I have a very, very distant relationship with my parents (mostly due to their admittedly unequal treatment of me vs sibling our whole lives). We HAVE cut the sib out of our lives, which is yet another wedge between me and my parents. However, it is the healthiest relationship with them, for me, and I've mostly come to terms with it.
I do get sad when I compare my situation to friends who talk to their moms daily, their kids have great relationships with their moms, etc. However, my close friends know the situation and are sympathetic and don't press me to discuss it too much. With others, I just let them assume whatever they want - if I don't know you well enough to have shared even part of the story with you, then I'm not beholden to your opinions of my family.

I cut off my mom when I was 13- my parents divorced. Yes many people think I'm horrible if I tell them but like PP said I don't talk about it EVER. I'm in my 40's now. People don't understand.

I didn't communicate with either parent for five years. I knew I had to cut them out of my lives as a severe depression was taking hold of me.

While some people judged me. I responded with confidence that some distance was necessary for the time being.

I am sorry to hear that. I am the poster from " Toxic mom". You already know why lol. I'm sorry you have to deal with a mother like that. I know full well what it's like. It's best we keep people like that out of life, blood or not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I"m sorry, OP. I say, "My mother has the relationship with me that she chose" or "I envy those with good relationships with their mom" or "We've tried but this is where we are." Maybe it's that you're talking to someone close to you who wants to help solve what they see as a problem? So for me, I close that door (my relationship w my mom is not a problem) and then steer the conversation away. I follow with, "How's your mom?" or "My daughter and I ..." or "My kids and I ..." to move towards talking about good relationships.

OP here, I like that response. Thank you. And I agree with the PP who gets mad when people call her heartless. The people who say that to me have amazing mothers who are "normal". If you didn't live it there is just no way to understand it. I don't feel guilty. Thanks all I do envy people with great mothers, it makes me jealous and sometimes I cry just thinking about it.

PP, I'm so sorry. I cry over this loss as well. I want to find a way to make peace with it but haven't yet.

In the same situation. I'm comfortable with my decision to live my life without her, but the circumstance still makes me sad.

I nearly cut off mine, and DH persuaded me not to (even though he can't stand her). In retrospect, I'm glad she is still in our lives because we live so far away from each other (on purpose) that a phone relationship is actually manageable most of the time. The children can have relatively normal conversations with her, except that I swoop in when she fat-shames my totally normal 4 year old and underweight 9 year old.

However, I would never judge somebody else for cutting out their relative - you do what you have to do, especially to protect little children.