Have you cut out a close family member from your life?

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

I cut off one of my brothers due to him and his wife saying some terrible things about our other brother. I cannot go into detail in case they are on this site and read this post, but it was definitely defamation of character.

missprice

zagubov wrote: »

I wasn't being judgemental but trying to explain what funerals could feel like when there have been family rifts.

Well as the riftee? we would not care what the funeral was like as we would not be there:)

On the other hand, you're obviously entitled to pass judgement on my post but try to think about that. Although your ripostes seem so vitriolic I wonder if you got my message.
What was the message? genuinely curious as I saw no message

I've no immediate family rifts as painful as yours but I've attended far too many funerals where people should have been there have been absent , and also communicated with people who couldn't be there, and tried to find ways of communicating comfort to bereaved relatives.
Who says the people should have been there, what law makes people go to a funeral of someone they don't care about? and who made you the comfort communicator when people who were expected did not turn up?

Even written letters apologising for and excusing the absence of absentees/ people who couldn't be bothered. Maybe I shouldn't have made the effort, some might think.

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Well I really hope no one makes the effort in my case to communicate comfort or write letters to tell anyone why I am absent from a funeral. I sure as hell hope the many years of no contact make it perfectly clear that I wont be at said funeral and that they realise this well before funeral arrives, However if they do not realise I wont be attending, I could really care less
no one needs to excuse me for my actions. I am in my 40s and well able to defend myself should I see the need.

red_devil

i wasnt in touch with my sister for a few years but when mum died we started talking again. We are not super close or anything but text occassionally. Our father is still alive too.

hgotsparkle

I cut all ties with my Father, and with that my half Brother and Sister (young teens so not able to socialise with me without parents knowing). Besides feeling like I'm missing out on their lives, stopping contact with my Dad is the best thing I ever did.
He isn't a nice person, very selfish. We had a huge argument over the phone one christmas (he was drunk) and I brought up how earlier in the year he hadn't sent me a birthday card, so he replied that I hadn't sent him one either. My birthday is before his! It ended in my mum coming in the roomn and taking the phone from me and telling him to leave me alone until I'd calmed down (which was weird for me to see her talk to him as I've never in my life seen them together, its hard for me to think of what they must have looked like as a couple!).
I then moved from London to East Anglia and never bothered telling him where exactly I moved to, and npchnaged my phone number.
I saw my step-mother and half Brother a few years ago whilst shopping in Ipswich and I ran away. If I ever bump into him, I don't kow how I'd take it as he does scare me.
Though I don't know what to do about when me and OH decide to start a family; I don't want my half sister to miss out on being an auntie and I would like to give my Dad the option of being a grandad, but...I just don't know how I would sort the problems. I don't even think he knows why I stopped talking to him.

pops5588

hgotsparkle wrote: »

I cut all ties with my Father, and with that my half Brother and Sister (young teens so not able to socialise with me without parents knowing). Besides feeling like I'm missing out on their lives, stopping contact with my Dad is the best thing I ever did.
He isn't a nice person, very selfish. We had a huge argument over the phone one christmas (he was drunk) and I brought up how earlier in the year he hadn't sent me a birthday card, so he replied that I hadn't sent him one either. My birthday is before his! It ended in my mum coming in the roomn and taking the phone from me and telling him to leave me alone until I'd calmed down (which was weird for me to see her talk to him as I've never in my life seen them together, its hard for me to think of what they must have looked like as a couple!).
I then moved from London to East Anglia and never bothered telling him where exactly I moved to, and npchnaged my phone number.
I saw my step-mother and half Brother a few years ago whilst shopping in Ipswich and I ran away. If I ever bump into him, I don't kow how I'd take it as he does scare me.
Though I don't know what to do about when me and OH decide to start a family; I don't want my half sister to miss out on being an auntie and I would like to give my Dad the option of being a grandad, but...I just don't know how I would sort the problems. I don't even think he knows why I stopped talking to him.

I completely get what you mean on a couple of points.
1) even though he soon won't know where I live, every so often I will catch a glimpse of someone who looks a bit like him and my stomach absolutely lurches and I get the urge to throw up/run away. If anything, just shows you did the right thing. It's hardly the reaction you naturally get when you see someone who is a positive figure in your life is it! I hate it when people say "oh won't you regret it if your father ever dies and you never got to make amends?" because I just think no, I would actually feel a lot freer because this last little stain that is left on my life by him would be gone. Sorry, just the way I feel.

2) My OH is actually the one who questions whether I will feel differently if we have kids and whether I would want my father to know his grandchildren. I understand your pull towards it because of your half-sibling, but I know that if, as a by-product of wanting to give my half-sister a chance to know my kids, I ever let my father treat or make my children feel the way that he made me feel, I would be devastated. And furious with myself.

browneyedbazzi

zagubov wrote: »

I wasn't being judgemental but trying to explain what funerals could feel like when there have been family rifts.

On the other hand, you're obviously entitled to pass judgement on my post but try to think about that. Although your ripostes seem so vitriolic I wonder if you got my message.

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You made a blanket comment that 'it takes a special kind of stupid' to cut off a family member - that looked pretty judgemental to me.

And what exactly in my post do you consider 'vitriolic'?

You're right though, I don't think I have 'got your message' as I really don't see how your experience of funerals following family rifts can justify the blanket comment you made. Given the severity and nature of abuse that takes place in some families, the awkwardness or discomfort associated with a family rift at a funeral pales in insignificance when compared to the destruction that some people wreak on the lives of their family members.

Do you really think victims of abuse should keep their abusers in their lives for the sake of what people will think/feel at their funerals?

Lagoon

All ties cut with immediate family, here. That included three children that made the decision very painful. Two are now old enough to make their own decisions - one would rather keep ties severed, and the other is happy with occasional texts on special occasions.

It isn't easy when younger family members that can't make their own decisions are caught up in it all, but you eventually find out what they want. It's just a waiting game.

MichaelDoherty

There is also the other side of this. In our family there were four generations alive at the same time, my parents, me, my sons and my grandchildren.

Because I was an only child, who was unwanted, and who was actively hated by my mother, who turned the family against me, I chose to leave, to allow the other 3 generations to continue to live in harmony.

Not an easy choice to make, but was the much lesser of two evils.

missty25

It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. You see we are basically ignored by close family on my OH side and although made the effort to still see their children we are rebuffed at every attempt. But we have no explanation as to why which has left us just feeling awful. Wich means we know what it feels like being on the receiving end.

I think I need a good hard look at most of my relationships with family tbh as I'm at the stage where it's affecting me in such a negative way. I feel anxious all the time and have a constant knot in my stomach. Or perhaps I need to emigrate to sunnier climbs and not have to ever think about any of this again. . .

JanCee

JanCee wrote: »

I have cut my step brother out of my life and my only regret is not doing it sooner.

I clearly tempted fate with this comment as my elderly mother is now ill in hospital & I am now in almost daily contact with the evil step brother.

He is like toxic waste, contaminating everything he comes into contact with.