Severing Familial Ties

In My Humble Opinion
1

Despite the fact that I’ve cut down the involvement with my mother to almost nil, I do occasionally allow myself to be guilt-tripped into a phone call or the once in a blue moon visit. However, after another episode of what all I’ve done wrong, what I refuse to fix and what my feeble, pointless efforts have been, I’m pretty sure I’ve decided that enough is more than plenty.

So, I’ve laid the ground work and already said that if she had nothing more to say to me than negative contributions, then not to get in touch with me forever, at all. If she wasn’t sure what constituted positive, she needed to find out before contacting me further. I told her I wouldn’t stand for anymore of her judgmentalness or brow-beating the few times we spoke. If she couldn’t be support, or hell, just civil, to save it for those who choose to live with her.

Now, I’m not absolutely positive that I have the balls to go through with this completely. Oh, I can NOT contact her with no problem since I’ve had a bit of experience with that before and it was much easier than I ever anticipated. My downfall would be if she seemingly makes another “effort,” and plays nicey-nice for a while to win me back over and then go in for the kill.

Therefore, I’m asking for stories from those who’ve been there and come away triumphant. Whatever it is that there is to go through, the good, bad or ugly, I would like to prepare for. Any suggestions too, will be much appreciated. I’m tired of letting this ever bother me or have impact on my life. If shutting her out is the only thing left that’ll work, then so be it.

Thanks in advance.

2

The last time I spoke to my father, it was 1976. He died four or five years ago, I don’t know, I wasn’t interested in remembering. Back in October, I severed ties with one of my brothers. It just seems he has become impossible to sustain a relationship with. He wrote some things to me that never should have escaped his keyboard, and I told him in no uncertain terms that nobody else talks to me like that, and from this day forward, he wasn’t going to, either. I said, “I’ll miss my brother, but I won’t miss you at all.”

How that works is, you need to get together the self-confidence to be the person you want to be. If you always have your mother or someone reducing you to that helpless eight-year-old who doesn’t know anything or can’t think for yourself, you have to make a decision. Is it worth the incredible, demoralizing hassle to continue to let people treat you that way, or do you make a clean break and get on with your life, free from their garbage? If it’s the latter, you either stop talking to them, or if you must, you tell them why you aren’t going to talk to them anymore (not that it’ll change anything). Then you just do it. That’s all you can do. At some point, you have to come to the realization that you don’t need anyone’s permission or approval. You be who you are, and you do the best you can. If it’s not good enough for your mom or someone else, screw 'em. After awhile, without having had any trauma, a very strange quote will make all kinds of sense: You know what’s so good about hitting yourself with a hammer? It feels so good when you stop.

3

Hi Faithfool! Glad to see you back! Have you thought of telling her you are going to hang up on her if she ridicules you? And then actually follow through with it? Nothing sucks more than to be ridiculed all the time. But at least you won’t have to put yourself through the hard-edge cut-off treatment.

4

Mind you, I’m just saying that because it sounds like you’re not quite ready to take the leap.

5

See, that’s part of the problem. Ever since I had a nervous breakdown (et. al.), I’ve had zilch self-confidence or anything that goes along with it. But I’ve certainly grown over the past 10 years and even though she attempts to treat me as a child, she no longer gets away with it. Sadly, the hook is, like I implied, that I let my guard down after repeated Mrs. Cleaver moments. I feel like an ass who’s not giving her a chance to turn over that new leaf. Again. :rolleyes:

The almost year that we went without contact was a godsend. I know I don’t need her approval or permission, and without being labeled as “she doth protesteth too much,” that’s not it. Argh. Trying to explain the dynamics of Shitler is like putting toothpaste back into the damn tube. :mad: Anyway, she is not fair. Never has been, nor never will be. Early on I saw this as just one trait to distinguish her from myself. Therefore, I’ve got it in spades and I’ve taken that to the level of chance after chance with her. Unfortunately, to continue to deal with the woman who wants us to get a DNA test because she feels I was switched at birth and now currently trumpets to anyone who’ll listen that I’m demon possessed, this last little tiny occurrence has brought about the straw + back = broken!

Anyway, I appreciate your sharing that with me. Every piece of information that I can use to fortify my decision will only help. I’m just so amazed and sorry that anyone should have to go through this with their parents. As I’ve said before, I’d rather not have been at all then go through this never ending shit.

Thanks Kalhoun. It’s great to be back -and- have my shoelaces. :stuck_out_tongue: But yeah, you got it right on what I just should do. I’ve always had a block though about it because I’ve seen others use it as a passive-aggressive response rather than fight it out. And I’ve always gone toe to toe with her, because, well, someone has to stand up to her. Good Og, everyone else is so quiveringly afraid. :frowning: Nor will they, obviously, tell her the truth. So, I suppose that if she does start in more of the same by calling me and spewing her vileness, I will do exactly that. As mentioned above, I’ll have no issue at all with staying away. It’s just all that other stuff I’ve got a monumental load of guilt over.

Hopefully, this will be the first and final step to resolution. I mean, I didn’t even see her over the Thanksgiving or Christmas (of course, on that one it was because I wouldn’t allow her to come to the hospital, but still) holidays. I’d never done that before and the burden off my shoulders was a much needed blessing.

6

Well, I can’t advise you on the nervous breakdown part, because I haven’t had one. But I did used to have zero self-confidence and had to work at getting some. I must have done all right, because a woman loves me now. Before, I was unworthy, and unequipped to deal with it. I guess you have to find out what your strengths are, and build on them. If you have to see it in print, write a list of all your good qualities. “I’m a better person than my mother because:…” and read it often, if only to remind yourself that you can’t let yourself either stoop to her level, or get steamrolled by her again. If she has done, as you describe, these “June Cleaver moments” where she (falsely, it appears) regains your trust with (empty) promises of better behavior, then when she has it and you aren’t expecting it, she “goes for the kill”, then it’s your call. She doesn’t sound like she’s going to change. She doesn’t sound like she has any empathy. She doesn’t sound like it’s going to hurt her if you don’t talk to her anymore - she’ll likely build up this bullshit theory of how it’s all your fault. (Am I close?)

You said the year you didn’t talk to her was a godsend. I understand you wanting to have a mom. We all do. But it’s not healthy sometimes, for some people, if their mom is like the one you describe. I don’t do any of those newage (rhymes with sewage) lifestyle-names, but this sounds exactly like a case of Toxic Parents. Your mom is a serial bully, and a manipulator. She looks for your vulnerable spots, and finds a way to exploit them to make you feel even worse. Right? You have your own mental health to take care of. That should be your number one concern. Getting better. That can’t happen while you’re taking one baby step forward and three giant steps back, foiled at every turn by your mother’s terrible treatment.

She wants you to take a DNA test to prove that you’re not hers? Jesus Christ on a stick, that is appalling. You need this kind of mother like you need a hole in the head. Really. Why put up with that crap?

7

Have you considered eagerly accepting the DNA test offer, telling her you’d be thrilled to learn you aren’t blood-related to someone so vile?

8

I have had a shitty relationship with my bipolar mom of late, prompting me to give her a written ultimatum: either give me permission to speak to your doctors, access to your medical records, and a list of medicines you’re supposed to be taking, or don’t contact me at all, and don’t ask the family or my friends to contact me on your behalf, either.

Been a little over two weeks. I expect this stand-off to last (potentially) decades.

I still feel guilty as hell, but I don’t see either one of us budging. If she insists on destroying her life self-medicating and not following her doctor’s advice, I’ll exercise my option not to watch the slow implosion.

9

Incidently, I love a girl that indulges in nuthouse humor!!!

10

Wow. A DNA test.

Tell her you’ll just assume you were switched at birth, so you are not her daughter. Therefore she has no reason to contact you again.

Then grieve over not having a mom for a few minutes and let it go. Proceed with your life.

No one has the right to treat you in such a way as to make you feel worthless. Do not let guilt make you keep letting her do it. It’s not fair to you.

11

After various misdeeds that I won’t get into on the part of my father, including being screamed at in my own front yard the day my grandfather died, I cut him off (2002). At first I felt a little guilty about it, but then at Christmas a few years back I got a big fat Christmas card with a long letter in it – from my stepmother. Coward.

Yeah, I don’t feel so bad about it. I was tired of his controlling, browbeating, assholish ways in my adulthood plus some pretty fucked up shit as a kid (not to mentioned several years worth of tax fraud using my SSN#). My stepmother is a drug addict that used me to manipulate her similarly fucked daughter.

You just have to buckle down and realize that these people are NOT helping you. They are breaking you down. They are NOT your family. They are never going to change, and you deserve better than to be screamed at, shit on, browbeaten, guilt-tripped and manipulated.

Blood relations != family in some cases. Family doesn’t behave like this. This is what I have learned. Good luck, faithfool. I hope everything works out the way you want it.

12

Shit man, that’s some heavy stuff. Sounds like you’re in the right though, so good luck.
My own family can be looked at two ways. The usual one is to see us as my mum and dad and my sister and I (mum and dad are divorced, but in this simple view of the family, that’s as complex as it gets). The broader, complicated view is one of marriage and remarriage, half-brothers and half-sisters, step-brothers and step-sisters, and when people ask me about my family and I baulk, they always say “Oh sorry, is it hard for you to talk about?” I reply, “No, not in the sense that it’s painful at all, but just complicated. How much time have you got?”

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that there are some parts of the family that I’m not close to simply because they’re so distant and not through any falling out with me. For example, I’ve a half-brother who is twenty years older than me and disowned my dad when I was six, and I haven’t seen him since (I’m 35), so I don’t take that personally as I’m sure he doesn’t. His sister though (my half-sister) was a big part of my childhood, and we were very close. However, she’s a very hard person, and she went for the loveless marriage because hubby was a bank manager, and she’s now very well off (in a tacky lower middle-class suburban way), and looks down on the family. She felt my other sister’s (my true sister to whom I’m very close) boyfriend was beneath her and made the fact obvious. The two girls had a huge blow up and will never speak again. For mine, although I wasn’t obliged to take sides, I had just decided already that my half-sister isn’t a particularly nice person, and I took the opportunity to drift away. No contact now for four or five years and I feel good about it.

As they say, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. Sometimes this needs to be done. I have respected family ties enough to overcome all differences so far with my mother, father, and sister, but beyond that it’s not written in stone. If you fuck up, I’m under no obligation to keep coming back for more.

13

My aunt told me that I “gave” my mother cancer on the day of her funeral, and my grandmother (who lived with my family for 2 decades) said worse. I cut off all contact with these lunatics in 1992. They have made several overtures of reconciliation, but they were unwilling to apologize or concede any hurtful behavior on their part, so I declined,with the support of my brother and father.

Yes, it was hard. You will grieve for more than a few minutes. However, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to just walk away from people who hurt you this badly. You don’t have to put up with abuse, degradation, and cruelty from anyone based only on an accident of birth. Hard as it will be, you can be free of your mother if you think that’s really what you need to heal.

If you want to leave the door open, tell her you will contact her when you feel ready to deal with her, which could mean never if you want it to. Then don’t accept contact unless you truly feel ready to take whatever she dishes out. If you don’t, then don’t accept any contact from her. She’ll get the message eventually.

Good luck, faithfool. Hang in there.

14

Wow! So many replies. Please be patient with me and I’ll do my best to answer everyone as well as I can.

That’s an excellent idea, and I remember the very first time I thought it and how horrible that was of me. :frowning: However, I realized with time that it doesn’t take a lot to be a better person than her and that what I was stating, was simply a matter of fact. No harm in observation, right? So now I just need to remember to do that and I’ve started another journal this year, which should provide just the place.

I know, and I’m good at being resistant and seeing through her ruse for a while. But eventually (and it’s amazing that she can keep up that kind of act for as long as it takes sometimes), I cave and see if maybe she’s had some sort of advanced clarity finally, or something. Stupid doesn’t begin to describe it.

::: sigh :::

Absolutely 100% correct.

See, it’s the first part that I’m always not so positive about and it ends up pulling the ol’ ‘she’s so pitiful’ strings, that I am afraid of doing permanent damage to her. Although, what you assumed has already been her MO every single time she doesn’t like me anymore ( :rolleyes: ), in that it’s all my fault and I’m horrible person/daughter/whatever.

Definitely. I believe it’s the only way that she can make herself feel better or superior to anyone. She lives to project.

This part my head knows and offers up as a mantra on a daily basis. Now if I can just get the rest of my silly heart to consistently abide by it, I should be doing alright.

I’m thinking the hole in the head would be much less painful. :slight_smile:

15

Oh trust me, I told her I’d be all over that, she just had to pay for it. Amazingly, every request I’ve made for it again since that time has been met with her pleading being too busy. Yup, for over almost two years. :stuck_out_tongue: Og knows I have to really belong to some way cool hippie out there instead.

I agree and it sounds like you’re doing the most healthy thing possible for your life. I hope that’s the place that I’m at and that I won’t be suckered in again, no matter what the circumstances (if this goes on for very long, I’m sure the next upcoming ‘special’ occasion – my birthday – will be difficult at best), and I have the same kind of strength that you did Askia.

(See, I knew I had a crush on you for some good reason!)

Hey, if you don’t laugh, ya cry and I’ve spent entirely too much of the last decade doing that as it is. Besides, I’m such an easy target. :smiley:

Thank you. That’s what I think (or should), in my more lucid and brave moments. No chance in hell that she could have spawned anyone without a closed mind, is what I firmly believe. And I swear, I’ve never subscribed to Bigots ‘R’ Us in my life. Not even as a lost and miserable fundie teenager.

16

It’s awful to know that there’s so many of us out there having to deal with this kind of crap. Especially when we’re young. And you’re completely right, of course. This is another in a long line of threads that I’ve printed out to keep as a reminder of these important lessons… the things I should have already gotten (sometime, probably, when mother suggested, that if I didn’t behave, the orphanage wasn’t too far away and would take any child who was bad), but always seem to let be overshadowed by my lack of a spine.

::: sigh again :::

:frowning:

Yaknow though, maybe my next tattoo should be that last line emblazoned backwards on my forehead. Better advice might never have been spoken.

Last but not least…

Dear Og Rubystreak. Just when you think you’ve heard all the terrible things these people can say, they come out with something new and surprising. You gave her cancer, huh? I can’t believe anyone would be so stupid. But as usual, I’m incredibly naive.

I certainly don’t mind or care how hard it will be if I can just stay freakin’ focused. It’s losing site of the abuse in light of the bombardment of sugary-sweetness that my desire to work my ass off to keep those boundaries up, well you know by now, caving I eventually do.

Though I see it can be done and no matter how much it may hurt, ultimately it will be the best thing for me. Just gotta stick to the healing part for me, instead of worrying Shitler.

Very wise, and I pray, at least where I’m headed. Keeping her at arm length, even if she gets to stay in my life, will forever be necessary to keep me from allowing her any power over my feelings. Time for a new creed!

Thank you. Perking up could be right around the corner. :slight_smile: I’m grateful for all the replies and support.

17

The thing is FF is that even if you cut off contact there is no guarantee that you will never speak to them again unless one of you dies. There might be a funeral or something like that.

Years ago I broke off contact with one of my brothers. Everyone said, “But he’s your brother” to me and I took him back. Till he made a total ass of himself at my wedding and basically ruined the day for me. (most of the photos I have a scowl on my face) Years later, when he heard my wife had left me, he invited me to Thanksgiving with his family. He told me that I shouldn’t hold things against him that he did when he was a kid. When I asked about his behavior at my wedding, he started screaming at me. When I hung up on him, this was at work he called me, he called my house and left a message on my machine. “Well, (sniff) I tried…”

Anyway, most people cut me some slack and allow me to not talk to him in peace. The thing is now, he has pissed off just about all of our other siblings so hardly anyone in the family will have anything to do with him. At least I have the consolation of saying “I hated him first!”

18

Always remember: friends are the universe’s apology for relatives.

19

You’re in for a long, hard road. I’m sorry. Cutting a parent out of your life is incredibly painful. I haven’t spoken with my father in 10 years, and I did it not only for myself but for my kids. I won’t have that toxic person in their lives.

After I made the decision to break all ties with him, I saw a very good therapist who gave me a few exercises to help me let go of all the things that led up to the decision. One of the things he had me do was write down a list of everything I could think of, every reason that I was angry with my father, and told me to add to it every time I remembered anything else. He then told me “Go down the list and choose something to forgive your father for. Just one thing. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Really think about it, and when you’ve truly let it go and forgiven him, cross it off your list and go on to something else.”

There are still things I haven’t forgiven him for, and there are a couple things I will probably never forgive him for. But it’s amazing how much better I feel letting go of those things.

20

I had the complementary situation; my mother called, the evening before my maternal grandmother’s funeral to ask if I’d be attending. 1200 miles away. I might just have made it for the graveside service if I travelled well in excess of the speed limit. And during the thankfully short conversation, she managed to imply that I was somehow responsible for said grandmother’s panceatic cancer. If I had that kind of power, believe me, I would not be wasting it on family members, especially ones who were barely involved in my life as it is.

As for the father’s wife–the one who threw a screaming, profane, egregiously abusive temper tantrum at the paternal grandmother’s funeral (the only blood relative that I can say actually demonstrated anything like unconditional familial attachment and affection)–the less said, and the least interacted, the better. It’s a pity the father–never all that interested in my life anyway–sees fit to lay out the requirement that I apologize to her for whatever imagined offenses as a precondition to any subsequent notable contact, but it ain’t so much of a loss.

Family, I’ve concluded, is less about genetics than attitudes; I’ve seen some good ones, and not all of those shared chromosomes.

Stranger