On no-contact letters, with a tangent about the police

There’s no way to write the perfect no-contact letter.

When people break contact with a parent, whether for a month or a year or a lifetime, they try to write a letter that will make their parent understand why it’s happening. It’s a fool’s errand. Tempting, beguiling, but as doomed as doomed can be. When the situation is so bad that breaking contact is the only way forward, your parent is going to reject the letter because…

It’s too long.

If it’s not too long, it’s too short.

If it’s not too long or too short, the choice of words is insulting.

Or the word choice isn’t yours, it’s obviously your partner’s.

Or the “Yours” or “Yours Truly” at the end is too cold.

Or the “Sincerely” or “Love” at the end is a lie.

Or it shouldn’t have been a text, it should have been an email.

It shouldn’t have been an email, it should have been a letter.

It shouldn’t have been a letter, it should have been face to face.

It shouldn’t have been face to face, because it shouldn’t have been said at all.

The content doesn’t play into it, because the content is always wrong. The reasons are either petty or delusional or they make no sense, the entire thing is a power play, and it’s all so horrible and nonsensical that the parent can’t remember it anyway.

So if you want to write a no-contact letter, you can say whatever you damn well feel like. It doesn’t matter.

A Few Pieces of Advice

If you choose to explain anything, your audience isn’t your parent, it’s the people your parent will show the letter to. Be clear, concise, and concrete. Don’t allude to events; give places, times, and details. Explain enough to give a stranger a general idea of what happened. The less vague you are, the less your parent will be able to wave off when asked about it.

Don’t feel that you need to explain anything, though. Your parent won’t absorb it, and it may get in the way of the message you want them to absorb.

The message you need to get across is:

• I am taking time away from you or Our relationship is over.
• Do not contact me, whether by phone calls, email, letters, gifts, cards, messages passed through friends and family, or visits to my home or workplace.
• Do not contact my partner or my partner’s family.
• If you’re planning to get back in touch: I will contact you when I’m ready. Trying to contact me before then will make me less, not more, ready.
• If you have children and you want them to have no contact with your parent: You may not have contact or visits with my children. Do not try to contact them. Any gifts, cards, or messages you send them will be thrown out/returned/will not be given to them. Add any other boundaries you have, like “You may not attend their games.”

If you’re willing to take legal action if your parent pushes contact, say so.

This isn’t a suggested letter, just a way to help you organize your thoughts. (And I’m not a lawyer, so–grain of salt there, too.) Previous folks who went no-contact found that statements like these were about as successful as anything else at reining in their parents, and added no more fuel to the fire than absolutely necessary.

A Tangent About Consequences, as Represented by the Boys in Blue

I highly recommend getting the law involved if your parent keeps contacting you.

Toxic people don’t care about your pain. That’s what makes them toxic. They care about their pain, their bruised feelings, their wounded egoes. Trying to sway them through appeals to their empathy is useless. It’s as though you wanted to take aspirin for your headache, and your co-worker said, “Hey, don’t take aspirin.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like it when people take aspirin.”

“But my head hurts and I’m allergic to Tylenol.”

“It really, really bothers me when people take aspirin. Please, for me, don’t take it.”

Are you going to listen? No, you’re going to take the goddamned aspirin. And tell your other co-workers that Aspirin Denier is nuts.

But what if Aspirin Denier is your boss? She declares that anyone who takes aspirin will be fired on the spot, and because of some weird permutation of drug laws in your area, legally she can do it. Are you going to take aspirin? Probably not. You might try sneaking it, but if one of your co-workers gets fired after a random pee test comes up positive, you’re going to stop taking aspirin altogether. You may complain about how laws meant to snare heroin addicts are stopping you from taking OTC painkillers, you may look for another job, but as long as you have to work there, you’ll stay aspirin-free.

Members of estranged parents’ forums are like that. Right down to the complaints about how stalking laws meant to stop real criminals are preventing them from showing their children love.

Most of the time, just one run-in with the police is enough to stop them. If not, the threat of a restraining order usually works; and I’ve run across two or three cases where the parent persisted, was hit with a restraining order, fought it, and won, but backed down anyway because the last thing they wanted was to fight another restraining order. I don’t recall cases where parents were hit with restraining orders that went through, but self-reporting is an issue in estranged parents’ forums. Plenty of people on abuse survivors’ forums have successfully gotten restraining orders against their parents. It may be that estranged parents who have restraining orders against them don’t say so in the forums.

A note of caution: A few parents ignore restraining orders. A few are emboldened if their children’s attempt to get a restraining order fails. (One mother, a walking Chernobyl, described it as “[W]e managed to get permission to send cards and presents.” Then she complained that her daughter never thanked her for the gifts.) A few parents, usually at the Antisocial Personality Disorder/sociopathic/psychopathic end of the spectrum, act like the restraining order is a red flag before a bull. You know your parents, I don’t. Go with your gut. If you’re not sure about your gut, research restraining orders to find out when they make situations worse. Don’t put yourself in danger because a total stranger with strong opinions and a blog said it would be a great idea.

But if you have garden-variety toxic parents who won’t back off, the key is consequences. And if the consequences you set don’t work, the boys and girls in blue have a way about them that makes people take notice.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blog Post

Never send a burn letter. I don’t mean a letter that’s full of scathing comebacks, I mean a letter where you vomit all your rage and sorrow onto the page, where you say what you’ve always wanted to say, where you let them have it. These letters are good therapy, but when you’re done, you burn them. Sending them is like handing the other person a sniper rifle and a list of all the times in the next month that you’ll be alone in remote locations.

(No empathy. Only consequences.)

And remember: Ultimately, what you say doesn’t matter. Your parent will object to the letter on the grounds that it exists.

I once joked that you may as well write, “I’m cutting you off because you’re assholes. Peace out, motherfuckers.” DON’T WRITE THAT. It came from my inner 13-year-old, whose taste in poop jokes and Marvel superheroes is flawless but whose grasp of relationships is guided by poop jokes and Marvel superheroes. It doesn’t mean she’s wrong, just that even if you’ll get similar results from writing a sensitive and well-thought-out email or from writing “Peace out, motherfuckers,” you should pick the option Nick Fury wouldn’t say.

But.

The words won’t matter. The thoughts behind them will be rejected. Shape your words to make your expectations clear, then turn your attention to how you plan to enforce consequences, because the consequences are what will speak for you.