7 ms·

I cut off all contact with my mother. It made my life much better

50 points by eplanit 8y ago

mikestew 8y ago
"What if the asshole dies and you're still estranged?" Such a question reveals an ignorance of how toxic people can be. And in my book, blood relations doesn't get you a get-out-of-jail-free card for being an asshole. My family has assholes, leeches, the works. Quite a few I get along with, quite a few I can go to my grave having never spoken to them again and have not one regret for having eliminated stress and conflict from my life. Not that I've willfully cut anyone out of my life. I do have one sister that stomped off mad one day, never to return. Good riddance, and contrary to whatever fantasies you might harbor, you will not be missed, Sis. The rest I just don't go out of my way to contact. I'd pick up the phone if any of them called. Hell, my estranged sister could call and I'd pick up. But I'm not going out of my way to add difficulty to my life. So maybe I'm a sociopath, or maybe I'm more enlightened, you choose. But I just don't get this putting up with shit just because "we're family!".
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  FWIW, the level of prosperity that we currently enjoy in the developed world is probably a once-every-100-million-years kind of event. It's a result of increasing technological sophistication concurrent with reduced fertility. At any other point in human history, you'd be a damned fool to cut off family without a lot of thought and consideration. Family + significant other is the only safety net that most humans have ever really been able to count on. Editing to add: and if you think your family won't be important in your life because you live in the developed world, you should take a look at current European politics, then talk to older Europeans about the second war (or to Eastern Europeans about life under communism).
  - lgleason 8y ago
    This 100000% over.
  - nate_meurer 8y ago
    > Family + significant other is the only safety net that most humans have ever really been able to count on. I think this is true, but it's also one of the most common and powerful ways in which abusers control their victims. Often, the most difficult challenge that victims of abuse and domestic violence face is overcoming their dependence, financial and otherwise, on their abusers.
  - sigi45 8y ago
    I read an article about people from Syria coming to Germany without parents and talking about a level of freedom they never experienced before. Not having all your family around you and controlling you and living after there worldviews.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  You're not a sociopath. You're wise and strong enough to avoid abusive relationships where you see them. Many people can't, so they shame those that can by calling them heartless or sociopaths to justify why they keep toxic people around in their own lives. It's no wonder why cults, organized crime, shitty people and shitty employers appeal to sense of familial bond as well...peoples' innate need to be part of some "family" construct gets exploited as a cover for all sorts of abuse. You wouldn't want someone in your family to get in trouble for molesting or cheating you, would you? This will drag on for years, or decades of your life if you let it. Anytime anybody tries to appeal to family or tells you "we're just one big family here" to get you to do something, run for your life. Whatever you're about to get into will turn incestuous quickly.
Jaruzel 8y ago
Several years ago, I finally cut off relations with my own Mother. After several bouts of therapy it became very hard to ignore that she was and always had been a toxic influence in my life. As an adult through my 20s and 30s, I'd try to 'play-nice' and invite her over to visit (she lived in Spain, and may still do, I have no idea), from the moment she arrived to the moment she left, she tried to manipulate and emotionally blackmail not only me, but my partner and even my young daughter. When that stopped working she'd get her husband to do the same every time I was alone with him. She made me miserable even when she wasn't around, and I would be constantly stressed knowing that I'd have to interact with her, something I tried to do for the sake of my daughter. I feel no emotional bond with the woman; she has treated me awfully my entire life. Since stripping her from my life, I no longer feel the guilt and burden of maintain a relationship that really wasn't good for me. Blood is never thicker than water. It doesn't matter who the person is; if they are not a positive element in your life, then cut them out. Like you would a cancer. ... Before someone thinks 'ah but I bet he carries some blame regarding the deterioration of the relationship' - nope. My sister, who is several years younger than me, has also cut my Mother out of her life. In fact she did it before I did.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  I’m in this phase right now where I’m trying to cut off my mother, for the same reasons you listed. The thing that kills me is she knows she’s hurting me and tries to change. She can make the changes for a few weeks but then reverts back to her “normal” self. It’s like watching an addict relapse, it’s so goddamn hard. I know there’s a human in there who loves me, but goddamn it, the demon who wants clean floors always wins.
  - xapata 8y ago
    Clean floors is all she wants? Doesn't seem terrible. I'm guessing that was a tip-of-the-iceberg kind of thing?
    - jbob2000 8y ago
      She has an idea in her head about how the world should work and she has a tome of rules and regulations that you must follow at all times. Lots of yelling and screaming when these rules are broken. There is no scale to her reactions. You walked on the floor with bare feet? Same reaction as if you broke a cherished heirloom.
scardine 8y ago
My father abandoned the family when I was 13. I started working as an apprentice in the railroad at 14 in order to help supporting 3 younger brothers. My salary went straight to my mother. At night I was studying to become a certified electronics technician at a vocational school. One day someone from the staff told me I would be barred from the exams because I haven't paid tuition (a month after this the school was incorporated by a state-owned university and went tuition-free otherwise I would never graduate). So picture a mother that will steal tuition money from his son and you can imagine how my mother leeched me for years. This kind of abuse has consequences for life. Sometimes your parents are very bad people and there is nothing you can do about it. And no, I don't really care if either of my parents live or die, in some way they are already dead for me.
- justinclift 8y ago
  Yeah. I started a company some years ago, and asked my mother to take care of the books as her job history was office/admin stuff. Fast forward a few years, she forged my signature on paperwork to ASIC (www.asic.gov.au), making her the sole director of the company. Not really a person I have time for any more. :(
lgleason 8y ago
My parents were both in the counseling field. Very few people are beyond redemption. While I fully support this in extreme circumstances, more often than not, from what I've seen, estrangements are more about mental health issues with the person who is cutting things off than the person accused of being toxic. The family was for a long time the safety net for people, now we have put that faith in the government... Out of the two I trust my family more than I trust a bureaucrat that has no loyalty to me. The other issue is that as our parents and relatives get older their mental condition declines. Some of the extreme views and "toxic" behavior that older people can have stems from that. So instead of having some patience and gratitude for what they've done for us we are now taught to cut them off? I guess them raising us as children, changing our diapers, making sacrifices for us etc. doesn't count for any kind of paying it forward because..... me, me, me, me, me.
- DanBC 8y ago
  My colleagues are in the psychiatry and psychological therapy fields, and it's well recognised that some parents are toxic and cause serious on-going emotional harm to their children.
  - wjossey 8y ago
    I cut out my parents with the support (not direction of) my therapist. She was very clear in our conversations that the way in which my father and step mother were treating me was not acceptable behavior, and providing them with guard rails around what will allow us to maintain a relationship was appropriate. So yes, 100% your comment. It’s a pretty easy argument to make. Are there toxic and harmful people in this world? Yes. Are there toxic and harmful people who have children? Yes. Are there toxic and harmful people who direct that behavior towards their children? Yes.
  - lgleason 8y ago
    The unsaid thing with all of this is that the counseling field has become part of the problem with this. It used to be that counselors had more of a religious affiliation which made the more pro-family. These days they are a big part of the problem.
wjossey 8y ago
Exceptionally tough concept for many to understand, but I became estranged from my father and step mother during the final six months and two years of life respectively. In my case, it was in direct response to ultimatums given in an attempt to get both of them into recovery / rehab for alcohol abuse. It’s an exceptionally difficult decision for any person to make; however, it’s often a necessary decision to protect yourself and your family (my wife in my case). It’s unfair to your spouse, as an example, to put them through significant emotional abuse and derision. In my case, the “how will you feel if they die” example wasn’t a consideration. The parents I had growing up were not the same ones that had been ravaged by alcohol. Those people had long since died, and i had already had to go through that grief process. For people who make the decision to cut ties, they’ve potentially already dealt with the same grief as a death, just without the person actually “dieing”. Hard to comprehend, but that was my experience.
- axaxs 8y ago
  Well put. Thanks for this, and sorry for your loss. Your last paragraph is something I'd never considered before, but makes perfect sense and hits a bit close to home.
  - wjossey 8y ago
    Thank you! Lots of life is tough and complicated, and there tends to be a significant amount of shame associated with stories like mine. I do my best to flip it around and share my experiences so others don’t feel so alone if they are going through something similar. I feel no shame around my experience, and I hope others choose to not carry that emotion as well.
bitwize 8y ago
I do my best to show my mother that I love her. Last Christmas, I bought her some nice gifts. I do it in part because there are mothers like this in the world, and not everybody is as lucky as I am.
- gumby 8y ago
  I think that is indeed the majority case, and it's great you have that, and also that you recognise that it's not universal. It's unfortunate that people who can't have that for whatever reason get shamed for it.
gumby 8y ago
Both of my parents were estranged from their parents, and are now sad that they are estranged from my sister. But I was not condemned to repeat that in my own childrearing.
gouggoug 8y ago
Totally unrelated to the article: Why does the washingtonpost hijack my browser history? I had to click my browser's back button 7 times to get back to HN, this is an infuriatingly annoying behavior that I wish websites did not have.
- radford-neal 8y ago
  Yeah. But the more general question is, why do browsers allow that? Why can't a browser have a "back" button that, you know, goes back...?
temporallobe 8y ago
Estrangement is tough but sometimes necessary, and in fact it’s easier than maintaining a toxic relationship. I am fully estranged from my father and sister, and partially from my mother, with whom I have very occasional contact. The reasons are complicated, but suffice it to say that my family history is very troubled and sad. My sister is a nacotics addict who has two children greatly affected by her addiction (both were born addicted and were in an ICU for a month). She doesn’t have legal custody of them, but my parents enable her behaviors and allow her to have the children even she’s not supposed to have unsupervised visits, etc. A long time ago, and with the help of many therapists over the years, I have decided to cut ties, though it was too hard to completely break all contact with my mother. Of course, most people we know are baffled by our estrangement because my parents seem like “such nice people”. But this solves a lot of problems and in fact the sadness I feel is worth not having to deal with the horrible emotional roller coasters and certain fears my wife and I have regarding the safety of our own children. It’s a sad but necessary solution to a complex problem.
shawnb576 8y ago
I'm on this train too, I cut ties with my mother last fall. she loves me but it comes out in toxic ways that she doesn't seem to have insight into. as i've grown in life, things have gotten harder and harder with her as we continue to (naturally) grow apart. it got worse when i got engaged, then worse when married, then worse when we had kids. when it became clear that her only motivation in the relationship was adulation from me, and that she was willing to sabotoge or hold-hostage other relationships to get her way (withholding attention from my kids, accusing my wife of being against her, etc), I realized this wasn't healthy. it makes me sad that there was no other option. but i don't regret it.

50 points by eplanit 8y ago

"What if the asshole dies and you're still estranged?" Such a question reveals an ignorance of how toxic people can be. And in my book, blood relations doesn't get you a get-out-of-jail-free card for being an asshole. My family has assholes, leeches, the works. Quite a few I get along with, quite a few I can go to my grave having never spoken to them again and have not one regret for having eliminated stress and conflict from my life. Not that I've willfully cut anyone out of my life. I do have one sister that stomped off mad one day, never to return. Good riddance, and contrary to whatever fantasies you might harbor, you will not be missed, Sis. The rest I just don't go out of my way to contact. I'd pick up the phone if any of them called. Hell, my estranged sister could call and I'd pick up. But I'm not going out of my way to add difficulty to my life. So maybe I'm a sociopath, or maybe I'm more enlightened, you choose. But I just don't get this putting up with shit just because "we're family!".

toasterlovin 8y ago
FWIW, the level of prosperity that we currently enjoy in the developed world is probably a once-every-100-million-years kind of event. It's a result of increasing technological sophistication concurrent with reduced fertility. At any other point in human history, you'd be a damned fool to cut off family without a lot of thought and consideration. Family + significant other is the only safety net that most humans have ever really been able to count on. Editing to add: and if you think your family won't be important in your life because you live in the developed world, you should take a look at current European politics, then talk to older Europeans about the second war (or to Eastern Europeans about life under communism).
- lgleason 8y ago
  This 100000% over.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  > Family + significant other is the only safety net that most humans have ever really been able to count on. I think this is true, but it's also one of the most common and powerful ways in which abusers control their victims. Often, the most difficult challenge that victims of abuse and domestic violence face is overcoming their dependence, financial and otherwise, on their abusers.
- sigi45 8y ago
  I read an article about people from Syria coming to Germany without parents and talking about a level of freedom they never experienced before. Not having all your family around you and controlling you and living after there worldviews.
jstarfish 8y ago
You're not a sociopath. You're wise and strong enough to avoid abusive relationships where you see them. Many people can't, so they shame those that can by calling them heartless or sociopaths to justify why they keep toxic people around in their own lives. It's no wonder why cults, organized crime, shitty people and shitty employers appeal to sense of familial bond as well...peoples' innate need to be part of some "family" construct gets exploited as a cover for all sorts of abuse. You wouldn't want someone in your family to get in trouble for molesting or cheating you, would you? This will drag on for years, or decades of your life if you let it. Anytime anybody tries to appeal to family or tells you "we're just one big family here" to get you to do something, run for your life. Whatever you're about to get into will turn incestuous quickly.

Jaruzel 8y ago

Several years ago, I finally cut off relations with my own Mother. After several bouts of therapy it became very hard to ignore that she was and always had been a toxic influence in my life. As an adult through my 20s and 30s, I'd try to 'play-nice' and invite her over to visit (she lived in Spain, and may still do, I have no idea), from the moment she arrived to the moment she left, she tried to manipulate and emotionally blackmail not only me, but my partner and even my young daughter. When that stopped working she'd get her husband to do the same every time I was alone with him. She made me miserable even when she wasn't around, and I would be constantly stressed knowing that I'd have to interact with her, something I tried to do for the sake of my daughter. I feel no emotional bond with the woman; she has treated me awfully my entire life. Since stripping her from my life, I no longer feel the guilt and burden of maintain a relationship that really wasn't good for me. Blood is never thicker than water. It doesn't matter who the person is; if they are not a positive element in your life, then cut them out. Like you would a cancer. ... Before someone thinks 'ah but I bet he carries some blame regarding the deterioration of the relationship' - nope. My sister, who is several years younger than me, has also cut my Mother out of her life. In fact she did it before I did.

jbob2000 8y ago
I’m in this phase right now where I’m trying to cut off my mother, for the same reasons you listed. The thing that kills me is she knows she’s hurting me and tries to change. She can make the changes for a few weeks but then reverts back to her “normal” self. It’s like watching an addict relapse, it’s so goddamn hard. I know there’s a human in there who loves me, but goddamn it, the demon who wants clean floors always wins.
- xapata 8y ago
  Clean floors is all she wants? Doesn't seem terrible. I'm guessing that was a tip-of-the-iceberg kind of thing?
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    She has an idea in her head about how the world should work and she has a tome of rules and regulations that you must follow at all times. Lots of yelling and screaming when these rules are broken. There is no scale to her reactions. You walked on the floor with bare feet? Same reaction as if you broke a cherished heirloom.

scardine 8y ago

My father abandoned the family when I was 13. I started working as an apprentice in the railroad at 14 in order to help supporting 3 younger brothers. My salary went straight to my mother. At night I was studying to become a certified electronics technician at a vocational school. One day someone from the staff told me I would be barred from the exams because I haven't paid tuition (a month after this the school was incorporated by a state-owned university and went tuition-free otherwise I would never graduate). So picture a mother that will steal tuition money from his son and you can imagine how my mother leeched me for years. This kind of abuse has consequences for life. Sometimes your parents are very bad people and there is nothing you can do about it. And no, I don't really care if either of my parents live or die, in some way they are already dead for me.

justinclift 8y ago
Yeah. I started a company some years ago, and asked my mother to take care of the books as her job history was office/admin stuff. Fast forward a few years, she forged my signature on paperwork to ASIC (www.asic.gov.au), making her the sole director of the company. Not really a person I have time for any more. :(

lgleason 8y ago

My parents were both in the counseling field. Very few people are beyond redemption. While I fully support this in extreme circumstances, more often than not, from what I've seen, estrangements are more about mental health issues with the person who is cutting things off than the person accused of being toxic. The family was for a long time the safety net for people, now we have put that faith in the government... Out of the two I trust my family more than I trust a bureaucrat that has no loyalty to me. The other issue is that as our parents and relatives get older their mental condition declines. Some of the extreme views and "toxic" behavior that older people can have stems from that. So instead of having some patience and gratitude for what they've done for us we are now taught to cut them off? I guess them raising us as children, changing our diapers, making sacrifices for us etc. doesn't count for any kind of paying it forward because..... me, me, me, me, me.

DanBC 8y ago
My colleagues are in the psychiatry and psychological therapy fields, and it's well recognised that some parents are toxic and cause serious on-going emotional harm to their children.
- wjossey 8y ago
  I cut out my parents with the support (not direction of) my therapist. She was very clear in our conversations that the way in which my father and step mother were treating me was not acceptable behavior, and providing them with guard rails around what will allow us to maintain a relationship was appropriate. So yes, 100% your comment. It’s a pretty easy argument to make. Are there toxic and harmful people in this world? Yes. Are there toxic and harmful people who have children? Yes. Are there toxic and harmful people who direct that behavior towards their children? Yes.
- lgleason 8y ago
  The unsaid thing with all of this is that the counseling field has become part of the problem with this. It used to be that counselors had more of a religious affiliation which made the more pro-family. These days they are a big part of the problem.

wjossey 8y ago

Exceptionally tough concept for many to understand, but I became estranged from my father and step mother during the final six months and two years of life respectively. In my case, it was in direct response to ultimatums given in an attempt to get both of them into recovery / rehab for alcohol abuse. It’s an exceptionally difficult decision for any person to make; however, it’s often a necessary decision to protect yourself and your family (my wife in my case). It’s unfair to your spouse, as an example, to put them through significant emotional abuse and derision. In my case, the “how will you feel if they die” example wasn’t a consideration. The parents I had growing up were not the same ones that had been ravaged by alcohol. Those people had long since died, and i had already had to go through that grief process. For people who make the decision to cut ties, they’ve potentially already dealt with the same grief as a death, just without the person actually “dieing”. Hard to comprehend, but that was my experience.

axaxs 8y ago
Well put. Thanks for this, and sorry for your loss. Your last paragraph is something I'd never considered before, but makes perfect sense and hits a bit close to home.
- wjossey 8y ago
  Thank you! Lots of life is tough and complicated, and there tends to be a significant amount of shame associated with stories like mine. I do my best to flip it around and share my experiences so others don’t feel so alone if they are going through something similar. I feel no shame around my experience, and I hope others choose to not carry that emotion as well.

bitwize 8y ago

I do my best to show my mother that I love her. Last Christmas, I bought her some nice gifts. I do it in part because there are mothers like this in the world, and not everybody is as lucky as I am.

gumby 8y ago
I think that is indeed the majority case, and it's great you have that, and also that you recognise that it's not universal. It's unfortunate that people who can't have that for whatever reason get shamed for it.

gumby 8y ago

Both of my parents were estranged from their parents, and are now sad that they are estranged from my sister. But I was not condemned to repeat that in my own childrearing.

gouggoug 8y ago

Totally unrelated to the article: Why does the washingtonpost hijack my browser history? I had to click my browser's back button 7 times to get back to HN, this is an infuriatingly annoying behavior that I wish websites did not have.

radford-neal 8y ago
Yeah. But the more general question is, why do browsers allow that? Why can't a browser have a "back" button that, you know, goes back...?

temporallobe 8y ago

Estrangement is tough but sometimes necessary, and in fact it’s easier than maintaining a toxic relationship. I am fully estranged from my father and sister, and partially from my mother, with whom I have very occasional contact. The reasons are complicated, but suffice it to say that my family history is very troubled and sad. My sister is a nacotics addict who has two children greatly affected by her addiction (both were born addicted and were in an ICU for a month). She doesn’t have legal custody of them, but my parents enable her behaviors and allow her to have the children even she’s not supposed to have unsupervised visits, etc. A long time ago, and with the help of many therapists over the years, I have decided to cut ties, though it was too hard to completely break all contact with my mother. Of course, most people we know are baffled by our estrangement because my parents seem like “such nice people”. But this solves a lot of problems and in fact the sadness I feel is worth not having to deal with the horrible emotional roller coasters and certain fears my wife and I have regarding the safety of our own children. It’s a sad but necessary solution to a complex problem.

shawnb576 8y ago

I'm on this train too, I cut ties with my mother last fall. she loves me but it comes out in toxic ways that she doesn't seem to have insight into. as i've grown in life, things have gotten harder and harder with her as we continue to (naturally) grow apart. it got worse when i got engaged, then worse when married, then worse when we had kids. when it became clear that her only motivation in the relationship was adulation from me, and that she was willing to sabotoge or hold-hostage other relationships to get her way (withholding attention from my kids, accusing my wife of being against her, etc), I realized this wasn't healthy. it makes me sad that there was no other option. but i don't regret it.