People who have adult children that don’t talk to you. Why do you think that is?

Parent. It’s because I fucked up and neglected the relationship. I wasn’t the father she deserved. It’s that simple.

My daughter went through a traumatic event when she found out her Mom was having an affair with a junkie. Daughter was furious at her Mom for destroying the family. Mom flipped out, threatened suicide to our daughter’s face, blaming her. At that moment, everything shifted and daughter became the nurturer to her Mom, who regressed into childhood – a complete switching of roles when my daughter really needed a Mom. Mom wasn’t safe to be angry at (for fear she’d kill herself), so I became the target.

We talk, but it’s so terse and superficial that it’s close to non-communication. I’d like to talk through what happened, even in a therapeutic setting, but daughter says that’s off the table.

From the other parent perspective. my adult children (25 and 23) do not communicate with their father at all.

Long story short, he remarried about a week after our divorce was final and he and his new wife went on to have children of their own. Over time, his visits with the children because more infrequent and stressful due to his wife’s distaste for me and my children. He has had no contact with the kids in over 3 years and his previous attempt was 4 years before that.

My youngest says he will never forgive his father for replacing us all with a new family and forgetting us. The oldest says it’s just not worth chasing someone who has no interest. Personally, I’m sad and angry on their behalf. He divorced me, not them.

Mom here. My 23 year old hasn’t spoken to me in four years. It was completely my fault. I’ve struggled with addiction (alcohol) and for most of her childhood I was bad. I hope to be able to apologize to her someday. But, I completely understand and respect her decision.

their dad gave an ultimatum- if they want to have a relationship with him, they had to go NC (edit: no contact) with me. my middle child agreed to those terms.

My mother told me, three weeks after I lost my father/best friend at fourteen, that he has told her on his deathbed that “Adopting me was his greatest mistake.”

It stuck with me my whole life. I’m 38 now, and know it wasn’t true. But that narcissistic bitch can rot in hell.

My step daughter is an addict and mentally ill. Her son was placed in our custody by the state three years ago at 13 months old and she has never made the effort to regain custody. Her rights were terminated last year and we adopted him last month when the state gave us the choice. She has hated us ever since he was placed here and has convinced herself that we stole her child. She only contacted my husband if she wanted money, which he won’t give her so that makes her hate us more.

I was very deep in resolving my own trauma when my kids were growing up. I was often distant and emotionally unavailable. I wasn’t the parent they deserved. It is the greatest sorrow of my life; I did to my kids what my mom did to me. I can’t be sorry enough.

I am a parent of a child who does still talk to me but rarely and I fully accept that it is my fault . I was an immature parent and made some bad decisions in addition to being inconsistent with my parenting due to immaturity. I am also on the spectrum but that’s something I didn’t find out until a few years ago when my son was diagnosed. I know I wasn’t great and I understand my daughter and I try to give her space.

My father would say that my mother lied and manipulated us into taking her side during the divorce.

The truth is that he boasted to me about pulling a gun on her to “teach her a lesson”, and then didn’t understand why I thought that was unacceptable. I haven’t spoken to him in a decade since that discussion. To this day, I believe he was contemplating murder-suicide or family annihilation.

It’s very telling that none of the answers are from parents, all from children who know perfectly well why they went no contact.

I grew up in a retirement community. What I’ve noticed was it’s due to a few things. The parent is intolerant of their child’s life choices. That can be everything from drugs, religion, politics, racist ideology(parents), who their kids married etc. Sometimes it’s the parents unpleasant personality from either some personality disorder or just plain being an asshole.

Some kids usually stay away cause they feel they’ve disappointed their parents and are hiding their life from them.

The majority of the issue is usually do to an unpleasant parent.

I know this wasn’t the point of this post, but I am the grown child.
Five years ago, on Thanksgiving no less, my mother told me my wife and I are bad parents because our daughter is an only child. Then followed it up by saying my wife graduated from a terrible high school. Not sure where that came from.
She then topped it off with an ugly racist remark about my (white) sister in law being married to a black man. Lastly, she said I was not allowed to tell my wife any of this. That lasted about 45 seconds.
And that was the end of that.

I am very careful with “advice” that I give to my adult son for fear that he’s going to stop taking to me. IMO the kid (?) is making some decisions in his personal and work life that I don’t agree with or have concerns about, decisions that I would not make based on experience or my personal views. I am biting my tongue to not say anything. I don’t want to be a nagging parent because he is an adult and needs to make his own way. I will give advice when asked but I’ve stopped giving out-of-the-blue opinions.

I save that for my high school teens still at home. :^)

Not me, but Im in a tight knit book club with women older than me. This topic came up and I was surprised how many had a child who had cut off or severely limited contact. We didn’t get into the details for everyone. It seemed some knew for sure and some didn’t.

They were all basically grieving the losses of their children.

One woman had a daughter whose husband got into QANON type stuff. The mom is very openly liberal. She worries for her daughter, but tries not to push herself into their lives for fear it will remove any chance of future contact.

One woman had no idea what happened. She went from reading her grandchildren bedtime stories over FaceTime to being told not to call again.

One woman kept sending letters until they all came back unopened, so now she writes letters but puts them in a box at her house.

I have 4 kids. My two oldest aren’t living with me. My oldest daughter talks to me some. My oldest son wishes me dead.

I made many many mistakes when my kids came back to live with me. (ex wife lost custody) My eldest hated my LTR girlfriend. My daughter was right. She was terrible and consequently so was I. My daughter left to go back with her mother as she was not doing well here. I understand, now, why. My LTR made eldest sons life miserable too. During that time I broke up with the LTR. It was too late. My eldest son left to go be with his mother and sister.

I am sure that my ex wife is not helping this matter but he is mad at me and I know I made some pretty bad decisions. I have accepted the fact I may never have a relationship with him ever again.

I don’t talk to my parents because they don’t make an effort to talk to me. Why should I give them the time?

My son hasn’t spoken to me in over 10 years. He had behavioral issues as a teen. I took him to doctor after doctor to get him help. He ended up in a partial hospitalization program. He had them fooled for weeks that there was nothing wrong with him, but one day it all came crashing down. After that, he deteriorated quickly in that program. We had come to the point where he was either going to full hospitalization, a boys school for troubled teens, or he was going to be arrested for assault. His father, whom he only saw maybe twice a year, didn’t want that and said he wanted to take custody of him. The program would only let that happen if my son was enrolled in a comparable program with his father. Father said “of course”. Didn’t happen. My son grew up and was a terror to his father and had little to no contact with me. He got arrested a few times. After one particularly bad fight with his father, he got kicked out. After a few months, my son contacted me, on Mother’s Day. He told me he was in the Marines and was done with basic training and was going to be given an assignment soon. I’ll never forget how proud I felt of my son then. Shortly after, I get contacted by the Marines, asking if I knew where my son was. He went AWOL the day after Mother’s Day. After a few years without contact, he contacted me again. Said he was doing much better and wanted to visit me. I said yes. I should’ve known when I had to pay for his bus ticket that he wasn’t better. He stayed with me for a few days and I thought all was well. Not so much. Two days after he left, I got a call from my credit card company. He stole my card and put $1600 of AIR SOFT PISTOLS on it. I was given the choice to pay it, or call it fraud in which case the credit card company would press charges. I called it fraud. I haven’t seen him since. I’m still his friend on Facebook and have seen that he poses as a wounded Iraq vet. That is disgusting and shows me he hasn’t changed at all. That’s why I don’t talk to him.

They’re gonna blame the kids instead of their own shitty parenting

I had ptsd and didn’t deal with it. In short I was a shitty dad.