How have things gone with your siblings after NC with parent?

[DfromC]

Hi everyone,

I've been NC with my parents for almost 18 months after a long time of grey rock and VLC and years of issues.

In the fall out there has been issues with my sister. She wants to stay connected but I'm being triggered by things and so have pulled back although we are more in a time out not NC per se.

I have learned that both my mom and sister are just not safe places for me. I don't feel I can share and be myself. I am concerned that what I do share with my sister will go back to mom and trust with sister is shaky. But a part of me would like to try again with her.

I would appreciate knowing how things have gone for you with your siblings?  I want to hear it all.. the food and the bad..Can you still have a healthy relationship with them?  Have you had to go NC with them? What kind of boundaries do you uphold? Is talk of your parents off limits? Boundaries are still really hard for me and I still have a lot to learn to figure out what they should be and how to enforce them.

Thanks so much for any thing you feel you can share. 

[newlife33]

My situation is that I am 3 years no contact with my bio fam, and unfortunately had to cut out my siblings as well.

It was a shock to me. I remember texting both of them and laying out while I was doing what I was doing. I had expectations that they would join me and we would Escape together. But I didn't realize that the manipulations and hooks had sunk deep into both of them. Money is a powerful tool indeed. They both took his side, and I eventually had to cut off both of them because I realize they were both toxic.

My sister recently has started to come around and I think there may be hope for a relationship. But my brother is too far gone down to ever escape and I have come to terms that I will never see him again.

In a way it was harder to cut them off then my parents. I guess it's just the age similarity that I had hoped things would work out. It's been a cold lesson to keep my expectations low and to do what's best for me, even if it means cutting out people and giving up on my dream of having a brother or sister.

[Morocha2015]

I told my sister I was thinking about going NC a week before I did it. She seemed hesitant but supportive, and said if she had kids like I do she might do the same thing. But unfortunately, she stopped returning my calls and texts. I think she's just so hungry for our father's attention she doesn't understand why I would walk away from it. It hurts but I was warned that this could happen, and I decided the benefits outweighed the risks.

[Lillith65]

I went NC with my sister at the same time as I went NC with my mother. They deserve each other.

[Saywhat]

I went NC with my parents some weeks before my son was born.

My brother came to visit when my son was 6 weeks old. While he was visiting, I discovered he had been sharing photos of the baby with my parents, when I had expressly asked him not to share any information with them.

When I confronted him about it, he told me that they were the babies grandparents and that they deserved to get to know him. Somehow it didn't register with him that they had abused me and that this mattered.

Back then, I decided to go NC with him but he has contacted me multiple times since then, always to share semi-relevant news with me (e.g the father of someone you haven't seen or heard of in 10 years has died).

I never responded to him or very shortly. I didn't tell him to stop writing to me either. I guess a part of me wanted to stay connected to him.

Then, my grandfather passed away. I was never close to him and didn't feel sorry when he died (he was an abusive narcissist like my mother), but I did feel sorry for my grandmother and wanted to call her, so I emailed my brother and asked him for her telephone number.

It took him, wait for it, A Full Month to reply to me. When I confronted him, he told me he doesn't check his emails that often...

In that moment I was outraged and decided to cut him off forever.

A few days later, I received an email for him. It read something like this: I don't know if it will change anything now, but I do admit you were abused and I'm sorry I was never there for you.

I responded something like this: I appreciate your words, but I don't trust you enough to believe your words or your motivation to write them. If you want a relationship with me, you will have to work hard to prove to me that you have changed.

To this, he replied: I know and that's fine with me.

I never replied to his last message as honestly I don't care anymore. Our relationship it too broken for me to make any effort to mend it. A year ago, I was light years away from feeling like this. I still missed him a lot. Now I've grown totally cold :-) It feels surprisingly freeing, like nothing he could say or do could touch me.

That's my story so far, I hope this helps :-)

[JustKat]

My sister abruptly severed ties with me after my NPDmother died. We never had much of a relationship to begin with, since Nmother controlled all of her communication with me, but still, she would email me and keep me updated on things after I went NC. Over time she started becoming more distant, then after my mother died she completely turned on me. Best guess is that Nmother launched a smear campaign that worked as planned.

I sometimes take a peek at my sister's social media and am horrified to see that she's completely morphed into my mother. After Nmother died my sister took over her role and now cares for (more accurately, controls) my enFather. She was once very downtrodden and meek, but is now consumed with power and greed. Perhaps she's making up for all the years she was under Nmother's thumb, I don't know.

I doubt we'll ever speak again, but I'm okay with that. I miss the sister I used to have but want nothing to do with the sister I have now. The change has been shocking. She's gone and she's not coming back.

[MargaritaBulgakov]

I didn't expect it to, but going NC with my parents actually strengthened my relationships with by my siblings and my one siblings spouse (other sibling is unmarried). I am now in my third year of NC. Both my siblings and one sibling in law were already grey rocking and lowering contact. While I'm the only one who is complete NC, all three respect the decision. The married sibling and spouse have specifically asked for no details regarding my estrangement, and now that there is no more triangulation, we are finally building a real relationship. My unmarried sibling and i were already close, but we became closer. This sibling was a bit sadder about the estrangement but understand. For this sibling, the lack of a spouse and kids makes them feel especially bad about the disfunction in our family.

So since going NC, both my siblings have let down their guards in regard to me, but still are cautious with each other, which I think is a result of them both still being triangulated. But they are aware and not in denial about the disfunction but continue to have LC. And it's interesting to note, that the LC here is still damaging them.

In any case, I am feeling hopeful that my siblings and I will one day all be close to each other.

[all4peace]

When I went VVVLC with our parents and stopped talking about their issues, my siblings seem to have found more space to start facing their own issues with our parents. Our sibling bonds hold strong, based on a long foundation of trust, love, affection and what I think is truly unconditional love for each other. I am so very fortunate.

[betta fish]

I have kept in contact with my brother and we have clear boundaries.  we never discuss UBPDmom.  He chooses to see her, I don't.  That is the only way we can sea each other.  It does make for a relationship that is more superficial, I can't confide in him anything I don't want my mother to know.  Since I have gone NC, my brother gets to deal with her on his own, I don't want to know about the havoc she creates.  I am 100% out. 

[LifeIsWorthLiving]

For years many of my siblings were VLC with each other. The one thing tying us together was contact with my parents. After I went NC with my parents they sent in siblings as flying monkeys. This hurt and I had a number of "oops, I didn't realize it mattered do much." betrayals because my siblings continued to tell my parents things about me after is expressly told them not to. Weirdly, my parents continued terrible behavior has finally convinced all my siblings that either VLC or NC are appropriate. No one shares private information with them anymore. Very few visit them for holidays. The parents complain about how terrible their kids are to anyone that will listen (often straight up slandering me or my siblings to random strangers), but they refuse to admit they've ever done anything wrong.

I think having siblings was the thing that kept me sane. We were all abused. With two narcissists as parents, they each had their own GC and SG and changed their minds about who was who frequently. We all got to take turns being hated and adored. Up until a couple years ago, they succeeded in always getting us to fight with each other. Now we all see what they were doing.

[Just Jay]

I  have one sister who lives far away, but we have remained close.

From the beginning of NC with our PDmom (7 years now), I didn't want to put her in the middle. I also asked her to not put herself in the middle, if you know what I mean. She understands my reasons, but she has chosen to keep a relationship with our mom, despite the fact that she continues to be emotionally abused.

There was a time when I was upset with my sister for what I perceived as "choosing" mom over me. By this I mean that she would come to our area of the country and visit mom instead of me. With the help of this board, I realized that isn't fair of me, or even a good assessment of the situation.  This is all hard for my sister, too.  I decided let that go.

During the 7 years, we started working out several visits, at either of our homes or at other places. She is much, much better off financially than I am, so sometimes she's helped me with tickets, which is  kind and I'm grateful. I am close with her daughter, and she is close with my son. We speak on the phone about once per month, and also exchange photos of the kids by text. 

Once in a while, she suggests that I patch things up with mom. I used to be incredibly annoyed by this. Not anymore, because I realize that we were -- and still are in some way -- the two only little girls on the planet who had to endure mom together. (And our dad, but that's a whole different story!) 

Now mom  could be living out her last months. I've said to my sister that I will be there to help when things get really bad -- as far as meeting her at mom's house or wherever -- so she doesn't have to do it all alone. I'm strong enough now to take some verbal hell mom will throw at me, but I'm not strong enough to go if I can't simply walk away from a bedside if I need to. 

It's so complicated. If my sister were mean to me, or the other way around, I don't think we could pull this off. There is so much sadness around it all. We have argued once in a while, but mostly not.

Just for background, my sister was the golden one and I was the scapegoat. Still, as the GC, mom was cruel to her in ways that she wasn't to me, and vice versa.

[Rivers]

At first my siblings had trouble adjusting to the fact that I went NC with our parents. My brothers had a talk with me about it trying to convince me to let them in my life at least in a limited way. However, I insisted that that would be impossible for me and I asserted my boundaries.

Overtime they have learned to respect my boundaries and they really support my decision to go NC. Many of their spouses also agree with me too. My one brother is getting married this year but will have two different ceremonies because his wife is from elsewhere and it just worked out that way. He told me that he understood if I decided not to go to the one ceremony since my parents will be there. I was shocked when he said that and I really appreciated it.