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Cutting Off My Parents

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  • #161066
    Myles
    Participant

    Hey again, everyone, in this post I’m just asking if anyone has been in this situation involving them having to make a choice like this. So here goes.

    A few days ago, my Dad and I went to court and I was awarded the money I was due because of negligence on the part of this hospital (that I’d mentioned in my ” My Story” post) and I should be getting the money on my 18th birthday (5 months from now.) However, I feel like I am indebted to my Dad because of this. My Mum was speaking to me earlier and she’d asked if I wanted to go see Charelle any time soon. I found this strange because Mum had told me her and Charelle are speaking again. I then found out that Dad still doesn’t want Charelle and her girlfriend in the house, and Charelle has said she doesn’t want to come by herself because she feels “awkward.” My Mum says she’s going to “stick by Dad no matter what” and in my mind, she would have the same attitude towards me if I ever got a boyfriend, so even if I decided not to cut them off, I could not come around and see them anyway.  There are days where my Mum is nice to me and then at some point, she completely flips out (with good reason a lot of the time) and is in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I feel even more distant to my father than I was a year or 2 ago, and I don’t think I will ever forget him threatening to kill me if I ever said I was gay again. I’m trying to be as objective as I can as I write this, but I just don’t want a relationship with either of my parents at this point in my life, but I am afraid I will be making a mistake. I just wanted to know if anyone else has been in a similar position?

     

    #161266
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Myles:

    I was not in a similar situation in that I am not gay and I did not live with a father and a mother after the age of five. I was in a similar situation in that I didn’t want a relationship with my mother since I was a teenager. When I was your age, I wanted nothing to do with my mother (although I was still very attached to her). Many years later, I finally did cut all contact with her. I wish I have done it when I was your age, or when I was in my early twenties. Ending contact with her was necessary for me to start healing from the harm she has caused me.

    My mistake was not ending contact with her but not doing it decades earlier.

    anita

    #161360
    Myles
    Participant

    You don’t have any regrets about cutting off your parents?

    #161549
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Myles:

    My father died years ago. I cut all contact with my mother and I do not regret having done so. As I wrote to you in my last post, I regret not having cut contact with her earlier.

    anita

    #161601
    Lucy
    Participant

    Dear Myles,

    I think it’s a very difficult choice to make. I left my parents home when I was 17. I don’t regret this choice but for me it’s a difficult thing to live with. For me it’s important to take care of the people I love. My parent’s looked at me with so much hatred (I’m not gay, but for other reasons) it had so much impact on the way I looked at myself and the way I was able to take care of the people around me. I don’t know your story but for me it is import to respect my parents. For me cutting contact is not disrespectful. I don’t hate my parents, I’m not angry, they are also just human with their incapability’s. Cutting contact for my is not disrespectful because I can’t give them what they want and maybe what they need . It  causes a lot of anger and sadness for them because I am the way I am (maybe more the way they think I am, but I can’t convince them otherwise).

     

    I’m sorry for your situation and I hope you don’t feel to much pain about it (I’m sorry I don’t know the correct words in English)

    #161615
    Myles
    Participant

    Ah right, sorry Anita. I guess it’s just me finding the words to say I guess, thank you for sharing. And despite the fact that I know that I don’t feel close to my parents at all, I still seem to have an issue with getting close to people. In both my relationships,  It made me uncomfortable when my partner said they loved me, it unsettles me when friends tell me I’m “like family” to them, and I can’t put my finger on why.

    #161640
    Myles
    Participant

    No, I think I understand Lucy. Are you saying that while you respect your parents and recognise them as fallible human beings, but it’s better for the both of you if you don’t speak? And thank you, I feel like I’m more in control of my life than I’ve ever been, but like India.Arie says “Be careful what you do or say, you gotta live with it everyday”, and it’s really hard to stay true to yourself sometimes.

    #161766
    Eliana
    Participant

    Hi Myles,

    Have they done anything else to you, besides this? I feel in a way, this can be resolved without “completely” cutting them off. Were they good parents to you growing up? Have they harmed you verbally or emotionally in other ways? Of do they keep hurting you over and over? If the answer is yes, than it may be a possibility not to have contact with them. But over one issue that could be resolved, by sitting down and talking to, and telling them how their words make you feel, maybe things could be resolved? For example, your father saying he threatened violence against you, is not appropriate for a parent to say, you can tell him, how that made you feel, and the hurt it caused you and pain. If he gets defensive and argumentative, then perhaps it might be a good idea to end contact. The reason I am against ending contact with parents, is because my “family” were my Aunt and Uncle. I wrote them a letter when I was going through a severe depressive episode and hospitalized, and even though I apologized over and over, they completely cut me out of their lives. The pain from that was unbearable to me. That’s why I say, if you can try to work it out, please try. Keep us posted.

    #161816
    Myles
    Participant

    Well Eliana, like I’ve said before my parents have a legitimate grievance most of the time but it’s the way they go about it (and also, as I’ve said, I must take some of the responsibility too.) I also don’t think they are bad people. What my Dad actually said was “I will kill you if you ever say you’re gay again”, and I understand what you mean by talking it out Eliana, but this all happened 3 and a half years ago, and my Dad has barely budged on the issue since then. He’s either in denial or has said he “disagrees with it”, which I understand but I don’t want to have a relationship with someone who thinks that way. As I’ve also said in my previous post, I angrily brought up the fact that, when my Dad was emotionally abusing me, I was tired of being spoken to like dirt. I understand that I said this harshly, but his response was to slap me, kick me in the back of my legs. I then said something else and he slapped me across the face another 2 times and asked me if I was trying to get on his nerves, or something to that effect. The reason he threatened me when I was outed was because the gay thing disgusted him, not because I had done something to anger him. Then there was them almost putting me into foster care during the week that my Mum had outed me and forced me to log into my Facebook to see who was “influencing me to be gay.”

    I appreciate your input, but at this point I just feel like the sooner I am living on my own the better. I don’t really feel close to either of them, and oftentimes, when they have said something that has ticked me off, it’s more of my ego saying “Why can’t I say something back” than “These people are supposed to care about me and what they have said contradicts that.” My siblings have attempted to talk to my parents over the years about grievances they’ve had (most recently, my sister posting a status about feeling “underappreciated” by Mum and Dad, who bring up my other 2 siblings who have cut them off completely when talking about chores, even though they have a very “They’ll learn someday” attitude towards them) and no, this was not the most mature way to express her feelings, but my Mum seems to get defensive regardless and posted 3 comments about how my Sister hasn’t grown up at all, that she’ll learn someday etc. A lot of the stuff I currently take issue with when it comes to my parents would probably become a distant memory if I was away from them.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Myles.
    #162046
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Myles:

    You wrote to me: ” it unsettles me when friends tell me I’m ‘like family’ to them”- lots of families give Family a bad name. A family should be a group of people that provide safety for the individuals within it, acceptance, comfort, empathy and respect. Not “emotionally abusing me… being spoken to like dirt”, not “slapped me across the face another 2 times”, etc.

    It is no wonder to me that  you “don’t really feel close to either of them”.

    I like: “the sooner I am living on my own the better”.

    anita

    #162176
    Myles
    Participant

    Thank you Anita. I’m just gets on my tite when my sister says that I should try more with them when she herself as cut them off at least once and has told me she went through similar things with them growing up, including almost being disowned by the both of them for her sexual orientation. I feel a similar bitterness when my friends tell me what great relationships they have with their parents because the last time I had a good relationship with my Dad was when I was 7-8 years old, and my relationship with my Mum has only deteriorated when I was 14, and I believe it started when my Mum outed me to my Dad, but about 6 months after this happened, my older sister Naomi (who no longer speaks to Mum or Dad) felt that I was blaming Mum a little too much for what happens (I felt as though I was equally angry at both of them to be honest, but my Mum isn’t responsible for how my Dad reacted to the news, but she didn’t have any problems making me log into my Facebook account to see who was “influencing me to be gay” and had co signed me  almost being put into foster care. She also tries to excuse my Dad’s actions during the week I was outed by mentioning that he had come to hospital with me before and during my surgery, and tells me that I need to cut him slack because of this.) I still try to take responsibility for my feelings as much as I can though, even my bitterness and even my aversion to getting too close to people.

    #162262
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Myles:

    Bottom line: make a good life for yourself and it reads to me that a good life for yourself does not include a relationship with either of your parents. Don’t “cut him (your father) slack” at your expense: every cruel person has moments of kindness but you don’t want a cruel person in your life because of that one act of kindness when there is plenty more cruelty and a long time waiting for that next moment of kindness.

    Do not accommodate dishonesty and cruelty. Stand for kindness and honesty, the two going together.

    anita

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