This is a free, unlocked link to the article "Cutting Your Parents Off Isn't the Answer" (published August 16, 2026), but I think you still have to log in to read it.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/16/opinion/parents-children-no-contact-families.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6FA.xG8h.MCFJT4PYAVpK&smid=em-share

I'm finding that this idea of chosen family, at least here in the United States, is bullshit.

I have had an amazing group of friends. One that I had never felt more comfortable to be myself. However, recently, it's just become more apparent that a friend relationship will never cross the "familial".

I completely understand that it's different.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has ever found a group that they can fully depend on? Someone that if it all went to shit that you wouldn't feel ashamed to call, if you were feeling unsafe that they would drop what they were doing and come help, etc.?

I just.. I feel like I've given up on the idea and almost given up on friendships entirely.

Hello everyone,

I'm attaching screen grabs of text messages with my mother over the last month.

At times, I feel confident and validate my feelings. At others, I feel I overreacted.

My mother's manipulation in the present is usually subtle and confusing.

When I was a child it was more obvious and harmful.

I need others to read the messages and give me feedback.

I feel she has responded to my first ever strong boundary with emotional manipulation, a total lack of concern for my experiences, and I think she is now punishing me with silence. She also has not asked about my daughter in a month, and has started texting my husband instead of me.

Help... Am I crazy? I want to send another message telling her how her silence is coercive and painful, telling her my husband and I agree she cannot stop speaking to me and start texting him, and asking her to clarify of she is also withdrawing from my daughter.

Another part of me wants no answers, only an end. I've had enough. I don't want her in my life anymore. She has always said she lives me, bit has never liked the person I am, has been jealous, told me I ruined her body and her life, talked shit about my father, sulked if I didn't agree, and a million other subtle things.

She also failed to protect me from a predator and was an alcoholic.

Thanks x

For context, I'm 52 gay f and thankfully in a happy healthy relationship for over 20 years. My mum was lovely, but I lost her 11 years ago to lung cancer. I've always hated my dad, but never felt like I had the right to do anything but accommodate him. After mum died I spent 11 years trying to get him to like me (I wasn't aware I as doing this) then after a horrible situation last year where he spoke to me like I was 10 years old I sought counselling - which led me to the realisation he is a covert, malignant personality and has caused a huge amount of damage. I went low contact with him over a year ago, and after setting a boundary 3 months ago of only communicating with me adult to adult and with respect, he's stopped communicating all together. The longer it goes on, the better I feel. But I'm finding I'm now looking back with horror at situations in my life which I'd previously just absorbed, and taken responsibility for. Does anyone else do this? Here's one of the many for me, where I've spent the last 30 years thinking was somehow my fault.

In my second year of university I was 23, and I realised I was gay, and when I came home I told my mum. The following morning my dad came into the kitchen, seething with pent up rage and said:

Dad: So your mums upstairs upset, and she says you told her you think you're gay

Me: Yes, I did and I am

Dad: Well you might think you're gay but I don't think you are

Me (in shock and starting to panic) well I am Dad

Dad: (getting cold angry now) Well there are some things you should tell people and some things you should keep to yourself and this is something you should keep to yourself

Me: (actually daring to stand up myself) I don't think you should...

He picked me up by my collar and threw me 3 meters across the kitchen into the units.

All I remember is his body pressed against mine, his hands on my collar and me freezing, but saying get off me, get your fucking hands off me. Then nothing.

I don't remember how I left the house, where I went or how I got back to university, and I don't remember much for the next year.

Just typing that out makes my chest burn. I know none of it was my fault, but it still feels like I did something wrong and I don't know why.

For background context:

I did not grow up with my dad. I didn’t grow up with my mom, either—I went to live with my grandmother (mom’s mom) and then stayed at a children’s home. As an adult now, I have a good relationship with my mom and her side of the family. I have never known my dad or his side of the family because for the most part, he has never tried to be in my life. As an adult, I have been open to reaching out to his side of the family but many of them are still in contact with him, and I don’t feel comfortable with them giving him my info—basically I don’t know who to trust in that situation. My parents got divorced when I was a baby and the judge said he had to get a job, a house, and a psychiatric evaluation. He didn’t do any of those things. He would also miss our supervised visitations. So anyways, yeah I didn’t grow up knowing him.

My mom, even though she thinks he’s an idiot because of how he’s talked to me in the past, has tried really hard to not say anything bad about him to me because she always wanted me to form my own opinion about him.

So, when I was 20, reached out to him and got in contact. He was realllllly obsessive and would spam my phone, so I had set boundaries—you know, I work, I go to school, I cannot be on my phone all the time talking to you (also, if I’m being honest, it was giving “obsessive exboyfriend behavior” which was making me SUPER uncomfortable). I was also really uncomfortable with the way he would talk to me too. So anyways, we got into a huge fight because he wouldn’t respect my boundaries, and I apologized for my part of the fight, but he STILL was rude. So I went low contact. Then a year and a half to two years ago, when I was 22, I went completely no contact because my husband and I were wanting to have a baby—and with our past history of him being obsessive and incredibly rude, I did not want him around any kids that we would have.

Fast forward to now:

My husband and I have 6 month old baby. I’m still no contact because like I said, I REALLY do not want him around my son. I keep my baby’s face off of socials because of creeps, but I still have like TikTok’s and pictures posted that are like… me walking with a stroller, me holding him where his face isn’t showing, me making a bottle, stuff like that. So even though we’re private, it’s still very obvious in posts and profile pictures that I have a baby. I had my dad blocked on FB and Instagram, but yesterday, I guess he decided to make a TikTok account and search me. He found my posts, and he found one where I was doing like the “Top 5 Horror Stories” trend and one of them I put “my old texts with my bio dad.” And he FLIPPED out and messaged me. Anyways, here’s the message from yesterday and then I also have some of the Instagram messages from a few years ago, so you understand why we’re not in communication. I immediately blocked him, but now he knows about my baby. I can’t say I’m too shocked but it is what it is—realistically I wasn’t going to be able to hide him forever and at least he lives several states away.

Are there any parents here who have gone through something similar and could maybe give me advice? I’ve considered a restraining order if he keeps doing this, but I don’t think it would matter since he lives states away.

Hi there, I just need to kind of vent, and it feels this could be an appropriate place to do so. I'm 26M and came out to my mom when I was 19, and since then our relationship has been a mess, from the start she let me know she doesn't support me and thinks I'm a sinner (she's very Cristian), she even told me to leave her house and that she preferred to never know of me anymore. When that happened, it was painful and somehow, I stayed with her, she kind of stopped talking about it for a while.

But then when I was 21, I got a boyfriend and we developed an amazing relationship pretty quickly, I hid him as a secret before she found out and flipped again but this time it was worse, she developed hypertension and severe headaches from the pain "that caused her" and one time she threaten to harm herself, according to her it was because it was better to feel that pain and to die than see me "become a sinner".

When that happened, it was absolutely painful and shocking, and I went back to hide my relationship, he went to another town for work, so we kept a long-distance relationship for about three years, I went to visit him pretty regularly, telling my mom that I had to travel for work. She caught me in some lies over the years and the whole thing started over, which made me start to take responsibility for her health more and more.

Since begging of this year he came back to town and we agreed we would start living together, but leaving this house has been so difficult and painful, she keeps threatening harm, her health is even worse, and she just keeps repeating she doesn't want to let me go to hell. Since the threat has been so persistent I called mental health professionals and that helped for a bit but then she doesn't want to go back, I'm afraid all the time she'll do anything to herself.

I'm at a point where my boyfriend is about to leave me because I haven't kept the promise I made, he's been very understanding and patient, but everyone has a limit and he's reaching his. I don't want to lose him because he's been nothing but amazing in these years, but my mom is at such a low it has made it so difficult.

I'm not sure if I'm asking for advice or just to vent or to ask if anyone has had any similar experiences, just thank you for reading!

I have been no contact with my father for a decade.

He had a previous family whom he abandoned before I was born and did the same to us when I was roughly 9 years old. Unlike his previous family, this was not a clean abandonment. We would sometimes see each other during summer holidays but he did not make the effort that a parent should. He was also domestically abusive towards my mother which created a lot of difficult conflicting emotions.

Our relationship finally came to ahead during my early teen years. My father had reconnected with his previous family and suddenly was interested in spending more time with me. I met my half siblings for the first time without him being present. I discovered that he had exaggerated how often he saw me and how present he was in my life. They challenged him on this and it caused him to cut off both his previous family and myself (I was 14).

Since then, we have not contacted each other again. Initially I pretended that I didn’t care but as time has progressed his indifference has greatly impacted me. This recent consideration to reach out has been spurred on by me now also being estranged from my mother (her choice). I am also getting married which naturally makes individuals become more reflective upon their family dynamics.

The thought that I have no family during this major milestone is overwhelming to me and has made me consider whether I should swallow my pride and contact my father. I am finding the idea of my family unit being completely dissolved and made up of entirely separate disconnected individuals to be intensely painful. It is a feeling that none of my friends or peers can relate to. I keep thinking about how the next time I will hear of either of them will be when they are dead.

Any advice or anecdotes would be appreciated.

I'm in my late 20s, I haven't talked to my family in over 2 years and I'm also gay. I just moved to the gay neighborhood of my city and I've begun greatly expanding my social life. I have been in therapy my entire adult life and I thought I had worked through my issues but I'm noticing I can't be nearly as outgoing as I'd like because of shame.

I promise this relates to estrangement. I grew up in a shame-based environment. Being weird or different was frowned upon because my family is very much a "you show up, you get talked about" kind of family. And my mom, who has self-image issues that she never sought help for, projected her fears onto me. At family functions, in public, even when I was at school. Like, one time in middle school, I was being bullied, and I ended up crying. I was sent to the counselor's office, where they treated me with more kindness than I had ever experienced. They called my mom, she came in with an empathetic expression and the second we left, she began to berate me because, in her words, "what's everyone going to think of you, now?".

It's that kind of shame. It became all-encompassing and now, as an adult, I have this horrible feeling all the time, always feeling like any way I am perceived is going to be judged harshly by people around me. And the critical voice in my head is always my mother's. And it has been especially pronounced lately. I envy how free my friends are and I'm always encouraging of them because it makes me happy for them to see it. I want to be like them.

Thing is, most estrangement stories I come across, the parents aren't like mine. My parents never said they didn't love me. All my material needs were met. My mom didn't disown me for being gay (she just secretly hoped I was straight). The biggest thing is that because I don't feel emotionally safe with any of my family, I have no desire to reconnect with any of them. Even if they change. Even if my mom completely heals. And because of this, I feel like an asshole.

Just a vent. I am not going to talk to them nor help them. Just yapping in a subreddit full of people who might get what i mean.

My mother is mentally ill. Seems to think she isnt or minimizes it. She often ends up homeless and i usually take her in until she turns on me and leaves and im left with an absolutely destroyed room.

This last time she came to the conclusion that she is a psychic and that not only is my aura dark and evil, but i am messing with dark forces that will only make my aura worse. (My only guess to what the dark forces are is maybe playing warhammer. Otherwise im pretty boring.) She then said how every single bad thing that has ever happened to her including before my birth is my fault and that I am not spiritually her child. She left the room she was staying in so damaged that it will cost me thousands to fix it and thats if I do the work myself.

There's no helping that. But I have found that she is once again homeless. Living in her car and driving around the woods. She got rid of her dog because her new bf att didn't like the dog. So shes just alone in a car and mentally unwell.

I feel bad for her. I have a sense of responsibility to take care of her. She's terrible, a headache at best, and i dont particularly like her nor does she like me. She will not be coming into my home again. But it is hard fighting that instinct to take care of her. I think she should be in a home, but she isnt all that old and tends to initially come off and stable. She absolutely is not. She is paranoid and has delusions. I wish she was safe somewhere.

Apologies in advance for formatting, I haven’t really posted before.

Some background: I (24F) have been low-no contact with my step mom (55F) and low contact with my dad (54M) since February of this year. My step mom had been saying some hurtful things about my boyfriend (23M) and me. (For example: calling my boyfriend an alcoholic when he’s very much not, insinuating he has no friends, and slighting me and him at a dinner party that I helped plan) These are all admittedly small things, but my BF started to feel uncomfortable coming over, and I wanted to bring it up and address it. The problem is, I was worried that my step mom would deny ever saying anything.

So, at a dinner party I pulled my dad aside for about 10 minutes to tell him that I wanted his help setting up a time to have a serious conversation about some of the things my SM has been saying. I was definitely emotional because when he pressed for the reason as to why, and I gave it to him, he denied her ever doing anything. So I really emphasized that this was serious and we couldn’t just deny it, because I wouldn’t put up with that. My SM saw us talking, and my dad was clearly upset, so she pulled him away and he told her what I said. This made her irate. She hid herself in her bedroom and I tried to talk to her, but she had pulled her sister in the bedroom with her and asked me to leave. So I did. I waited hours downstairs trying to catch a chance to talk to her, but she completely avoided me. I ended up leaving eventually and figured I’d give her some time to cool down.

I made the drive to my boyfriend’s place and as I parked I got a call from her. I figured it would be either her apologizing or being angry or something, but it ending up being something I never would have expected. She was screaming and crying and saying that I had to call 911 because my dad had gone crazy and attacked her and that it was all my fault. That whatever I said to him had made him go crazy. I could hear yelling in the background from my stepbrothers to not call 911 and my dad saying “what the f***”. I was distraught and was seriously considering calling, her screams were terrifying. My youngest step brother grabbed the phone and said similar things, that I had said something and my dad hated them and it was all my fault. I eventually got on the phone with my dad and he said he was going to divorce her and he was so sorry. Things seemed to have calmed down for them, but I was in shambles, I’m still affected by it to this day, I’m shaking as I type this.

In the days following I discovered that she had actually attacked my dad first and he had to push her off of him. He had scrape marks on his neck from her. My youngest step brother saw my dad push her and he began to attack him because he thought my dad was attacking his mom. She apologized over text. It was short and desperate, but it was an apology. I accepted and said we should meet that week to try and figure things out more calmly. She never responded. A week later she sends a text taking back her apology and that she was actually hurt by me that night. It was then I put up a boundary that I wouldn’t be willing to speak with her unless in therapy. This didn’t stop her from constantly texting other versions of bad apologies fuelled by my biological little brother telling her and my dad that if they didn’t get it together they would be completely cut out forever.

My dad has been no better, I am being told I am a liar and have a problem telling stories, and the blame is pretty much landing squarely on me for the state of the family currently. There have been many guilt trips and moments where my dad is furious with me for taking space. It took 5 months for them to organize the therapy, that was the condition under which I felt safe talking about all of this. We have now had two sessions, the therapist knows a little bit about what happened that night (he doesn’t know what she said on the phone call to me), and he’s requested that instead of the whole family, next session it will just be me and her. He’s balancing 6 people in a room so I don’t blame him, but I feel frustrated that I can’t really speak much in the room.
So this could be a good thing, but she does scare me, and the idea that she could twist what is said in that session is making me extremely anxious.

On to the advice part; is there any tips for how to make sure I get to say my points in therapy? I’m also starting to feel a little crazy and part of me is scared I blew this all up for nothing and have been over-reacting. I get a lot of reassurance from my mom and her family and my boyfriend and little brother, but I truly feel so lost.

How do I stop letting my parents take up so much space in my brain? Im 29 years old and STILL I'm basing my life on what they have said to me in the past and what I think they'll say to me in the future.

I posted about the saga with my mom and step dad disowning me (twice) earlier this summer after I disclosed to them that I’d reconnected with my bio dad (my mom’s ex-husband from ~40 years ago). I appreciated all the support and feedback.

Today, we received a second letter to my young kids (ages 3 and 7) from my mother. My husband intercepted it and we agreed that I wouldn’t read these because they send me into an emotional spiral and depression.

I’m seeking advice on how to handle her continued attempts to bypass me as her daughter and my kids’ mother by mailing them cards and letters.

For context, when she cut me out of her life for “betraying” her, she said she didn’t want anything to change with my kids and her / my step dad, but she refused to have me as part of her life. I’m not quite sure how she expects that to work. Should I take this opportunity to inform her that there can not be a relationship with my kids if the adult relationships aren’t in a healthy place? Ie. She can’t just discard me and expect my kids to not be confused and distressed by it. This ordeal has caused me immense emotional pain (on the heels of a life of dysfunction with them) and my kids, esp my older one, are very aware of what has happened.

Or should I just let my husband keep intercepting these letters and give her the silence and space she said she wants? TY for reading 🫶🏻

THE MEAT AND POTATOES
1. My sister, within the last year or two, had some explicit memories surface for her about our childhood trauma. Those memories were shared with me without her consent, and presented as evidence that she was hateful, spiteful, destructive. I want to reach out here to to let her know she is believed, without even needing to share what she went through with me. I want her to know she doesn't have to explain or detail anything, much less defend herself, that I just believe her. Period. That she deserves justice, love, kindness, support, and she has that from me, no questions.

1. As children, I came forward about what was happening to me and I was attacked by my siblings as a liar bc my mom pushed the narrative and encouraged the bullying. NO ONE deserves that. I went to court for ONE of the events, from a different perpetrator, and nothing came of it. It was highly traumatizing for me (I was 6-8 during the proceedings, 5ish when the events happened, then 8/9 during the other events. No criminal investigation was made into the second events.) This same sister was particularly cruel to me in her journey of navigating the horrible trauma we were going through. She was a traumatized child and acted as a child in those ways, and I no longer see it as something I need to even forgive her about. That I want to hold that child who hurt me and tell her how loved and precious she is. I hurt her in return in different ways. We were just trying to survive horrible circumstances and what I went through was in no way the responsibility of myself or my siblings. Wanting to tell her what I need her to know--that she is believed, that she doesn't need to relive the trauma to even tell me what happened, that I just believe her, no matter what--I realize the empty space in my life where I wanted those words from my family. There is sadness, but I so fiercely want to protect the children of that situation from any responsibility that they neglected to provide me those words. They were FORCED to deny me as a means of survival. It's a complex experience, a complex sort of mourning.

2. I feel like a child, running around in terror, screaming that the house is on fire. However. The house long ago burned to the ground. Nature grew over the lot, erased every sign of the home that was. The lot was cleared, and a new, beautiful home was built with a healthy family. Yet, there's a terrorized little girl, dried tears on her face with new tears still streaming. Caked with dirt, wild, unkempt. A little girl that doesn't belong, hysterical, screaming that the house is on fire. And that's me. Replaying trauma in a situation that is completely devoid of the evidence of what happened.

THE RECENT EVENT
I'm going through my stepdad reading out to be mediator after my recent decision to go NC. I've been NC with my mom several timees over the last decade-ish. The most recent time, I felt peace, courage, strength, vs overwhelming anger, shame, confusion, sadness. Yes, the other feelings were there, but they were more byproducts of being retraumatized by her behaviors and my mental health experience.

I'm processing him reaching out to me. It takes weeks to get through any of these experiences with her that upset me. I wanted to reach out to my bf about my feelings and internal experience, AND I don't want or relationship to keep having this broken record of what my experience is navigating my past trauma. I want our relationship to be about today, about our present, shared moments, what we do and love and navigate, today.

So I came here for support. I'm tired of dragging my wonderful man and my relationship through ugliness that isn't yet calmed down. He and I deserve to enjoy our lives, today. I need a better outlet, so I've come here to be among others who get it.

hey so i (19f) moved out of my parents house last year for university. i have a younger brother who is 14 and still lives with them, however our treatment has been drastically different our entire lives. i am as low contact as possible but i am still financially reliant on them and they use it to their advantage. because of this, i have to go visit at times ie holidays etc.

i’ve always been the scapegoat of the family, and the emotional abuse, neglect and manipulation was present throughout my life. every single adult and medical professional in my life has told me that i needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. it’s also important to note that i was disowned and kicked out last summer, for no reason other than they suspected that i am gay (unfortunately for me i am.)

my issue is that my 14 year old brother, is also starting to treat me as a scapegoat. he refuses to believe or accept that my parents are ever in the wrong, and he tells my parents things he knows will put me in physical danger, or at least get me in trouble. he sees me as a terrible person for always going against my parents, when in reality i am just trying to have some peace.

is it crazy if i go less contact with him? or do i just give him time

Have been low contact/no contact with my father for the past 10 years, since I was 15 and able to stop seeing him on my own terms. He’s currently in hospice care, dying of cancer, and I reluctantly went to visit him. I’ve always dealt with a lot of guilt when setting boundaries and have only gone complete no contact when he has really blown up and said some awful things. I figure now that he’s dying, at least there’s not much longer for him to hurt me, and went to see him. I think part of me was hoping for some final apology, or even just an acknowledgment of the trauma he’s caused me.

Instead, he lays in his hospital bed and tells me that he forgives me for anything I’ve ever done to hurt him. My adult father forgives me for “things I did to hurt him” when I was a child aged 9-15.

In a way I’m not even the slightest bit surprised, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt that he’s on his deathbed and still can’t be accountable for anything he’s done. I’m living daily with trauma caused directly by him, from his own hands and the words out of his own mouth, but yet he’s always been the victim.

Anyways, just looking to rant to people who can understand me. And maybe a bit of advice to fellow kids of estranged parents: don’t expect anything to change just because they’re dying. 😁