You have most likely experienced fights and arguments with your parents, and probably have stopped talking to them for a few days or weeks as a form of protest. But to what extent have you ever kept up this ‘no more contact’ deal?
In this article, xx people that are no longer in contact with their parents share the final straw.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
1. Favoring one child over the other
I served in the USMC and was deployed to Iraq in 2004. I trusted my mother with my power of attorney, thinking she would have my best interest at heart. For my pay grade and time served overseas, I should have come home to ~$34K, a nice sum piled up to start my young life. However, when I returned to the states and checked my bank balance, there was less than $4,000… My mother had spent my money buying nice gifts for my brother and her boyfriend, including college tuition and a new jeep. That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t spoken to her since the day I found my account balance and was told what she did.
jumpthegut
2. Dont look back
I slowly started having less and less contact with them when I went into foster care at 15. Legally I couldn’t block them out of my life until I turned 18, but I could “wean” myself off them bit by bit until that day.
I think the final straw was probably the day I finally got out. She had called the police saying I threatened to kill my younger siblings. I had been locked in my room since I had come home from school and hadn’t even spoken to anyone else. The cop that came that night gave me a choice on how I could finally leave that abusive situation and I took it. The final straw was when I walked down stairs with the cop and she was tearfully saying how I shouldn’t go and how much she’d miss me and on and on….after the years of hell and horror she put me through I was just done and I knew as soon as I could I would be cutting her and her husband out of my life.
Went no contact the day I turned 18 and haven’t spoken to either for 7 years. One of the best decisions I have ever made.
punkypixzsticks
3. Leaving and crawling back for pity
I guess he left the state when I was twelve, next time I heard from him was my 21st birthday. It was a self pitying missive about how much he missed me. I responded something to the tune of, “You owe me 100 grand in child support and I’m not the one who changed my address and phone number in 2002.” He shot back with more delusional self pitying garbage, and now I try to ignore my annual birthday ruining message.
abbypets
4. Causing chaos and fleeing
I haven’t spoken or seen my father in about 7 years. He was a horrible father who hit my mother throughout my whole life, and even before I was born. Mom sent him to prison twice for domestic violence, but she always went back to him as she thought it would be better to take care of me with two parents in the picture. Final straw was when my dad got aggressive in front of me at my mom and she fled the house with me and got a restraining order straight away. There’s a lot more stuff to the story, but I wont get into it too much. He the house with all the valuables before the cops showed up at the door to escort him out. I am so happy that he’s gone and I hope that for as long as I live I never see him again.
Phaloofaglagle
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5. The evil step-mom
My mom died suddenly when I was 12 and my father immediately started pawning off my mentally delayed brother & myself on anyone he could. He eventually convinced a woman to marry him less than a year after our amazing mother had died very suddenly. New stepmother did not want kids and made that clear from day one. I was kicked out at 15, 15 1/2, 16…. I had to call CPS on my parents so I could finish high school and have a place to sleep. Finally when I got kicked out at 17 I left for good and graduated while living in a one bedroom apt with two friends. A couple years after that, they gave my brother to a family I’d never met. They’re wonderful and love him, but it’s still infuriating.
crossedjp
6. My life, my rules
I lived a carefully balanced double life when I lived with them and even for a while after I moved out on my own. It was easier to just stop talking to them than it was to maintain a double identity. I have tried a few times to invite them back into my life, but it hasn’t worked. I don’t fit their idea of the person I should be and am living a life completely opposite of what they think I should. Our conversations always ended up with being lectured on needing to change my path and make “right” choices and me trying to get them to understand that (even at the close of my twenties) my life is my own and that I’m actually HAPPY in life. Frustrating and depressing and all around not good for me.
alittlederp
7. Family are people that appreciate you for who you are
My parents divorced when I was 3. Until my teenage years I had regular contact with my dad, but it was pretty clear that he prioritized his new family. His second wife was insanely jealous and hated me – that’s kind of hard to understand as a kid, so I just came out of it with a huge inferiority complex.
After I moved away from home, I had a bitterness and resentment phase, and broke off contact with my dad. That lasted for 10+ years until my son was born. My dad started sending birthday and Christmas gifts, and I thought oh why not, he should see his grandchild, so I invited him over to stay for a couple of days. He had divorced again and was single.
Well he arrived, and we had nothing to talk about. It was awkward. His luggage was a plastic bag full of wine bottles. When I got up the next morning, they were all empty. After he left we just didn’t talk again. It’s been 17 years.
From what I hear he’s now married for the 3rd time, to a woman who shares his love for red wine. So I guess he’s happy.
Probably based on my life experience, I think blood relationships are overrated. There’s nothing special about sharing the same genes.
cicerothedog
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8. No more visitations
My father made a pass at my partner last Christmas. When she decided to sit him down and confront him about it, he flipped out and told her he would escort her off his property.
This year he invited us back to his house for Christmas. I then proceeded to tell him it was not the best idea.. so he flipped out again and told me that my partner was over dramatic and that we should not return to his house until I grew up.
lynnb06
9. Not keeping promises
No longer in contact with my father. Haven’t been for about 10 years.
My father and my mom split when I was about 3. He lived around the corner so had regular contact. Then he moved further away to be with his new partner who was the epitome of evil step-mom, and my dad made me choose between playing nice with her or no contact. Aged 7, I chose no contact.
A few years later he contacts me as they have split up. We regain semi-regular contact, and he gets a new partner who was alright in comparison. I was bridesmaid at their wedding. My dad had planned that the day after would be a father-daughter day. He instead dropped me home cause he was tired. And I have never heard from him since. If he tried to contact me again in the future I would tell him where to go.
boredonatrain
10. It was all for the best
She left when I was 4 and never looked back. She was never interested in being a mom in the first place and I guess her depression and personal issues got the best of her. She would make excuses not to show up for her weekly visitation with me and when she WOULD stop by, she spent more time talking to my grandparents than interacting with me.
One day she came by as usual, left the house saying “I’ll see you guys next week”, got in the car where her mother was waiting for her said she was done with all of this, that my family treats her like a second-class citizen, never wanted to speak of this again and rode off into the sunset. To be quite honest, after what she did to herself (and subsequently ME), I’m better off without her.
As for my father, I see him during family functions but our relationship is so strained and tumultuous that it wouldn’t bother me in the least if I never heard from him again. I know that sounds very harsh but it’s the honest truth.
Bobby_Fingers
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11. Clueless
She decided to put a 5 month old Internet relationship above her 17 year old son, and got pissed off because I wouldn’t change my surname or stop living with my Father. 17 years of love lost in one moment of hate.
My stepdad has proposed to her and she isn’t even fully divorced yet. He calls my Grandma “Mum” and they both tried to get everyone in my family to stop talking to me and my father.
wqzu
12. Seeing things differently as you grow older
I was always torn between my parents after the divorce. I was about 9 at the time and it seemed like even after that they were always fighting and attacking each other. My emotional state was pretty bad for a couple years after that.
I eventually just kind of stopped talking to my dad. No particular reason, but he called on my birthday and stuff. By the time I turned 15 I was feeling much better about everything in my life and ended up saving my education because of it.
There were a few things that happened in between graduation and Father’s Day but Father’s Day was the last straw.
He called me and asked if I wanted to come to his hometown for Father’s Day, which I reluctantly agreed to (because of what happened on graduation). Then he started to, completely unprovoked, bash my mom. For at least five minutes straight. Everything negative emotion I had when I was little, every struggle I had with my parents, came back to life in those five minutes. And then I realized he caused literally all of them. He was manipulating me into believing my mom was the devil and I almost bought into it.
I hung up and haven’t talked to him again since. It’s been 4 years.
AdamNW
13. Difficulty building an honest relationship
I don’t speak with my father. He is an OK guy (hard worker, honest, a police officer for most of his career, but now out of it), but he can be a crap person. Just condescending and miserable to be around, nothing is ever good enough, nobody works as hard as he does, and the only way people learn is if he lectures at them simplistically. His critical and judgemental attitude (which probably made him a great cop) makes him a horrible person to be around.
I tried having an honest and open relationship with him. When he was acting like a jerk, I’d straight up just tell him. Not just what he was doing, but how it was making others feel (it was very uncomfortable seeing him berate his new family for behaviour that was pretty normal).
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I always hoped that he would take things onboard and adjust (though a lot of his behaviours were what led to the end of his first marriage). He never did.
So, several months back, I broke off contact, making it clear why (that he treats people badly, and needs to see consequence to his actions). I’m hoping cutting himself off from his eldest is consequence enough.
ThinkingOfAChange
14. Focus on the things that matter in life
I have a 13 year old son my mother has never seen. She called the morning of my wedding and told me she wasn’t going to be there because she couldn’t find shoes to wear. My sister never even called to tell me why she didn’t make it. We all lived in the same city. My father was working out of town and drove 200 miles to come to our wedding but a month later left my mother. He visited us a couple of times over 5 years. He now has moved to the Philippines and has a 3 year old daughter and a 20 year old girlfriend. We don’t talk.
My brother updates me now and then. He is the only person in my family I have contact with. I don’t ask, I don’t care, I’m no black sheep, my wife and I are both successful and are very devoted to our little family. Now and then I get the thought of contacting my mother and sister but it quickly fades.
Somewhere-in-Texas
15. Starting a new life
My parents are very much divorced and hate each other, mostly due to my father’s rampant alcoholism…
At 17, I joined the army to be less of a burden on my mother, get some kind of a future going… and served active time, joined the guard, and went to college, and got swept up into the ball of fun that happened after 9/11 with a few deployments.
When I came home for the last time, I decided to reach out to my father, drove to his house, thought we could have a decent conversation for once since it was early and he couldnt possibly be intoxicated before 10 am.
I was wrong, first words out of his mouth was “So how many people did you get to shoot?
I just looked at the ground and realized it was futile.
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A few years later, I met the girl of my dreams and got engaged, when I invited him to the wedding, no RSVP. I called him and asked if he got the invitation, he said he did. I asked him if he was going to come with my grandmother, and he said he wasnt (which meant grandma didnt have a ride), and when I asked why he wasnt coming, he told me “Because we’re not that close.”
I asked him how he expected to get closer to his son if he didnt want to come to my wedding, or meet his new daughter, and he hung up.
And that was it.
To be fair, my father is also a veteran and by all accounts, got a little scrambled in Vietnam… but I told him when and if he decides to sober himself up, I will be ready to pick up the phone.
My new fear, is that we are gearing up to attempt to have a kid, and my grandfathers both played such a huge element in my life that I don’t quite understand what a childhood would be without one… but I remember being a young kid and being driven around by this guy who was beyond intoxicated, being beaten in public for no reason, being taken fishing… which was fun in the morning but got horrible after the drinking took effect. I fear that when and if we have a kid, he will actively want to be in the kids life, and the kid will be exposed to all the evils that I was exposed to.
scapeity
16. A selfish mother
Well, my mother is a piece of work… Once she decided to not tell me that our lease was up and she had already found a new place. She just assumed I’d have somewhere to go. I found out a week and a half before and had to find somewhere to rent on that time. She also later asked me to let her have my car during the summer and then she’d let me use it during the winter so I wouldn’t freeze on my motorcycle. She didn’t want to put too many miles on her brand new car. I asked her for the car two months ago. She said no and the title is now in her name since she had the title in the car.
I don’t talk to her anymore.
Anonymous
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