I went full no contact today… I think

This has been a long time coming, but after almost two years of minimal contact with my father and no contact with my mother, except for my brother’s wedding, I finally stood up to their latest attempt to push any remaining boundaries. I will not get into any of the potential mental issues she may have as they cannot be confirmed by a psychiatric professional because she refuses to see one, either because she lies to them or because she claims they aren’t true medical professionals.

I’ll skip the life story and focus on the other members of my family and I enabled her for a long time by playing her game to make her happy. However, once I got married and had a child, I decided to stop. Before and after my marriage, my mother mistreated and spoke to my wife in unacceptable ways. While I could handle the abuse myself, having done so my entire life, I wouldn’t tolerate it to my spouse, and I wouldn’t have my children witness a negative relationship between their mother and mine.

I told my mother in a way that I believed would put her in her place, but it was actually much less firm than I intended, despite her no tolerance policy for any kind of push back. Essentially, I told her that I wouldn’t tolerate her treatment of my wife and that my children wouldn’t grow up seeing the same relationships I saw between my parents and their in-laws. She called me a traitor and accused me of not knowing the full story. She has always and clearly continued to make up stories in her own head about what is real and even went as far as to call me Judas in this specific situation. It’s mind-boggling that she equated herself to Jesus.

Regardless, the final boundary was that, despite being no contact, she continued to send packages to my house for my children, have my father drop things off unannounced, and otherwise push the boundary that had already been set. My wife and I tolerated this because, in my experience with my mother, even negative attention is still attention. They were aware of our first child, but since going no contact, we had our second child. She was unaware of this until she stalked our church bulletin, which is posted online, and found his baptism announcement. In short, today, on Christmas, we assumed my father would show up as her enabler, bringing all the gifts. We accepted this and planned not to engage, not to answer the door, and so on. However, it just so happened that my son was taking a nap when he arrived. When I didn’t answer on the first knock, he started ringing the doorbell, trying to peer into the windows, and doing other things that you don’t do at someone’s home who isn’t coming to the door. This set my dogs off freaking out, and it put us on edge. So, I went downstairs, asked what he was doing there, and received the gifts for my children that were unasked for and unwarranted, just trying to make him leave as soon as possible. After trying to enjoy the rest of our Christmas and having a lot of discussion, my wife and I decided it was time to unblock my mother. We texted both my mother and father in a group chat the following message:

“Please stop coming to my house uninvited and unexpectedly, sending unasked for and unwarranted packages. My family does not want nor do we need them. None of this is welcome behavior.”

After that, I blocked both of them because I didn’t want to see their response. Clearly I’m a chicken and afraid of my parents, even at the ripe ageof 29. Or at least, that’s how I feel. In my eyes, it’s amazing that I convinced my wife to marry me. Sometimes, I feel like we haven’t been direct enough about wanting no contact. We haven’t tried to contact her, haven’t given any sign that we want contact, and haven’t seen her other than me at my brother’s wedding in almost two years. I don’t really know what I’m looking to get out of telling you all this. Maybe it’s just a way to share at least part of my story with people in similar situations. Am I looking for acceptance? I wonder where that need came from… ha. Maybe something else. Anyway, let me know what you think.