I've been estranged from my mother and step-father for 5 years now. I justified the choice as protecting my kids from the same damage I suffered as a child. It was a choice borne of desperation, and no one "won" as a result of it.
I see a recurring narrative here - one of refusal to allow the AC to win by refusing them to establish their own narrative. My hope is to convince you that, if they've truly gone NC, your AC isn't trying to win. NC isn't a tactic - it's a disengagement. They've completely left the field behind.
My story might not apply to you. Hopefully it'll give you some perspective. If not, I simply ask for your empathy throughout.
My family had it in for me as a child. My stepfather did everything he could to ensure my home wasn't a haven and my self-esteem never got too high. It was clear his own child was the one expected to do great things. I learned to evade him, but poor self-esteem meant I was bullied both at home and school.
My mother, for her part, I believe actually cared, but did little to protect me. In the vein of tough love/teaching me about the world, she also prevented me from getting my driver's license, and set up artificial hurdles for me to attend college.
At the end of Junior High School I broke. Low self-esteem manifested as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a scar I carried for decades.
But, here's something important: because of my NPD, I've learned not to trust any of my memories from high school or my early adulthood, unless I can find physical artifacts or other people who can recount the same situation.
As I began to wake up from my NPD and I sought treatment, I realized I had put my early life to bed by accepting it as simply a case of neglect. My therapist, however, insisted that I consider it might have been abuse, instead. Re-litigating situations in this light, combined with my realization that my step-father's disrespect for me never ended, caused me intense distress that I needed my mother to help me work through.
It's at this point that my mother completely failed me. Instead of listening to my story/narrative, and helping me to understand her own version of the story, she shut down and refused to talk to me. Around that time, the family superstar started in with their attacks, and other members of the family began attacking me as well. Their "story" was that I was having a nervous breakdown and nothing I remembered ever happened.
It's not all bad. I had other siblings who confided in me that they remembered the same things I did, and that I got the worst of my tyrant step-father's behaviors, but that they weren't comfortable getting in the middle of the conflict.
I had small children, and they were already beginning to notice the favoritism for the superstar's kids. I went NC to protect myself and them.
And it's been gloriously peaceful. I no longer wake up in the middle of the night seething with rage over how I was treated, and what I feared for my kids. I'm sure my justification of doing it for my kids is only part of the story, though - protecting my own emotional state probably also made the decision easy.
In my own case, my family wasn't fulfilling any function in my life. Individual members were nice to be around, but the family as a whole was toxic.
But, there's one thing I'd like you to take away from my story:
My decision to go NC was borne from an inability of my family to engage with my story. There was a basic unwillingness to hear the story, give me any sort of credit for confronting my demons (which, I assure you, was hard as hell), or consider that there might be any reason for me to be unhappy with my childhood. Instead of addressing that there were very real issues going on presently, they got fixated on trying to refute things that happened decades ago, sometimes just telling me to get over it.
I didn't need an apology (which I see many of you bristling over) - all I needed was someone to tell me a different version of the story that wasn't an attempt to ridicule my own.
I'd suggest one thing and one thing alone if estrangement is hurting you - contact your AC and indicate that you'd like to listen to what they have to say, and hopefully they won't mind if you ask questions. Make sure you listen, and your questions are for clarification and aren't challenging their story. At this phase what is most needed is your listening and understanding their story, even if you make it clear you don't agree with the details.
Believe me, your AC knows you're not perfect. If they've gone NC, it means they've given up on trying to communicate with you. Resolution relies on communication resuming, and you can't do that if you won't listen to or understand their story.
