I’ve been considering cutting my mom out of my life for awhile (low key since age 18, high key in the last 2 years ages 24 and 25).
In years past the thought of separating from her has caused me more anxiety and anger, as opposed to putting up with her. Over the last few months as I’ve worked through stuff it’s become increasingly clear that the dynamic between her and I is now more dysregulating and confusing and angering than the thought of separating from her. In light of recent events and realizations, I’m ready to seriously start this process…I’m just not sure how.
I have told my mom many times what I need from her. She is emotionally immature and that has caused all the issues, too many to bring up now. My dad is on another planet, I have never had any relationship with him other than existing in the same house as him. I will now refer to this as “separating from them” even though it’s mainly from my mom as again my dad and I don’t have much to separate from.
Currently, I live 2 hours away from my parents. I talk to my mom on the phone once a week for about 5 minutes, very surface level. I’ve slowly stopped coming to less important family events (e.g. easter, aunts/uncles birthday celebrations, informal/small family vacation trips). When I am home for bigger things like their birthdays, christmas etc. we are always in separate rooms doing our own thing. I try to talk to them about anything and they just don’t carry out a conversation. I bring my work to the living room and within minutes whoever is in the room gets up and goes somewhere else, whether I say nothing and don’t make eye contact or if I try to strike up a small conversation. My mom loves playing board and card games and she has not played a game with me in over a year because “she doesn’t feel like it, but maybe later.” There’s no quality time, no authentic connection.
All that considered, in hindsight, I have more or less started the process of cutting them out, but now I’m ready to cut them out entirely. However, when I’ve tried to do this in the past, my mom’s freaked out. When she doesn’t hear my voice for more than 2 weeks, she constantly calls me until I respond. 3 months ago I turned my read receipts on my texts so she could see I see her message and intentionally didn’t reply. She ended up calling the police to do a welfare check on me bc she thought I was dead or in danger even though I had told her I do not want to talk to her anymore. She knows my address and hasn’t ever shown up unannounced, but I wouldn’t put it past her if I were to cut her off.
Sorry for the venting and rambling. I know there’s not a right or wrong way to do this but I just don’t know how to get through to her and make her understand I am fine, but we are not. How have you gone about cutting contact…any tips on how to do so? Does my question make sense?
She knows you're fine. She's weaponizing the police to control and abuse you. Her concern is fake. You can not make her understand because she already does. Block her from everything, call the non emergency police line or go down to the station in person to fill them in on what she's doing. They'll be able to help and and she won't be able to call in false reports for much longer. You don't need her consent to cut contact.
You'll never make her understand. She will continue to try every trick she can to get to you.What you have to do is be strong. If this is what you want, prepare for the shitstorm and stand firm.
It's been 7 years and I just had to decline a call from my "mother". Her attempts at contact are very rare but it doesn't end. For others I've seen online, sometimes they do let go which doesn't feel great but achieves the end.
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I'm sorry but there's no way to make her understand. You may be able to get a restraining order if you can prove she knows you don't want contact but not all countries/states will grant one without threats of violence so even that may not stop her.
Your best bet may be to change every single bit of contact information she has for you the way I did when I went no contact with my female parent. I had been gradually reducing contact for a while and we were down to just exchanging actual physical letters through the mail. Conveniently I was still moving around regularly back then because I wanted to be closer to my job at the time or got sick of a crappy appointment so it wasn't a big deal for me to just not give her my new address the next time I moved.
My female parent wasn't the type to ever admit anything was wrong so she would never call in a fake wellness check but for you I highly recommend what the other commentor said about calling the non-emergency line for your local police. Don't worry, it's sadly common for estranged parents to pull that shit and you won't be the first person to call your local cops about it.
Consider sending a message or an email, a registered letter, something you can prove has been read, no emotions or reasons in it, but stating that they are not to contact you in any way. That's not to reconcile or restart the relationship, it's to make sure they are informed and they can't send the police to you in fake concern or pretend they didn't know. It just makes it easier to report harassment so you can start building a file in case you need legal protection.