Is there anyone who cut ties with their family or a family member and is willing to share why?

Question

I’ve had a difficult time with my siblings and I’m thinking of cutting off contact for awhile but I don’t know if I’m being dramatic or if it would be a healthy thing to do. The bottom line is I don’t feel loved or accepted and I’m the family punching bag and I can’t stand being around them anymore. I’m 23 and wondering if I should leave for a few years. Family is supposed to be about unconditional love but I don’t feel that from them and I’m not sure I should force relationships that are too f*cked to be beneficial or work out.
If you’re willing to share your story I’d really appreciate it, but no pressure.

Answer

My family likes to gossip and say unnecessary shit that is rude, demeaning and with bad intentions. Final straw was at my baby shower this past weekend with my mother. She would rather see me struggle than be happy for me because that's what "happened to her" (struggles) and I've had enough. Mom is the ring leader of the drama and shares everyone's business with each sibling causing discord and judgement. Nothing is private- It's so toxic I've chosen to cut them all off for my mental health. Why keep people around if they only bring you down, make you question yourself and aren't there to ever show love or support? I am so over it all and I choose happiness. I will not be petty and allow myself to be in their circle any longer. So fuck them.

Answer

My mother and I stopped talking to each other when I got pregnant with my first child. A little bit of background story: my parents divorced when I was 9months old, for unknown reasons. My mother just packed up my older brother and I and left our father while he was at work one day with no explanation. Growing up she always told us that our father was a horrible person and that he broke her jaw. My brother, being my mothers obvious favorite child, believed every word she said. I was always skeptical, because I didn’t actually know my dad I wasn’t going to judge him off just her words. This angered her a lot and led to a lot of emotional abuse and neglect over the years, so much so that I attempted suicide twice as a teen. When I turned 15 I finally got in contact with my dad and my mother allowed me to visit him for the summer. I met a lot of family that hadn’t seen me since I was a baby and they all told me stories of my mom and things started to make more sense to me. My mother was a meth addict, extremely promiscuous, and a textbook narcissist. The abuse and neglect continued when I returned from my trip and when I turned 18 I moved to my dads but remained in contact with my mom. I got married for the first time when I turned 20 and started trying to have a baby but was unsuccessful which I believe was for good reason because the man I married turned out to be a pathological liar and a sociopath. My dad flew out to rescue me from him where my mom didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. After my divorce I met the man I’m currently with, the father of my children. I took him to meet my mother one time and she immediately hated him and was very rude to him the whole time we were visiting at her apartment. I’ll admit things moved pretty fast, we moved in together and got pregnant immediately and were so happy because it’s exactly what we both wanted. I planned to tell my mom with a cute Christmas ornament because I found out early December but my older brother told her first. She called me in a rage and started yelling at me how I’ve ruined my life and that my partner is a terrible person who wouldn’t stick around and I’d end up a single mother just like her. I told her that I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t be happy for me and called her a jerk and she hung up on me. We haven’t spoke since. I made the decision that I would never expose my children to that toxic woman because if she could never be a good mother to me, she did not deserve to be a grandmother to my kids. It’s been over 3 years and she has not attempted to try to contact me at all. And I’ve come to terms with it because I know that as a narcissist she will never change, she doesn’t believe she’s ever in the wrong, and she will never truly listen if I tried to tell her how she makes me feel. So this is how I’m protecting myself from anymore hurt because I’ve been through enough. I don’t feel bad at all for my decision. Family doesn’t need to be blood, family is people who love you for you and doesn’t change their mind when you do something they don’t like. As for my older brother, he is still very close to our mother which makes our relationship hard. We’ve gone through periods of not speaking for a while. Now we do speak but it’s not often and I still feel I withhold a lot of information because I don’t want him sharing my business with our mother.

Answer

So this isn't MY family, but my SO's and son's. We decided to cut them all off to an extent, mostly because of how they've been treating my SO. They would ignore his calls and messages and then message me on Facebook or call/test me to have him call them. When he'd call them they wouldn't answer or call back, and it was a cycle. They knew I was pregnant, he tried calling around Christmas to tell them, but no answer so they found out through Facebook. The only way they acknowledged it was by his step mom messaging me and saying "Due to your new circumstances, it'd be nice if (SO) would call his family." He tried, same thing as usual. His family hasn't actually talked to him in 2 years. He tried calling multiple times when I was induced in May, tried calling multiple times when the baby was born, and while he was in the NICU. Never any answer or call back. His brother is a drug addict that steals from everyone in the family, and his family talks to him and visits him, but can't be bothered to talk to us or visit us. They haven't even met their grandson, and while we probably will send them invites to his birthday in a year, they probably won't see him by that point either. If they don't make an effort to be in our son's life then we aren't going to even mention them to our son. There's no point in hurting him by saying "Oh yeah, your grandparents and great grandparents and uncle on your dad's side know about you, they just don't want anything to do with you." So unless they actually make an effort and prove that they'll continue to be a part of our son's life, they'll be cut off completely.

Is there anyone who cut ties with their family or a family member and is willing to share why?

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