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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There's always a reason, OP.[/quote]

What if the reason is stupid or petty?[/quote]

Then most likely the reason is you.  If something is important enough to a person to cut the other side (e.g. you) out of their life, it is significant to them.  You are devaluing and demeaning her reasons and feelings which generally suggests that you are callous and insensitive to the other person.  At the least, you are insensitive enough to discount her claim that something bothers her significantly.  By calling it stupid and petty instead of trying to address the issue with her, you've pushed her to the point that you are not worth the emotional problems you are causing her.[/quote]

DP.  It sounds like you are speaking from experience, PP.  How did you try to address the issue with the other person before you cut them off?  Why do you think that was unsuccessful (since you apparently then did cut them off)?[/quote]

No, this wasn't personal experience.  I have a very good and healthy relationship with my parents, siblings, and even in-laws.  Both sides have issues, but communication and healthy relationships are not one of them.

The experience(s) that I speak of are from being the good friend and shoulder to cry on for three different friends who have had to cut off toxic family.

One is a friend who is liberal but comes from a conservative family.  This friend places values on environmental issues.  She doesn't preach, but her family constantly harps on her life choices.  She chose a non-profit job because she believes in the cause and she is regularly told that she is wasting her education on such a low paid job.  She asks them not to comment on her job and choices, but they tell her she is being stupid and petty (close enough) and that she needs to make better choices.  If she would just make better choices, they wouldn't have to keep mentioning what her problems (or their perception of her problems) are.  She finally gave up and just stopped communicating.

I have another friend who had a lot of unequal treatment as a child.  He had a good childhood, but there was clearly unfair and unequal treatment being the middle child.  He has some resentment for the clear preferences his parents had for older and younger siblings.  The unequal treatment continued into his adult years.  He finally realized that his family and their treatment of him was causing him problems.  If he brought up issues that bothered him, he was told he was holding grudges.  There were always reasons for why he was the second-class kid.  And he clearly didn't recognize how good he had it.  Basically, he had a good life and should be grateful for it and shouldn't be comparing their treatment of him to their treatment of siblings.  He finally decided that after 30 some years, he wasn't going to change them and they weren't going to treat him any better and it wasn't worth the emotional turmoil that they cause him and he cut them out.

I'm not going to list the details for the other friend, but similar where the family did not recognize their own contributions to the problems over many years, discounted the friend's reasons for feeling upset and blamed the victim for stupid and petty reasons (so much easier to discount the reasons when you are not the person being emotionally victimized) and for personal health reasons, cut off the family.[/quote]

Neither #1 or #2 sound like a legitimate reason to cut off family.

#2 sounds like a bit of a brat.[/quote]

Maybe to you.  But to my friends after dealing with such problems for decades and ending up with stress-based health issues where they were advised to decrease the stress, one of the easiest ways to decrease stress was to stop communicating with family.

In #2's case, the final straw was when the family starting treating his children the same way.  He decided enough was enough and he really didn't want to have to explain to his kids why their cousins got more and better holiday and birthday gifts.  Why the cousins went on fancy vacations with the grandparents but they only visited them at home.  And so on.  [/quote]

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