Does Anyone Regret...

[Justmehere]

...cutting ties with family members?

I'm struggling with this. Everyone tells me to cut ties with my family. All of them. The more I pull away, the meaner they get. It hurts so much. I feel like I should be closer to them to save any chance of a relationship. Then again, I realize that while they are no longer physically abusive, and sometimes they are supportive of me, there are many times they are quite mean and cruel. They even openly blame me for the abuse I endured as a child.

They scapegoat me to the point that it stuns my trauma therapist.

I keep thinking that I will regret cutting them out of my life. Has anyone else cut ties with family and not regretted it? or did regret it?

 

[desiderata310]

Sometimes. But those times when I had no communication tended to be the most peaceful in my life.
For several years, I reconnected with my mom. Tried to take care of her, loaned her money.

I've recently stopped talking to her. That's to say, I don't call her. I don't actively check in. I kind of feel bad about it but I have needed the break.

If I had not made the promise I made I would have simply quit talking to her years ago.

 

[blackemerald1]

I have had to cut ties with my very large family because they just could not understand PTSD and my other illnesses. They could not understand me anyway when I was growing up.

I do not regret it because they think I am a useless piece of junk anyway. But I do really grieve not having a relationship with them that is loving and nurturing. I have found that they are so dysfunctional I could no longer take the comments and mental abuse they threw at me, so I had to do it.

I hear about them from time to time through other sources. It;s sort of funerals only now.

I felt at the time and still do that I had to do it to save my own sanity. It is a hard decision, very hard!

All I ever wanted was for them to accept what had happened to me and the price I paid for it. But it was never spoken of and I was savaged by their opinions to the point I gave up. this idealist notion that they would at least try to understand...

@Justmehere it is a big decision with lots of consequences both good and bad. But surrounding yourself with loving people, caring people, people who acknowledge who you are and do not compare you to others is so important. People who respect you.

 

[soleilsalve]

Not a bit. I tried for decades to establish healthy relationships with them, if only to avoid getting hurt again. But as Jon Stewart said recently, "You can't outsmart crazy." Do I wish things were different? Absolutely. Am I healed? Of course not. But life throws enough stuff at me, and the last thing I need is for my family to be constantly pulling the rug out from under me. I wish them the best, and though it hasn't been easy, I have no regrets about putting much-needed distance between us.
Try thinking of your family as a toxic substance. It might not kill you, but it certainly isn't making you healthier. Best wishes, and I hope you can find some peace.

 

[arfie]

I cut initial ties in 1971. Most of the remaining ties have fallen away naturally as a result. I regret it to the same extent one of my favorite support buddies regrets having had to amputate a diseased leg. Is there such a thing as a life without regret?

The phantom itch exists to this day. I would re-grow it IF I could. It is not okay, butttttttttaaaaaaaa....

The world is as the world is. Not as I would have it.There remains much beauty in the world as it is. When one door closes, another one opens. I try not to spend so much time looking at the door that is closed that I miss the door that is open.

 

[user27357]

Sure I wish I could have ties with my family and stepmother and stepsisters. But I can't. They left no choice but to stop contact, I stopped it. Since then I get pangs of guilt, wondering if I could have done more to make things normal, but then I remember that all i really did was call their bluff to withdraw from me and that is the key to feeling OK with my decision to make it happen and keep it permanent.

we are wired to desire a family to be a part of. Some of us never really have that option or would have to tolerate way too much to get a false version of what we can't help but desire. It can never be easy to cut ties with anyone but if it is the lesser of two evils, it is a choice you have to make.

 

[Melody coates]

nope! Best decision I ever made

 

[soleilsalve]

"Phantom itch." What a great way to put it!

 

[Sherri Lynne]

...cutting ties with family members?

I'm struggling with this. Everyone tells me to cut ties with my family. All of them. The more I pull away, the meaner they get. It hurts so much. I feel like I should be closer to them to save any chance of a relationship. Then again, I realize that while they are no longer physically abusive, and sometimes they are supportive of me, there are many times they are quite mean and cruel. They even openly blame me for the abuse I endured as a child.

They scapegoat me to the point that it stuns my trauma therapist.

I keep thinking that I will regret cutting them out of my life. Has anyone else cut ties with family and not regretted it? or did regret it?

I can totally relate it hurts like heck to walk away. I can not help you understand why they are so mean and cruel other than they are selfish my mother is narcissitic I have two brothers one is in prison the other is controlled by her. I will listen (read )

 

[joeylittle]

I cut ties with my parents five years ago. I still communicate with my siblings (because they aren't the problem), but only in a limited way (because it's not OK for my parents to make them run interference, and that would happen).

I have sadness about it. I wonder if I'll ever be able to re-establish a connection. But when I think about either of them dying - which is probably near for both - I don't have any emotion besides the same sadness of how it all went wrong so many years ago. I would not attend either funeral. I would help my siblings deal with it in whatever way I could.

When I did cut ties, it was very easy; I had been passively withdrawn from the relationship for many years (I could go 2, 3 years without speaking to either of them) and I stopped identifying as a member of that family probably around the age of 7 or 8. So my situation might be unique that way.

I don't think I regret it. It was just what needed to happen. I regret the years when I was a kid when things could have gone differently.

 

[soleilsalve]

I've gotten to the point where I don't think I'll tell anyone except close friends when my mother dies. People at my job are generally supportive when family members pass away, but I won't want their condolences at that point. The loss already happened. I don't think I ever really had a mother, and I certainly didn't have a father. When she dies, it'll just be a formality. (When he dies, I won't know. He could be dead already.)
Although I'm open to the possibility that I might be broken up about my mother's death, it's really hard for me to imagine. What will I have lost then that I haven't already lost? If anything, I wouldn't be surprised to feel a sense of relief.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I cut off my father like a dead branch of a rose bush; I had to let me grow. I regret that it had to be done not that I did it.