I decided to go no contact with most of my family and I don't know how to feel about this..
I (40F) decided to go no contact with most of my family and I don't know how to feel about this..ecided 6 months ago to go NC with the majority of my family members (except one of my brothers, with whom I'm low-contact)..
A bit of background: I moved out from my family's house when I was 24 years old, prompted by what I later realized was a very toxic environment.. My father was a very volatile, emotionally unregulated person which caused a lot of verbal, emotional and even physical abuse, and growing up everyone walked on eggshells aroubd him for fear of him exploding at any moment.. He thankfully died 12 years ago.. My mother, on the other hand, has been for my whole life just.. not there at all. I can't find another way of describing her other than "emotionally stupid", her and I never really got along..
2 years ago, due to job-related reasons, I had to move back to my family's house to live with my mother, and I lived there for 1.5 years.. Being away from that place for so many year, I had gained a sense of peace and tranquility that I thought living with her would be fine, "Surely I can handle it now" I told myself.
However, living in close proximity to her and dealing with her day in and day out, as well as observing her behaviour with me and even with other people, was a nightmare: she's just not a pleasant person to be around at all.. The other realisation I came to as a result of living with her was that she's been a bad mother to me by choice, because I saw her have better relationships with my siblings (very unhealthy co-dependent relationships in my opinion but still, she never even tried to have a relationship with me).. There were many other heavier realisations that came out of my stay in that house, but I think I better save those for therapy so that the post doesn't become too long..
So, as soon as I moved out again, I decided to go NC with her.. She had already caused a lot of bad blood between me and my other siblings, so I was already almost NC with them too, except for 1 brother, as I mentioned earlier..
Even though I feel a lot more peaceful and like a huge weight is lifted, it still stings when I see friends and people around me supported by their families and I'm not, or when I see how families pass down all kinds of capital (social, financial...etc) to their children, when I never had any kind of capital or support from mine.. I'm, as expected (!), single as well, so life feels incredibly difficult when you feel that you just have to do everything and take care of all aspects of your life alone..
It makes me sad and heavy-hearted, and I don't know how to get over that or how to build my life in a way so that the lack of family support won't have a massive impact. Any thoughts?
Posted Jul 29, 2026, 6:44 AM UTC