Finally went NC but still being pushed into being responsible for Nmom's misery
For context, I’m 33F, South Asian and earlier this year I went NC with both parents. I was raised in a culture that structurally enables parental narcissism, casting parents as beyond reproach and framing children's obligation to them as a lifelong debt. Me going NC has been a looong time coming and a lot of things had to fall in place over the years for this to happen (moving to a different city, getting financially independent, building up enough savings and moving abroad last year which was the cherry on top) I'm finally somewhat at peace and it feels like a big chunk of load has been lifted from my shoulders. I've blocked them everywhere but Nmom still tries to reach out indirectly via my husband and extended family to get in touch with me. Luckily, life has been kind to me by blessing me with a wonderful, emotionally mature partner who is completely on my side and sees through their bullshit.
NDad is a textbook narcissist (emotionally, financially, physically abusive, grandiose beliefs about self) and NMom has always been an enabler and I suspect has BPD too. As a family, as long as we complied with NDad's wishes and tiptoed on eggshells around him, we were good. NDad and Nmom's marriage has never been stable but they continued to stay under the same roof 'for the kids' - a very common theme in S-Asian households that makes everyone around them absolutely miserable. My sibling and I fought hard to move away to other cities for college at the age of 18 and vowed that we would be willing to do any sort of work to support ourselves but never ever come back to that household. Cut to now, even though she claims to hate him too, she’s spent her whole life bending and submitting to him just to be in his good books. Growing up, I've never once felt safe around her either. She was a raging, volatile presence during my teenage years especially, and I’m never going to forget that or pretend it didn’t happen. Now that my sibling and I have broken free, fights between the parents have only increased and now NMom is being physically abused by NDad, and neither of them has ever built any kind of community or support system outside of us. She keeps trying to claw her way back to me and my sibling because she wants us to be her constant source of validation. She refuses to take police action or make any real moves for change but wants us to listen to the same cycle of bullshit we've been forced to listen to since we were kids including empty threats of self harm (I say empty because she has never once actually self harmed but threatened in order to establish control) She refuses to acknowledge that we’re adults with our own careers and our own lives. Every time she drags us back in, all the old PTSD comes flooding back, and we simply don’t want to engage anymore. Whatever happens in that house now is not our problem.
What I keep struggling with is this - why am I feeling forced (by society and those extended relatives) to look at her miserable, unsupported life and empathise with her as a fellow woman, whereas she was never able to offer me anything close to a real mother child relationship. I've learnt to never need parental figures and I've figured literally everything out by my own. I've only dreamt of escaping that house since I was little. She desperately wants to connect with us because apparently its our duty as her children, but that bond was never actually there growing up. And that 'connection' is only one way - she has no interest in who I am, she only uses my achievements as small talk to flex with family and strangers.
Is anyone else dealing with a complex situation like this?
Posted Aug 12, 2026, 10:55 AM UTC