It’s always sad when you hear about families breaking apart or a specific person being disowned for one reason or another.

But sometimes, it’s definitely necessary due to fighting, drugs, doing terrible things to one another, and a host of other issues.

Let’s take a look at these sad stories from AskReddit users.

1. My sister…

“I was a kid and my sister was much older when my parents were finally done with her. From my recollection, she went through the cycle of making one stupid decision after another, even when they would tell her and show her why she shouldn’t make that decision.

dropped out of college (they were paying for) and used the tuition money she was refunded to buy a Firebird, then quit her job

let car run out of oil, kept driving it until the engine seized up

parents bailed her out again, buying her what they could afford on one salary: a decent, used station wagon. Only catch: she take the job my dad called in favors for

parents come home one day to find strange car in driveway: a Sunbird. It was old and shitty, but it was a 1:1 trade my sister managed to swing on the station wagon

lo and behold, old and shitty car breaks down almost immediately and she simply stops showing up to work, gets fired

moves out with no car and no job, accusing parents of controlling her life

moves back in three months later. Upset that I have moved into her old bedroom (which is bigger), demands to be moved back into the bigger bedroom

parents say no, she threatens to move out

she goes on a semi hunger-strike about the bedroom. Turns out she was shoplifting and stockpiling candy to eat so she wouldn’t have to eat with the rest of the family

during this time, dates a number of less-than-stellar boyfriends, including a guy who is 30 years older (but drives a Porsche), a guy who had been convicted of sexual abuse, and another guy who generally creeps everyone out by jumping the fence and just standing in the backyard at all hours of the night

eventually, she is told to: pay rent, go to college, or move out. She chooses to move out, and is gone by the end of the week. I clearly remember her threatening to burn the house down as she left.

two months later, she asks to move back in because her roommate and best friend kicked her out. Parents say no, she’s on her own unless she wants to go to college or get a job and keep it

car breaks down again, for good, and calls and asks parents if they can buy a new one for her. Not “new” as in “new to her.” “New” as in “brand new model year.” My parents’ newest car was fifteen years old at the time. They say no, and not to call again

There were a whole raft of other things, too, including forgetting to pick up her grandmother from doctor’s appointments, generally loathing the existence of the rest of her family, and, then, ironically, deriding the family as “rednecks” when she finally managed to hook a guy who was a small business owner and actually had some money.

Anyhoo, it’s been about twenty years since I’ve spoken to her, and, from the stuff I hear now and again through the pipeline, I’m better for it. I do expect her to come calling when my parents pass and she finds out I’m the sole heir.”

2. Mom.

“My mother simply didn’t want kids but never bothered to prevent having all three of us to different men. She tried to have my dad put in jail for “abuse” meanwhile he was working two jobs to support us and would come home to a filthy house and my diaper completely loaded.

She put all three of us in foster care and luckily my dad got me along with my other half sisters dad got her but the oldest of us spent 18 years of her life in foster care. I last saw my mother when I was six because she had seen that my dad was successful and wanted to use him for money.

He brought me to a park to meet her and she blatantly ignored me and instead was all over my dad. He’s a smart man and realized this and that’s the last time I ever saw her. She never sent one birthday card or ever paid a dime of child support to my dad.

Because she didn’t want kids and wouldn’t take any steps to prevent it three separate times. Congrats mom, you’re the worlds biggest P.O.S.”

3. Horror story.

” I have disowned my mother

She did everything from generally invading privacy to starving us, she even went so far as to orchestrate my rape and my immediate pregnancy from said because she wanted “cute lil grandkids” and she didn’t want to wait. I was 13.

When we moved in with my grandmother we didn’t know how to use silverware, I didn’t start brushing my teeth until I was 15 because we never knew , really fucked up lady.”

4. Sounds like a nightmare.

“I disowned my older sister.

It was always “it’s either I get my way or I’ll throw the biggest fit”. She would always talk shit about my parents how they never give her anything when they really were. Bought her a really expensive dress for a beauty pageant when they were struggling financially, helped with taking care of her car, ask for money from them, and other stuff.

The guys she would date were all assholes and that would cause my dad to stress and worry about her. She would always cause problems for my parents. I remember my dad having to go to the hospital because he had really high blood pressure due to the level of stress she was causing one night and she thought he was faking it.

Besides that, she was one of my biggest bullies I had growing up. Our fights would turn into fist fights. When I was 19, my parents and sisters (I have an older and little sister) and I had our first family therapy session and I basically laid out everything I have been feeling about her and my relationship with her.

Obviously, it didn’t make our relationship better because she felt like she did nothing wrong. It’s been 10 years after that and it was the last time I had a conversation with her and my life has been a little less stressful since I don’t have to be walking on eggshells. Whenever she’s around I don’t even look at her.

I’m just so tired of her thinking that my parents don’t love her and her bullying me that I decided to cut her out of my life after that therapy session.

I don’t regret it.”

5. My brother.

“Not the disowned child, but my older brother is. He has been a petty crook as long as I could remember, into hard drugs since his pre-teens, and pretty much a full-blown sociopath.

He treated every girl in his life like meat. I remember him as a teenager calling his girlfriend a slut and because she didn’t want to blow him.

When he knocked some chick up years later, he had a daughter, and one of the first things out of his mouth in the hospital after her birth was “she’s gonna grow up to be a whore like her mom.” Let’s just say that child is better off not having him as a father figure (she’s been adopted since then and is living a happy childhood last time I checked).

He treated my parents like trash. He would be in and out of jail and they would take him in whenever he was out. Then he’d find a job, lose it, and go back to jail. Rinse and repeat.

He would get in physical fights with my mom, dad, me, he’d kick our dogs, cats, etc. We’d have to get new drywall to replace the holes he punched through those walls. He’d have freakouts and smash things all around the house. Living with him was a nightmare.

The last straw was him walking out on his kid and her mother, and starting a gang fight at our house over a drug deal gone wrong. Things got really violent and I’m pretty sure weapons were involved. He left the house, and on that very same night, he came back because he needed a place to stay.

When my dad said no, he started fighting my dad. I stepped in at that point and almost beat the hell out of him (no one fucks with my dad, no one). It ended with my dad having to hold me down to stop me from killing him, and my brother walking away down the street yelling obscenities. Haven’t seen him since. This was 6 years ago.

At this point, he’s either in jail or dead. I may have every reason in the world to hate him for everything he’s done, but I don’t. He’s a tortured soul who has let his demons get the absolute best of him, plain and simple. I just hope that he finds some kind of peace, even if it takes death for him to do so.

Bill, if you’re reading this, you’re my brother and I still love you, and I hope you’re okay, wherever you are.”

6. Grandparents.

“I disowned my grandparents on my dad’s side. My dad’s parents are both divorced and remarried to different people. His father is great, lovely guy and super helpful when we need it. His mother and her husband are a real piece of work.

She moved to Spain when I was maybe around 11 year old. When I was 16/17 my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. My grandfather and Nana were super helpful. Took him to appointments, picked my brother and I up from activities, generally being a great help in a difficult time.

My grandmother and her cunt of a husband, however, flew back from Spain just to tell us that they will not be helping with anything. That she is mainly focussed on her knee replacement surgery in Spain.

So at that point I decided I wanted nothing to do with her. I haven’t as much as spoken to her in over 6 years and have no intention of speaking to her again. She as good as disowned my father in his most difficult moments and that cannot be forgiven.

My father survived his cancer. He’s healthy and happy now.”

7. Very bizarre.

“My parents got divorced and my mother decided she didn’t want to be a mother any more so she neglected my sibling and I and kicked us out of her house. Because the court system favours the mother, she got custody despite nobody asking us or looking too far into it and my dad had to give her the house and child support.

Despite this, she didn’t do anything for us and we ended up living with him anyways and she spent our child support on world travels and wouldn’t ever buy us anything.

She met a guy, sponsored him, he had a son and that became her son. I was now nothing to her.

They divorced, he stole all her money and she ended up homeless until family took her in and it’s been shaky since.

She went off the deep end about a year ago and I tried to get involved to help her but she kept being demeaning and went crazy, got arrested and I cut off ties.

She threatened to come shoot me and I called the police and even went to try and make a police report but nobody would listen to me and the guy at the counter at the police station laughed at me. It was very bizarre.”

8. Lives as if they never existed…

“My in-laws disowned their daughter (my sister-in-law). My sister-in-law abandoned her children, moved to a different state to party with some dude she met online, and became a drug addict and alcoholic. She never calls or tries to contact her children. She never visits her children. She just lives as if they never existed.

But sister-in-law would call her parents periodically and beg for money to pay rent or food, etc.

They broke all communication with her and wrote her out of their will. Her kids will directly inherit everything intended for their [shitty] mother.”

9. Worst person I know.

“My sister is the worst person I know. Worst than my ex fiancee who cheated on me, lied to me, then tried to make it my fault because im in the Navy and across country.

Shes a drug addict, narcissistic, drunk, and abusive. The worst traits of our abusive ex stepfather. She may or may not be carrying on the tradition in my family of teenage pregnancy, no one in my famiy talks to her so i can’t confirm it but I dont doubt it.

She blames my mother for everything bad that had happened to her, claims i molested when we were 9 or 10, claims i planned a sexual assualt that happened to her, etc etc etc. She cannot be anymore diffrent from me and my siblings, and cannot stand that me and my brother are no longer traumatized by our childhood.

She has blocked 90% of my family and no one misses her.”

10. Drugs are bad.

“My sister was disavowed. She was a perfectly normal and happy person until she turned 16, and then out of nowhere she joined a gang of druggies and started breaking into houses and all kinds of crazy shit… stole all of our stuff on multiple occasions… punched grandma in head over $10 etc etc etc.

The Police had her drug tested a dozen times and she was always clean… parents spent $10,000 on a stay in a psych place to try and find out if she had a mental disorder or had been sexuallly abused or something, and there was no indication of any kind of underlying issues.

One say she came home and said that she needed money for “Another Abortion” and my parents lost their shit… no one had known she was ever pregnant, let alone multiple times. They said that they would take the baby but she refused to go through with the pregnancy, so they cut her off then and there… and then it was like she literally never existed.

I asked her why she was living her life this way the last time I saw her, and all she could say was “Because it isn’t boring”.”

11. They didn’t approve.

“My parents disowned me as I married a girl of my choice and not theirs (I’m in India. So arranged marriages are pretty much the norm). Funny thing is their marriage wasn’t arranged.

Theirs was a love marriage. An year after my son was born my mom started relationship with me and my son alone. My dad talks and loves to my son but doesn’t even talks to me. Neither of them talk to my wife.”

12. A real piece of shit.

“A cousin of mine was disowned by his parents and the rest of the family. He was a real piece of shit and did numerous things that eventually culminated in him getting disowned. Some of the things he has done:

-got involved with a loan shark that was also linked to a gang. He owed some serious money and it got to the point where family members were being threatened by either beatings, stalking, or even kidnapping kids. Thankfully his dad is a well respected man and a successful businessman and brokered a deal. The piece of shit didn’t think anything was wrong with what he did.

-He molested and abused co-workers at his father’s company. This lead to some long trials and eventually it was agreed that the family would fire him because he was too much of a liability.

-He has abused his family name and family status against authorities, friends, and family to get what he wants. He dragged his family’s name through mud and even tanked business relationships because of it.

Those are some of the things he’s done that were big. He has a list of other shit that even I may not know of or that are smaller in scale and caused problems for his direct family and relatives.

Eventually his dad gave him some money, a car, and a one way ticket to the US. Told him if he thinks he can make it and thinks that he (his father) is holding him back, then he can go. Haven’t heard from him in almost a year now, but some shit occasionally crops up regarding him.”

13. You’re outta here.

“We pretty much disowned one of my older brothers

We can’t get him out of our lives fully for a few reasons that I’ll get to in a second, but here’s basically everything I know about that made us kick him out for the final time

he stole money

he used drugs in the house

he never got a job (even tho we had been giving him help for a very long time)

he ‘borrowed’ money from my brother that he never gave back

he accused me and my little sister of stealing his stuff (we never did)

he made my mum suicidal

he talked a lot of shit on my dad constantly when he wasn’t around/ awake

he threatened to beat up my little sister

he’s buying phones and stuff and putting my mother’s name and our current address down so we keep getting letters about him

we have nothing to do with these letters

he refuses to change his address so he can keep getting more Centrelink money

That’s just everything I know, I used to be close with my older brother but after he threatened my sister I know I disowned him.”

14. Very sad.

“My mother was disowned by her her parents for her interracial relationship.

Yes, we are from the south (Arkansas). There are parts of this that are weird too. My mother initially lied to her parents and said she was dating an Arab man. This was fine but they found out she was lying leading to her being disowned. I guess in the early 70s Arabs were ok but blacks were no nos.

They disowned my mom but it was fine if we came over. My older sister was close with them but me and my younger sister always felt weird going over there. They adored my older sister though and she stayed over and went on vacation with them among other things.

I remember asking my grandfather why he didn’t like my mother when I was about 8 or 9 years old at a cousin’s birthday party. He just walked away.

These same people who essentially pushed her out of their lives were the same ones she took care of and comforted in their darkest times. She sort of went back to them and they didn’t push her away for what I am assuming is they knew the end was near and they were trying to right their wrongs.

I have no idea just an assumption. She was there with them until their ends though. My mom might not be perfect but damn that made me look at her in a completely different light.”

15. Cut out of the family.

“My parents disowned my oldest sister. She always struggled growing up more than us (she became a teen mom with a bad older dude, partied a lot, etc), but my parents helped her a lot. They do okay for themselves, but had a no-co-signing rule for all six of my siblings and I. Still, they co-signed for her house so she could get a head start.

She didn’t pay the mortgage for almost 3 years before my mom got served in front of all the other nurses at her work.

My parents worked tirelessly to try to work out deals where my sister and her family kept the house and got some leniency, but to no avail, because my sister never showed up for court dates. During this time, she paid $12k for IVF and got pregnant with her fifth kid.

When my mom demanded some of the money back, she accused my dad and my brother of beating her sons when my parents took them to Disney World (he didn’t) and said she’d file a police report if he asked for money again. They kept asking, cause it wasn’t true.

She awkwardly joined us for Christmas, and punched my brother in the face during the meal for “humiliating” her oldest son by asking him if he wanted to work at my brother’s company for good pay. Her oldest son is in and out of jail, and my brother was trying to help him after his release, but her son said he didn’t want a job and got mad.

She then called the cops and told them the same brother had illegal guns in his truck, and they came on Christmas night and searched his truck (no guns found!)

Needless to say, she is not welcome anywhere near any of us and my mom still cries about it, but refuses to talk to her again.”

Now we’d like to hear from you.

Have you ever had to disown a family member? Or maybe you were the person who was disowned?

If so, talk to us in the comments, please.