re: Anyone else not on speaking terms with a parent?

Don't talk to my mom or dad.

My dad is/was a tugboat captain and was away from the house for most of my early childhood and my mom stayed at home. Their marriage was mostly miserable and they got divorced when I was 14 after 20-ish years of marriage.

After that point, both decided that they were pretty much done being parents and checked out. The one thing they had in common is that they treated my younger brother and I like property and constantly were trying to pit us against the other parent.

I decided one day that I wasn't going to play along. Since I didn't take her side, Mom told me when I was 18 and before I moved to college that "I'm not welcome in her house anymore"

Dad basically disappeared off the face of the earth. He blocked my phone number and all social media. I learned that several years later that he moved a few states over and started a new family.

Part of me misses them, but I also recognize that both are huge POS in their own unique ways and that I'm better off without them.

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Oh boy would you be wrong. You have no idea how many extremely successful people come from fricked up backgrounds.

Anger is one of the purest motivators there is

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+1

Also, dealing with/conquering a toxic family situation on your terms(however you do it) makes you stronger in ways that most people aren't. You develop an EQ that can be an almost unfair advantage in other areas of your life.

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I’m a doctor married to a doctor

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I’m glad you found your way in this world in spite of your circumstances.
This is not intended to diminish your achievements.

Many people equate success with position.
Does that equal success?

I’m a doctor, but I don’t really think of my career as defining my success.
I know many good people who happen to be physicians. They would be good people if they were firemen, construction workers, lawyers, farmers, and so on.

Although I know many, many good people who are physicians, I also know some doctors that are gaming the system. I know some who are narcissistic, conceited assholes. Some of these possess what I refer to as “reputation-character divergence.” “Reputation” is what many people may “think” about that person in a superficial manner. “Character” is how they treat people when nobody is watching. At times, these things are incongruous.

Doctors are people with people problems. I’ve had a good life. The job was a way to make a living and pay bills, but I don’t derive my self worth from it because ultimately many things in medicine are driven by government, insurance, patient compliance, health system bureaucracy, and other things beyond my control.

Can a person be successful without being rich?
Can a person be successful without praise from others?

I consider people successful for “doing right things” as opposed to “doing things right.”

Fortunately, my parents out of my entire family are still together and I speak to them almost everyday. Both are retired now. Mom was a career paramedic, Dad spent almost 50 years in the Gulf on rigs.

As for the rest of my family, that’s a big nope. They are the prime example of white trash. Dope, pills, thief, in and out of jail/prison, jobless, welfare, you name it. The sad part is we all live close. Some on the same road and next door. I ain’t got nothing for em’

I told my wife when we started dating about how I was when it come to family. She came from a really messed up situation. Basically on her own since she was 14. She found her mom dead with the needle still in her arm. Her dad is still alive, but he stays at the trap house. My daughters (adopted) know that I’m the one who’s raising and loving them. Not that POS “sperm donor”. Dude hasn’t picked up the phone or anything for them in over 5 years now. No birthdays, Christmas, nothing. I have a son from my first marriage I speak to almost everyday. I can’t stand a deadbeat parent.

Nearly every post here...
Drugs & alcohol.
Abuse.
Money issues.

Can't do a lot about the first two, but the third one is why I do not have any financial relations with family members. If they need the money and I have it, I give it to them. If they want to give money back, that is up to them. The only person I have every loaned more than a few bucks to was my mom, but I know she is one of the few people I can trust.

Dad died a couple of years ago . He was a great father for 24 years , then on my parents 31st anniversary , he ran off with a beer joint whore ( who I knew there was something there) and tried to screw several people out of money on his way out ( and successfully stole from my moms mother) . My wife was pregnant with our first child at the time too. He stayed gone with no trace for about 6 months , then when found , he tried to come back and act like it was not his fault . My mother kept his company going ( with the help of my uncle ) to pay off the money he stole from people . We went 14 years without speaking and we eventually got to where we spoke occasionally on the phone . I saw him once in those last 20 years before he passed. Kills me that he really had no relationship with my kids and missed them growing up. Still baffles me bc he was a GREAT father to me growing up and was liked / loved by so many people

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Let one of my family members steal a lot of money like that or forge my name and end up costing me money

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I have a cousin like that. She finally got caught forging checks. I guess it was small amounts, so the owners didn’t catch on for awhile. What really pissed me off is when I found out she’d stole from my grandmas purse for years. It’s was $5 here, $10 there, enough my poor grandma didn’t notice. She lived off SSI, which was next to nothing. She did right at a year in jail and made the comment “it was the best time of my life”. She didn’t have to worry about her kids anymore and got free food and board. She lost her kids and was happy it happen. Just pathetic…

I also have a sister that’s almost the same, but here recently she’s showed signs of improvement. Got a part time job after not working for almost 15 years. But she stole thousands from my parents before they caught it. My dad doesn’t speak to her, but my mom does. And that’s where me and my mom differ. She’s a blood thicker than water person. I’m a friends are more family and family isn’t always friends person.

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What's the reason you don't speak to yours?

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You'll regret it.

One of the saddest things I heard in my life was last year. My wife nephew just lost his mom, so she asked could he ride with us to the spring game to get his mind off it some. We’re leaving town and I see a guy that worked for me once walking down the road. I said “Yeah, there old Mike. He could be a good dude if he could get right”. The nephew said “Yeah, that’s my dad”. I didn’t put two and two together at that moment. We’re at the game and I asked my wife about it. That really was his biological father. The guy just wonders house to house, walking by his son’s house daily. So I asked him about it later that day. He just said “It is what it is man. I’ve tried to speak to him and he just ignores me”. Sad…