I’ve heard stories from some of my friends who have had to disown certain family members for one reason or another and, as much as I understand why they had to do it, it’s still very sad.

But sometimes, you just have to cut people out of your life, even if they are blood.

Some things that people do just cross a line and are unforgivable…

Here’s what folks on AskReddit had to say about family members they disowned or genuinely stopped loving.

1. Siblings…

“I’ve disowned one of my siblings (still have 5 other siblings). My sister is just a horrible person. She’s the youngest of the seven, and she’s been rotten since she was a teenager. She is much younger than the rest of us, so while the other 6 grew up together, she was almost like an only child.

She treats everybody in her life like they’re here to serve her needs. Some of the things she’s put our mother through are truly horrible. I wouldn’t give a shit if she disappeared forever.”

2. Family dynamics.

“My family disowned me because I disowned my mother. I was sexually groomed and abused/tortured by her husband for years and when I finally told her she not only didn’t believe me, but stayed married to him for seven years.

I had to move out at 16 to get away from how I was being treated. Then when I finally began speaking to others she started to cover her ass with her social circle by telling them that I seduced her husband.

I cut her off for years, and didn’t ever want to see her again but my family bullied me to just get over it and have a relationship with my mother and that I was hurting her. Even my sister who knew what happened, knew I stayed for so long to protect her, fell into a trap of my mother whining to everyone around her and painting me as a liar.

About 4 years ago she was very suddeny diagnosed with advanced cancer and didn’t have much time. I was moving out of my home state and everyone told me I needed to see her before I left, that I needed to be there, but I didn’t want to. In the end everyone turned their back on me.

They were so mad I wouldn’t just forget my trauma just to say goodbye to someone I hadn’t loved for a long time, and rightly so.”

3. DISOWNED.

“My ex wife disowned my son.

We both married young when I was in the military (high school sweethearts). She became pregnant 6 months into our marriage. I don’t think she connected with him at all after he was born. The most she did with him was Instagram photo shoots where she painted herself as #1 mommy.

When he turned 3, I left the military. A year after that, she ran for the hills. I remember it like it was yesterday. I sat down with her at a local restaurant to talk divorce plans. We split all of our financials and material items down the middle. We finally got to custody for my kiddo (something I dreaded to discuss because fathers never gain custody in my area) and she tells me “I want absolutely no responsibility”.

I was taken back and I asked if she was sure. She was. That one sentence hurt me more than anything else that happen during that time. My biological father wanted nothing to do with me and now I was seeing it happen with my own child but with his mother. I received full custody and she married within a year afterwards (she had another child too).

Her parents try their best to be apart of his life but she still does her best to avoid him. He’s 7 now and used to it, but I know it weights heavily on him. Shit sucks ass but it’s life I guess.”

4. I don’t love him.

“We adopted a 3 year old from foster care. Cutest, sweetest kid. He had a few issues, but we mostly figured it was because of his history. The issues escalated quickly. When he was 7 he hit our dog with a golf club. We had to keep him away from our dog and our cat.

The cat disappeared – we assumed she got out and ran away. Found out years later that he killed it and threw it in the woods. The last straw was when he burned our home down. We sent him to a residential treatment center where he stayed for 2 years. During that time, he molested a roommate and became extremely violent.

The insurance company told us that they wouldn’t pay anymore and we’d either have to pay for him out of pocket ($40k a month) or bring him home. We have younger children and it wouldn’t be safe.

We ended up telling the state we wouldn’t bring him home. So now we have a verified abuse report against us because we wouldn’t bring him back (even though the therapists agreed with our decision).

I don’t love him. I wish the best for him, but I don’t feel anything toward him.”

5. Terrible.

“I have disowned my oldest son. He molested my daughter, has been diagnosed as a sociopath and we have restraining orders against him.

It isn’t fun and I never thought I would be that parent.”

6. Goodbye.

“I love my son, but he abused me.

When he turned that violence on to his sister by choking her, I had to say “Goodbye”.”

7. Bad news.

“Drugs, violence, theft, repetitively trying to destroy his younger brother, becoming a danger to myself and others, mental health issues that  he refuses to deal with any longer or take his meds for anymore. Just plain crazy behavior that was too  much for all of us.

I wouldn’t call it disowning, as much as putting down boundaries and setting up fences to protect people who don’t deserve his treatment. He also tends to be very manipulative and leans toward narcissistic behavior, in that he will habitually lie about you to others and try to play the victim.

This can be very damaging to relationships with people that don’t understand what’s going on, so I’d rather just not bring myself into the equation anymore, because it’s too costly and it’s not worth it.

He lacks empathy and doesn’t know how to stop himself from his harmful behavior due to a developmental disability, although he will also admit that he knows what he’s doing and he knows that he is manipulative and playing games at times.

When he was younger and was under the rules of being a minor, then he had all the help in the world and it was easier to deal with.”

8. Several times.

“As Jehovahs witnesses, my parents disowned my siblings and I several times since I was in my late teens. One of the JW “rules” is that you do not associate with others who know “the truth” but refuse to follow it, including family and Parents are encouraged to disown any children who have left the religion.

The first time was when i was 19. It upset me, i was heartbroken and eventually they changed their minds only to do it again a couple years later and so on until i stopped caring and no longer attempt to be a part of their lives at all.”

9. Cut off all contact.

“My mom ceased all contact with my much older half-brother from a different dad. He was a violent, angry addict; would steal from and beat up my grandparents and my mom.

She finally had enough. He died this year and it’s the first time my mom had seen him since she cut him off 15ish years ago. I now have my own kids and I’ve always supported my mom’s decision. That said… I feel so, so sorry for her, moreso than when I was “just” her kid.

I can’t imagine ever reaching that point with my kids and I’m sure she never did either.”

10. Insane.

“My parents stopped loving me the moment I was disfellowshipped as a Jehovah Witness, and I was promptly kicked out.

I knew nothing of how to live on my own at the time, but I had a decent job and survived.

My brother stopped associating with them 2 years later and lives with me, and they since moved away (1500 miles away to be exact).

Its easier to tell people I am orphan or that I do not have parents, cause its hard to explain how they would stop loving or want to associate with there own son over some stupid cult rules.”

11. Family secret.

“Alright, so this is a family secret that I revealed and got my mother’s family to disown me. Which honestly is for the better.

When I was a kid, my uncle, molested me repeatedly over a summer I was with my grandparents. It really fucked with my sexuality and took me into my late teens, early 20s and years of therapy to accept that I’m gay. Still working on trying to even trust men as whole, in part because of this.

Anyway, when I was about 14 I told my mother because I just needed to get the secret out. I was in a situation I’d have to be alone with him again, and I was scared. Although looking back I was more scared trying to tell her, what her youngest brother did.

When I did I learned that, this is a pretty common thing in her family and it happened to her by my grandmother’s second husband. Well it happened to her and her three other sisters. My mother apologized to me, telling me she was sorry for sending me away that summer and that the family curse caught me as well.

Honestly I needed to hear this because I hated her for letting this happen, but she had no way of stopping it or even knowing it’d happen to her son. Always been something that happened to the girls but never the boys. Aren’t family traditions grand (sarcasm)?

We went to the cops, and because it had been so long and across state lines. There wasn’t much they could do, it was my word against his. My mother family acknowledged that stuff like this happens in their family, and that I should blame the devil for this happening to me and not the person.

And really I should feel bad for him because all of this was hard on him as well, he took this time to officially come out of the closet, and they all, minus my mother, let him know how brave he is for admitting his illness. And subsequently blamed me for turning him gay, keep in mind I was still trying to process if I was gay at this time.

I was then accused of wanting to get molested and that I needed to repent what I had done and for trying to destroy his life. My mother tried to argue back, but at this point it was my mother’s family versus my mother and I. My mother ended up giving slightly and told them we need time to process this. They let off and…

We got the hell out of there and never looked back. It’s been about ten years since I saw any of them. They blame my mother for raising a devil loving son, which didn’t get helped when I finally came out.

The last thing they told us is that they’ll let both my mother and I back in, if and only if, I admit that a nine year old wanted to be molested and of course convert back to being straight.

I think they are still surprised I haven’t taken them up on their offer. Idk, and idc. My family is super small now, and I couldn’t be more pleased.”

12. By my father…

“I have been legally disowned by my father. When I was 11, my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer (this was her second diagnosis in around 4 years, obviously she recovered the first time after intense surgery and a lot of chemo) and he did not want to look after her like he did before.

He also had a new gf and her family to look after apparently and he had no issues leaving us. When my mum passed away when I was 14, my brother, grandmother, him and I met up to discuss who I was going to live with (the plan was my brother and his family, father was never considered) and he showed up and declared that he was in the process of going to court to legally emancipate himself from me.

He went out of his way to legally declare that I was no longer his child. Just so that my brother (22yo with a wife and 2 young children already struggling on one paycheck) couldnt seek child support.

Needless to say it stung coming only days after my mother’s funeral.”

13. From the other side.

“A little different, I was disowned, but I deserved it. I was an addict and a mess for a long time, my mom couldn’t keep bailing me out of trouble and watch me self destruct anymore.

I wasn’t living at home, she came to see me one last time to tell me she was done, not to contact her, she would no longer have anything to do with me. She was in pieces, I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her. But it was the best thing she ever did for me, once she cut me off my rock bottom came hard and fast.

After a little while of living on the streets and my addiction consuming me, I made my way to a detox center, got a few days clean under my belt and never looked back. That was almost 15 years ago.

After I was clean a little while I contacted my mom, and little by little we built a relationship again, and now we’re really close. I am forever grateful to my mom for letting me fall and letting me back into her life.”

14. A story from the past.

“Not me, but my great grandma. This story is really sad but also interesting, so I thought I’d share it.

She was a young creole teenager- french creole was her first language, and she was a quarter-to-half black like me, with tan skin and loose brown curls. She was born in Florida, but when things started getting worse for black people in Florida, her family relocated to Texas. For those who don’t know, creole people tend to play heavily into colorism.

Although they are definitely mixed race, they prioritize light skinned people. The looser your curl, the lighter your skin, the more white you look, the better. Her parents had high expectations for her to marry a wealthy, light skinned man who would take care of her.

Instead, she met my great grandfather. A poor, dark-skinned man jumping from job to job working for farmers and trying to make a living. The two of them fell in love. They were just teenagers. Her parents threatened to disown her if she continued seeing him, and like a rebellious teenager, she refused. They wanted her to do better. She wanted to be in love.

They might have broken up eventually, if she didn’t get pregnant. But she did, and that was the end of it. Her parents basically said “you’ve ruined your life” and disowned her right there. The whole family disowned her.

No one would speak to her- aunts, uncles, cousins, not a single person stood up for her. So she had no choice. The two of them moved to California, so he could get a job picking oranges. He built a house. They had their first daughter. She was 16. She never saw her family again.”

Have you ever had someone in your family disown you? Or maybe you were the person who disowned a relative?

If so, please tell us your stories in the comments.

Thanks in advance.