People Reveal Why Their Families Disowned Them, And These 54 Stories Are Absolutely Heartbreaking

My mother and I slowly stopped talking after I moved out.

She wasn't the best parent and she did a lot of mean things sometimes.

I sent her an email (she lives in New Zealand, I live in Australia)

She told me not to contact her again please.

I don't know what I did wrong, I don't know if I'm supposed to miss her.

Technically I was the one who disowned my mum first. She's not a very nice person and she crossed too many lines, so I made it clear to our friends and family en masse that I wasn't wanting anything to do with her. It had been budding for a while, homophobia, racism, victim blaming, and I had tried getting through to her so many times. Then she said some pretty disgusting things about a partner I was living with and I made it clear that was it. She didn't take me being open about things well and here we are.

I found out a couple of years ago she has been telling everyone I'm d**d, which makes for an interesting situation when they see me walking about 😂.

My grandma passed away and my grandad suddenly became very angry. Accused us of stealing, refused all help, shouting, no, bellowing at us if we did what he asked but it wasn't quite right. For example my sister went round to cook him a breakfast as my grandma would always do him a cooked breakfast on a weekend, she was 15 at the time and had never cooked so inevitably something went wrong, he called her stupid, made her cry and then kicked her out the house. Eventually he told us to never contact him again, that he didn't need our help and that he was better off without us. Cut to a few years later and he died, we only found out because the house went up for sale and a friend noticed while looking for a house of their own.

In those few years before he died we sent a card to him apologising, for what I don't know but thought we might as well try and reconcile with the man, included all our phone numbers and left it up to him. He didn't even try to contact us and when he died left all his money apparently to various charities. My sister found out a lady round the corner from him had been looking after our grandad and the house leading up to him passing away so she went to speak with her to try and make sense of the last few years, she told her that he only spoke fondly of one granddaughter, which was me, she had no idea there were 2 others, but did know that we loved less than a 10 minute walk away. They chatted for a few hours had a cup of tea and then my sister left.

Around 6 months later having made peace that the situation was what it was, not being told he'd passed away, not being invited to the funeral despite people who attended knew us as children and in to our early adult years, knew where we lived but failed to contact us. My sister was walking past the ladies house who she had that long chat and cup of tea with and noticed that she had all new windows and doors, a new garden and driveway... Coincidence, not likely. I think she took all his money when he died and told the charity story to throw us off.

Anyway, we've made peace with it, we didn't want his money, what you don't have you don't miss. But looking back it was all a very strange turn of events, going from the grandad that adored us as children to a bitter, resentful old man once our grandma died accepting no help even though it was evident he needed it.

Parents divorced when I was in elementary school. I'm in my 30s now. I have multiple half-Black siblings (same mother). I shared a lot of posts about white privilege. My dad told me to stop with the white privilege stuff (he thinks it doesn't exist, and my posts apparently do nothing but tell the world he is racist because he raised me). I made a Facebook post saying someone told me to stop, what do my friends think (didn't even say who told me to stop). He unfriended me and I haven't heard from him since (except to have him refuse to talk to my kids at Christmas because I obviously still haven't gotten it together or something).

I was disowned by my mother's mother, and her whole side of the family. My mother is a trans woman and is going through hormone treatment and we cannot be prouder of her, but her mother disowned us and so went the rest of that family except my aunt and her kids. My grandma still doesn't know I'm gay, or that my sister is trans. She doesn't know I have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) so she calls me by my legal name still. BUT she had the absolute stones to comment on my bio mom's eulogy. She's a sociopath and we don't miss her, but I do miss my cousins. The last time I saw them was at my aunt's wedding, which my grandma was not invited to, but my uncle and his kids were, and it had been almost 4-5 years since I saw them last. I think it's been 2 years now since I've seen them. I used to take care of them. That's the sad part, for me. Those kids probably don't remember me. Most of them were babies/toddlers when we were disowned.

He’s a narsaccist who had to have everything his way but I challenged his beliefs so he stopped talking to me. I didn’t argue or try to reconnect because things were better with out him but they had been going down hill for decades.
I literally joined the military to get away from him. I thought that would be enough so we could remain social. Nope I had to cut him out completely.

I came out as a lesbian when I was 25.

That's it, that's my whole side of the story. We are reconciled now, but it took my mom six months to speak to me.

Mental illness couldn’t be tolerated in the family.

Neither one of my girls (19 & 15) talk to me right now, and it feels like they never will. Me and my ex husband had a lot of problems together and of course the girls saw that. Neither one of us ever took our difficulties with each other out on our girls but we brought out the worst in each other. He worked, I was a stay at home mom and did everything for them, and kept the house clean and all of that, but unfortunately all my girls remember is how unhappy my ex made me ( because he was verbally and emotionally and sometimes physically a*****e). I had 17 years of it. We stayed together for our girls but that probably wasn't a good idea. Hes very charasmatic and can make people think hes this nice guy. I'm not saying I was perfect, but I did try my best to take care of my daughters and show them how much I loved them. Maybe someday they will remember that.

My Dad disowned me many times over the years. I was adopted at birth by him and my Mom. My father was a narcissist who made up stories and manufactured a PHD to make himself look better.

One time, he even made fun of me for not having a Dad. Compared to so many of the stories here, I got off easy.

I’m gay and non binary. got no problem with my trans cousin though.

I was used as a weapon by one parent against another parent during their divorce when I was a kid. In this situation, I filed a false police report against my dad. 10 years later, my step mom and sisters still don't talk to me, but my dad and I are working things out.

I was 19, in college and doing well, wanted to marry my high school boy friend, whom my parents hated. My mom snooped in my things one weekend while I was home from college, and found some “love letters.” She talked to my dad, the two were trying to act like devote Catholics. Then I accepted an engagement ring. And they decided enough was enough so I was on my own, had to pay for tuition, room and board, gas, and I was not allowed to come home or call my siblings (I am the oldest of 5). So I got another job, stayed in school, looked at a house to buy with my fiancé, planned a wedding, worked full time, tried to get in touch with my family. It was tough both for me and my siblings. After 6-9 months, I decided it was not worth getting married to someone my parents hated and who would keep me from my siblings. So I gave the ring back, called off the wedding. I figured I could finish college in 3 years and then get married. At any rate, my parents allowed me to talk with my siblings, but refused to support me and really never forgave me. It was tough love. I still have problems with trusting that people won’t abandoned me if I make them mad.

I haven’t shared this with, well, anyone. I became a single mom (again) because Ex2 did horrible things to my girls. I made it through the trial, which ended over a year later with a plea deal (a case came up with 15 babies found in boxes). I worked long hours, mostly from home, and then I had a breakdown. Ex1, the girls’ father, finally decided he could be a parent (that ended horribly) and took the girls so I could spend a month in an amazing CA rehab facility. I came “home” to my bf who promptly broke up with me because I was “too heavy” and fortunately found a friend happy to let me move in. Then, 4 out of 5 siblings disowned me, wouldn’t talk to me, whatever. My parents would take days to return text messages.

So, I pretended everything was okay, got a s****y job, got my girls back