Parents

[festive1]

Under what circumstances is it acceptable to cease contact with one's parents? Is there a different threshold when children/grandchildren are involved?

[Something completely different]

I have been playing with the thought of seizing contact to my parents and actualy tried it once.
Yet I have constantly found myself reestablishing contact.

My decision to do this was rather personal and still effects me today, but I am not the kind of person to discuss such personal problems in public.
I can simply add that it is hard, and that no matter how bad ones releationship to ones parents may be, completly seizing contact is almoust impossible.

My father had a horrible abusive father who pritty much bullied him into even leaving the country he was born in, yet they still have some contact.

[downbeatplumb]

You don't get to choose your family. Unless they actually dangerous I would keep at least some contact. Would a card at christmas suffice?

[The Grand Nudger]

Under what circumstances is it acceptable to cease contact with one's parents? Is there a different threshold when children/grandchildren are involved?

On days that end in V, when the sun shines or it's raining......

(fuck em if they can't take a joke Festive)

[festive1]

I haven't seen my father in 8 years, haven't spoken to him in 5, we had very limited contact for at least 15 years. I'm fine with this. I accept the next time I see him, he'll either be on his deathbed or in a casket. That sounds dramatic, but it's true, and I'm okay with it. It's not what I like or want, but that's how it is. I did everything I could to try to have a relationship with him while preserving myself, it just doesn't work. He's very ill emotionally, very hurtful, and mean.
But when it comes to my mom… That's where I am filled with questions and self-doubt. I hadn't seen/spoken to her in 6 months until about a week ago. I had things I needed to say to her, so my therapist invited her for a session. I said what I needed to, she freaked out and left. She came back to the session, accosted me, leaving marks on my arms, demanding an explanation for something I can't explain. It has left me realizing she doesn't have anything to give. She loves me to the full extent of her capacity, but she is just very limited.
Now that I am a parent myself, I find it impossible to justify or understand some of the things she did or didn't do, where I was able to in the past. Intellectually, I know it's not about understanding the why, it's about accepting it for what it is. I want to forgive and feel compassion for her, but I'm really stuck on how to get there.
Then there's the matter of even if I forgive her, if she doesn't have anything to bring to the relationship, what's the point? I don't feel love and acceptance from her. I feel obligation, inadequacy, guilt, and shame.
She loves my kids in her way. I also feel she uses them in the sense that she can take pictures of them to her office and tell stories about them, to make herself seem more acceptable, normal, validated, or something. It's not about them, it's about her.
Is it better for kids to have a grandmother who loves them limitedly and conditionally, than to have no grandmother at all? Is it better for me to have a very limited, superficial mother, or none at all? I don't know.

[Something completely different]

My parents accepted in time that they were wrong to some extent and asked for forgiveness and a releationship with me.

I can only releate to you through my parents expiriences although I do not fully understand them.
Both my grandparents were cruel people who were extremly brutal with my parents (my german granddad actualy was a nazi)
Worst of all, neighter actualy accepted being wrong and feeling sorry in any way.
My english granddad actualy tried to in instruct my dad on how to raise me insisting he didnt give me a beating often enought.

Yet my parents never really managed to get lose of them, especialy my mother.

I came to the conclusion that these people were just "people of their time" and that for them understanding how modern people think and work isnt really possible.
And therefor it isnt always possible for them to notice when something they did was actualy wrong.

[Kayenneh]

Is it better for kids to have a grandmother who loves them limitedly and conditionally, than to have no grandmother at all? Is it better for me to have a very limited, superficial mother, or none at all? I don't know.

On this part I can perhaps be of some assistance. My paternal granddad was a drunk, gambler and was the man that inspired my own father to become such a dad to me and my sister that he never had. I remember as a small kid wondering why I never met him, but I got the explanation that it would probably hurt more people to meet him than it would do good. I accepted that and I have never regretted not meeting him.

[Something completely different]

How do you people manage to talk about such things?

I simply cannot manage to talk about my problems and always make a big curve arround the "depression" threads.

[festive1]

Lots and lots of drugs and therapy… Actually, I'm very proud that I'm not on the drugs anymore (aside from the occasional Xanax for anxiety), but I still do the therapy. For me, I never spoke of this stuff, ever. I have been on lots of drugs, but, for me, it was therapy that really made the difference. Voicing all the shit that I wasn't supposed to helped. I believe that my depression and anxiety is not caused by a brain chemical imbalance, anyone who lived my experience would be just as messed up. For me, breaking the silence is very freeing and healing. My mother thinks otherwise.
As awful as this sounds, I kind of wish it was as clear cut as physical abuse. In my mind I could just say that these people, even though they are my parents, are just not safe for me or my kids to be around. Emotional abuse is more amorphous, but just as painful and scarring.
Anyhoo… thanks for listening. or reading… and if anyone has anything they'd like to add, a different perspective or whatnot, please do so.

[CapnAwesome]

I don't think people are particularly obligated to have contact with their parents, especially shitty parents. It sounds like your mother doesn't want to accept or even acknowledge some of the issues that you have with her. When you are an adult, if they want a relationship they have to play a little by your rules. You aren't under any obligation towards them simply for 'raising you.' Aside from that it's illegal not to feed and clothe a child, it's not extraordinary effort unless they are actually good parents.