disagreeing and what is dysfunction? When does dysfunction turn into abuse?
My brother (my only sibling) cut ties with all his blood relatives (myself included) around Christmas due to an intense dislike my mother has for his wife and vice versa. I’m a civilian casualty of that war. But, estrangement is almost a family tradition. Every one of my mother’s (large) family is now dead or estranged or at least distant enough from me that I’ll likely never see any of them again. My father’s side is better, but is much smaller. After my parents’ generation passes on, the only blood relatives I’ll probably ever hear from again are three or four of my cousins, only one of which has kids (the other three are old enough that it is quite possible they will never marry or have children). I’m still single myself, and it’s kind of sad thinking I will be almost alone in the world someday unless I marry.
My mum and sis both have depression/paranoia, like me. We are all reinforcing each other behaviour. I never regret leaving.
It’s pretty obvious to me you’ve arrived. There’s not like some magical universal threshold for every family. Eventually you just get to a point when you say, ‘‘enough.’’
I had been told, for years, that I was selfish, that I would never make it in life, that there was something seriously wrong with me, that I made my mother sick to her stomach and physically ill, and I believed it. When she punched holes in my wall and threw shit at me and and broke windows and shoved and slapped me around, I totally believed that it was because of my deficiencies as a human being. She never accepted my apologies – when I was seven I wrote her a handwritten apology and she ripped it up without reading it. ‘‘Talk is cheap,’’ she said. I would beg her to forgive me, on my hands and knees, and it just made her angrier.
When I came home at 14 years old to a broken out back window, an empty house and a row of cars in the front parking lot, I did not immediately think ‘‘burglar’’ – I immediately thought, ‘‘What now?’’ (The ‘‘what now’’ in that case was that she had swallowed a bottle of pills and my Aunt had broken out the back window with a baseball bat trying to save her.) When our sofa disappeared from our living room, I was not at all surprised to learn later that Mom had lost her temper and ‘‘accidentally’’ destroyed it with a butcher knife. I have a million similar stories. Never a dull moment growing up. That was the status quo in my house, and it was always my fault. I spent my entire childhood trying to help my mother and be a better kid.
But as I got older, I got angrier. I started shouting back, even though it caused her violence to escalate. I never said it aloud, but once when she threatened to hit me over the head with a glass coke bottle, explicitly stating that if I said one more word she was going to give me a concussion, I remember thinking, Do it, bitch. We’ll see what happens when I show up in the hospital. Let’s end this! But I really didn’t want a concussion, so I kept my mouth shut.
Even then I knew, I was reaching my breaking point.
So that finally one day, when she started up again, she didn’t even get far.
I just looked at her, held up my hands and said, ‘‘I’m done.’’ I threw my car keys on the living room floor (because no way in hell would I get away with taking the car) and walked out and never came back. (Well, that’s not entirely true–I did come back a few weeks later, with a cargo truck, and took my stuff.) I was prepared to live on the streets if it meant not having to spend one more second in that house.
That year I left was the hardest year of my life, but I don’t regret it for a second. We tell ourselves, all the time, that we need these people, that they’re our family, that we owe them something, but we don’t need them and we don’t owe them. I love my mother, but I don’t owe her shit. The fact that I have a relationship with her today is a generous gift on my behalf, and even she knows it.
You, Ruby, get to decide for yourself how much is too much. That your family is not supportive of you is indicative of nothing. My other family members made excuses for my mother’s behavior all the time, but as you can see, it was objectively abusive. Trust your feelings and your gut and you will make it just fine.
Thanks for the kind words. You’re not crazy. I’m not crazy. We just seem to want that R-E-S-P-E-C-T. 
I was thinking of starting the thread not to help make up my mind, but just out of curiosity. I find it really fascinating to hear other people’s stories. Not prying into their entire life story, but hearing about that moment when they said enough. I did a lot of domestic violence research and participated in some programs and from an academic point of view, it was so interesting hearing what the straw that broke the camel’s back was or how women who hadn’t left yet were trying to decide to leave or stay.
It’s interesting to me that what I can tolerate would make someone run for the hills and vice versa.
It’s obvious that physical and sexual abuse are good reasons to cut ties. (And it is ok to forgive people too if that’s what someone wants.) But there is a line somewhere between being a jerk and being abusive verbally and emotionally. Everyone draws that line somewhere different. Some things are obvious, but it’s that stuff in the gray areas that is the hardest.
I think that stuff in the gray areas is what would lead a lot of people to have regrets about cutting ties. It’s hard enough to go through life without your family, but second guessing yourself (“Gee, maybe I was overreacting?”) probably makes it that much harder.
So I wonder what the correlation between regrets and having doubts about the tie-cutting is.
Well, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and it doesn’t have to be once and forever. What’s best for you at any given moment is not necessarily going to be best for you in the future.
Right now you’re living with these dysfunctional and abusive people, which I personally believe is the worst thing anyone can do to themselves. When you stay there, you’re dependent in some way, a part of the dysfunction, and you miss the big picture.
But if you can get to the outside looking in, everything comes into sharper focus. You may notice things you hadn’t noticed before. You may realize certain people you thought were awful are really just annoying when you aren’t stuck in a house with them, and you may find some actions are far more abhorrent than you realized.
And when you do make those realizations, it’s not like you have to make some ultimate once and for all decision. That was hard for me to accept, something I struggled with for years. But eventually I just learned to say, ‘‘Okay, right now, in this moment–what do I need?’’
Once you get that, it becomes easier. People change, situations change, some days are harder to deal with these people than others, and with time the things they did aren’t as relevant to your life as they once were. All of that is okay. It’s fine to say, ‘‘Not today’’ instead of ‘‘not ever.’’ You don’t have to write them a ten page handwritten notice of disavowal or anything. Instead you can just not talk to them when you don’t feel like it.
True enough.
I never cut ties with my family. But I go through periods with less contact, and periods with more. Several times in the last couple of years, I’ve come very close to disowning my older sister. She’s a control freak. Has to be exactly her way in everything, everyone has to act exactly how she wants them to. Over the last 6-7 years, she’s stopped talking to me for months on end an average of twice a year, for an average of about 3.5 months each time. Right now we haven’t spoken since Christmas. No, I have no idea why, and I don’t fucking care. It is her problem, not mine, and I no longer give a shit about the hows or whys or what her fucking problem is or what minor transgression I did to have her not speak to me.
Hell, two years ago when I was unemployed, I applied for well over 100 jobs in one month and got NOTHING back. The next month I was suicidal. Things were that bad. Both my father and my sister had the temerity to suggest, after that huge burst of job applications, and KNOWING how depressed I was, that I wasn’t trying hard enough to find a job. Now that was low. Two weeks later, come my birthday, with it being all I could do not to shove a gun in my mouth, she calls me up again. I didn’t answer the phone, because at that point, I didn’t want another damned word about my job search out of her. For the crime of not answering the phone on my birthday, she didn’t speak to me for almost five months - and I heard all about it from other members of the family.
I picked “nope, best decision” but had to consider “no other option, not safe”. These aren’t exclusive and many of the people picking “no other option, not safe” probably also would pick “nope, best decision”. Perhaps only a small number had no other option but still feel regret.
I think once in a while that I might go back, but as soon as I do, the crazy surfaces again.
Yeah, I’m not 100% estranged from my parents, but I’m pretty damn close. I absolutely don’t regret cutting the ties, even though they’re not all the way cut yet anyway.
I posted here a few weeks ago that I called* my mother for the first time. Boy, was that a mistake, just like I figured it would be. She just texted me late Saturday night informing me that I would be meeting her on Sunday at such-and-such restaurant. Ummm… no. :rolleyes: I texted her back saying if she had something to discuss she could email me, which still felt generous as hell on my part (though I’m sure she’d say otherwise).
Might as well update whoever cares here, rather than resurrecting the old thread, so there it is. She hasn’t changed, she’s still a controlling and manipulative bitch, and it’s about time I finally got it through my thick skull that she’s nothing but bad news for my mental health, or what’s left of it.
To directly address the OP - I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this here before or not, so please bear with me if I’m repeating myself - I knew several months after I’d first cut things off with my mother that it was the right decision for me, because I had a physical manifestation of my improved mental health: my eyebrows had grown back in. I never realized how much I plucked them, and how the plucking was so totally not an aesthetic decision at all, until the compulsion to do so completely and totally ceased. Now I barely even touch up stragglers that show up directly over my nose, Frida Kahlo style.
And for the record, I’d probably be able to maintain a pretty normal and loving relationship with my dad … except that he’s still married to my mother. If they’d split up years ago, like they really should have, I’d probably be in his life a lot more.
Sad, but there it is. I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that estrangement is not a Good Thing, but it was the best available option to me at the time, and continues to be the best available option as each day dawns. Like others have said upthread, it doesn’t have to be a Forever thing.
<Hank Hill> Just take it one day at a time. You know, the way the drunks do. </Hank Hill>
- Not really called. Sly-Dialed. Good servicefor those who need it.
My closest family - my grandparents - have passed on, but I don’t see the rest of my family anymore. There are very few who are not infected with teh crazy. I have no aunts or uncles: I have one great-aunt living, and I love her to pieces, but she chain smokes and it’s impossible for me to be around her for any lengthy period of time. I have cousins that I adore, but others I have backed off from completely. Being 600 miles away helps.
One cousin in particular I was close to growing up: but her husband is a registered sex offender (molested some of my cousins) and she stayed with him. This is the same cousin who had all her utilities turned off and waited in her basement for the second coming on January 1, 2000. I wish I could be closer to the good ones, but I certainly don’t regret leaving.
I am estranged from my father and that whole side of my family since 1988. I’ve seen my father a handful of times since then, and wanted to reconcile, but it’s just not in the cards.
Having children of my own has made this a lot harder. The other day my son (5) asked me when my father died. When I told him my father was still alive, he said “All right! Yeah!” and was obviously very excited. It didn’t go any further than that, though, and I have no intention of trying to arrange a meeting or anything. I’ve thought about that over the years, but it would inevitably lead to my children being hurt and disappointed, since my father’s wife will absolutely not allow me to be a part of that family. I’d like my children to have a grandfather, but they would be second-class citizens to my father, as they (vis-a-vis ME) would never be welcomed into his home, and I could never allow that.
I haven’t seen my brother since he was about 7 (back in '88). I looked him up on Facebook last year, and he lives about 5 miles from me, in the next city. I drive by his street every morning on my way to work. Lot of regret there.
I’ve had issues with my mother, and took a two-year hiatus from her and her bullshit. It seems to have worked, since the giant chip on her shoulder is gone. Her sister is sort of the matriarc of the family, and is an alcoholic, gossipy shrew that takes great pleasure in chasing off “outsiders”. I can’t envision circumstances which would have me walkign through her door again.
So, yeah, some regret.
I’ve essentially become estranged from my whole family. I can’t totally cut ties with my mom for various reasons, but I minimize contact, and I have no real anger towards my father but no real reason to contact him either (we have nothing in common, he has a new family now, and it dredges up too many things I’d rather forget). As for the rest of my family, the only people I see with any regularity are my paternal grandparents. My other grandparents are still alive, but they’ve always been selfish, cruel alcoholics, and now they’re pretty much officially crazy, too. My grandma is just turning 70 this year, and she’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s for several years now–but my grandpa refuses to take care of her properly AND he lets her carry a gun. My grandpa has also lost most of his money, he’s basically allowed the people buying his property to become squatters b/c they don’t pay him and he won’t do anything about it, and he owes over 20 years worth of back taxes. He’s convinced the end of the world is nigh, and he’s not one of those guys who is all talk. Oh no. He’s fully prepared to live off the grid, complete with a windmill for electricity and a horse-drawn cart (for when there’s no more gas) and a SHITLOAD of weapons and booze. Unfortunately, everybody else on that side of the family is just as crazy and it’s easier to avoid all of them. I wish I could say I miss my grandparents, but I don’t. I’m just happy that none of that drama and dysfunction can touch me anymore.
I picked the second option but it depends on the people! Right now I hardly have any contact with any family, they all live states away from me.
I don’t enjoy the company of my mother’s extended family and never want to see them again. No regrets.
My mom exhausted any good feeling by the time I was 10, she isn’t abusive to me anymore but I have PTSD when it comes to her and I feel best barely interacting with her. I’m open to more of a relationship in the future… if I feel like it.
My dad… I will probably have to take over his care at some point in the future, but don’t feel ready to do so just yet. He is brain-injured, disabled, and gets no help from anyone (lives a few blocks from my mother who pays for his health insurance but refuses to see him).
I like my sisters fine but we haven’t lived together since they were 13 and 11 (they are 17 and 19 now), and none of us have the wherewithal to visit often without involving my mom. I will always be friendly with them and hope to be closer to them in the future.
Or, marry someone with an awesome family who takes the place of your crappy one - like me! We’re not technically married, but his mom is my mom and I love her bunches.