Kate Hackett
I hope you never have to do this.
Cutting a loved one out of your life entirely is a really big step and it’s very hard, but when you crash into that breaking point, there’s no denying that it’s important what you need to do.
Recently the BuzzFeed Community shared their responses to the question, “When was the moment that someone made you realize you didn’t want them in your life anymore?” We rounded up 20 of the best responses for you. As for me? I’m gonna go hug my mom.
1. Considered her my best and oldest friend
“This was a person that I considered my best and oldest friend. I felt like most of our friendship had been very one-sided, where it was okay for her to do certain things, but there would be stipulations if I were to do the exact same thing.
For example, it’s okay for her to follow her now-husband across the country because he will always be the breadwinner, but if I were to suggest such a move for my partner, she would comment that I’m ‘giving up’ and ‘not living my life.’ For her, it is a relationship compromise, but then the same wouldn’t be applied to me.
The last straw was when I went through a breakup and she wasn’t that supportive. She told me that I’ve been spending the past year moping instead of living my life, which was not true. I felt that the relationship needed to end.
Just because you’ve known someone for so long does not mean that you need to remain friends if that person no longer serves a purpose in your life.” —Anonymous, 32, Louisiana
2. Abused by father, blamed by brother
“I was physically and emotionally abused by my biological father. I was still a minor when he got me involved with manufacturing and trafficking huge quantities of meth. I cooked meth for about three years, and around the age of 20, we would have small confrontations about stuff. Nothing ever really escalated until he started to try and blame other people for our relationship.
We were in the car when an argument escalated, and I told him that I was done and moving away before I got out of the car. I started to walk away when he jumped out and ran around the car, looking ready to fight.” “I squared up and told him, ‘Do what the fuck you think you need to.’ He stopped, got back in the car, and left. That was the last time I spoke to him. It’s been 18 years, and I don’t regret anything.
Coincidentally, I also cut off my brother, who I had always looked up to and was really close with my entire life, about 13 years after my father. He was mad at me and told me, ‘You should have turned yourself in and went to prison for everything you did back then, you f—king coward.’
I haven’t spoken to him since. The punishment back then was 50 years for manufacturing methamphetamine, and I was a dumb-ass kid who did what his dad wanted based on ‘loyalty.’ To hell with people that don’t care about you.” —Anonymous, 38, Ohio
3. Couldn’t say goodbye to mom because of them
“As my mother lay dying in a hospital bed, my two sisters and stepfather refused to tell me which hospital she was at. Once I found out, my sister had her police officer husband pretend to be an officer in that city, call me, and say that I threatened them with violence when I hadn’t even spoken to them.
I called the hospital’s patient advocate, and the three of them told her that if she allowed me to come, they would leave her to die alone. Finally, on the day that she passed, I received a text that said, ‘She’s gone,’ from one sister. I never got to say goodbye because they were stealing from her. Nothing they can do or say will ever be forgiven.” —Anonymous, 45, Michigan
4. They cut me off & life is better
“Funny, my family of self-professed Christians cut me off when I got involved with a woman that they didn’t approve of. It has been over 20 years now, and my life has continually gotten better since they did.” —Anonymous, 63, Virginia
5. Treated me as a therapist
“Throughout 17 years of friendship, she gradually began treating me as her therapist, criticizing me when I did anything besides catering to her, and completely checking out whenever I wanted to talk about my life.
The final straw was when she invited herself to visit me for a whole week across the country while I was in the midst of one of the most stressful times in my life: applying to graduate schools. During the week she was there, she expected a full itinerary of activities, and Venmo-requested me for amounts smaller than a dollar while I didn’t ask her to pay for her parts when I covered the bill.
Here’s the best part: My apartment building had to be evacuated for mold with less than 24 hours notice during this time, and she refused to help whatsoever. She sat on her laptop as I moved every single one of my belongings out of my third-floor apartment to a different building by myself, then complained about her Etsy side gig.”
“When I (kindly) asked her to tone down the complaining about that while my life was falling apart, she yelled at me and intentionally missed her flight home the next day to try to ‘talk it out.’ I was done and told her so, so she began texting my mother to coordinate a way to surprise me so we could talk. Cutting her off was the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health.” —Anonymous, 24, Arizona
6. Mom hid OP’s daughter’s surgery
“I cut off my mother after she hid a secret from me that my daughter had to have emergency surgery — and blamed me when I got upset. She then sent me a letter telling me what a terrible daughter I have always been and what a terrible person I was.
She used the argument that her abusive husband (my father) was the cause of my issues and not her or the continued abuse I suffered as a child and an adult at her hands. She has never been wrong about anything in her life, and everyone is wrong but her. I’m done. She’s been out of my life for four years, and I have never been more at peace or have had a better relationship with my spouse and kids.” —Anonymous, 61, OR
7. Cut off sister for racism
“I cut off my sister at the beginning of the COVID lockdown. She called me and went on a rant about ‘dirty Chinese people.’ When I called her on it, she said that I was racist against white people. We’re Asian. She’s a huge Trump supporter, and my mom told me that she refused to get the vaccine because she thinks it has something to do with abortion.
My sister was recently hospitalized for COVID, and my mom begged me to call her, but I refused. Her whole family has caught COVID and refuses to wear masks around my elderly mother. The next and last time I expect to see my sister is at my mom’s funeral, as my dad is already passed. My brother feels the same about her.” —Sammy Kat
8. He forgot a birthday
“I came home one day from working an exhausting 16-hour shift in direct care to my husband of 10 years sitting on the couch. It wasn’t an issue that he was relaxing — he had worked as well and always unwinded on the couch afterward.
The issue was that after 10 years in a committed relationship, he had forgotten about my birthday. I was so looking forward to a surprise at home, and I had gone the entire day working without so much as a text. I filed for divorce soon after that.” —Anonymous, 30, Connecticut
9. Brother got dad to write a new will
“After my father lived with me for 12 years, he developed congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and dementia. Six months prior to my father’s death, my younger brother went behind my back and had him sign a new will — leaving his entire estate to him and my brother’s daughter. It’s something that I KNOW I could never have done to him. He is an evil snake.” —Anonymous, 62, Georgia
10. After an abusive relationship, she gets this?
“I had just left a two-and-a-half-year abusive relationship. After a month, my friend told me that she was tired of hearing about it and had expected me to move on from it.” —Anonymous, 26, CA
11. Reschedule your surgery
“I had breast cancer while caring for my mother with brain cancer. When I asked one of my siblings to take care of her while I had major surgery, I was told to reschedule it since they ‘were busy.'” —Anonymous, 43, Florida
12. COVID exposure
“I had become rather germaphobic due to pre-existing heart and lung issues. My friends Fran and Linda knew this but decided to go full-court press with the story that a mutual friend, Mike, had called to let them know that he and another guy who I had been exposed to at a BBQ had both tested positive for COVID-19.
I was angry that he hadn’t bothered to alert me as well, and I spent the next two weeks frantically calling every medical facility in the area, desperate to be tested. I finally got in touch with Mike, and he told me that he never claimed to have tested positive, but these ‘friends’ said things to me such as: ‘You’d better get right with God,’ and ‘Everybody’s got to go sometime.'”
“One of the two had called him to thank him for the event, and he mentioned that he was worn out from the day’s activities. I’d been friends with the two instigators for over 45 years. I eventually got tested after two weeks of self-quarantine and was negative for COVID-19, but I haven’t spoken with them since, and I don’t intend to.” —Anonymous, 65, NY
13. Couldn’t be her sounding board anymore
“I was best friends with someone for 15+ years. We talked every single day, and I’d always been her support system, which was mostly me seeing her through one bad decision after another — while she ignored all sound advice and common sense before complaining that nothing was going her way.
Then she’d toddle off to make another bad decision. Rinse and repeat. Her lifestyle finally reached its peak soap-opera-worthy drama, and it took its toll on me while I was nine months pregnant. I was at risk of super dangerous labor complications, which she was aware of. But she couldn’t seem to stop messaging me constantly to remind me how bad of a friend I was being.
“And of course, she was updating me with play-by-plays of her bad decisions. I eventually had to message her that I couldn’t be her sounding board and support person anymore, wished her well, and immediately blocked her. She was in the midst of typing a reply when I blocked her, which was no doubt more abuse to hurl at me. I ended up having my son two weeks early by induction, which went all kinds of sideways, and ended in emergency c-section. We’re okay now, but it was touch-and-go for me for a little while after the surgery. I wholeheartedly place blame on her for how it all went down and am just thankful that both my son and I lived through it.” —Anonymous, 34, California
14. Mom didn’t care about colon cancer
“During the beginnings of COVID, I was diagnosed with colon cancer and had to wait six months to have surgery to remove the cancerous polyp. Then they discovered a tumor, again cancer, and I had to have another surgery shortly after. Thankfully, they got it all.
During this whole experience, my mom never called to see how I was doing or inquire if I was even cancer-free. Several months later, she called me, and I was so excited to see her number on my phone. However, all she wanted to know was if I wanted a few books that were given to her. When I said, ‘Really, mom? That’s it? Books? Don’t you want to know how I am? How I’m doing?’
She yelled something to me that I couldn’t understand, and then she hung up on me. We’ve always had a sort of toxic relationship, but she’s my mom, and I ALWAYS accepted her apologies and moved on. But this was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back for me. I haven’t spoken to her since.” —Anonymous, 63 yrs old, California
15. Seems like everyone sucks in this
“I made a mistake my freshman year of college, I’ll own it: I kissed the guy my friend was into. Even worse, she saw us. Yikes. Well, we talked it out and made up. Fast forward to second semester of our junior year of college, and I’ve spent every minute of every day at school with this girl.
She and I were super close, and we even talked about being in each other’s weddings down the road. One day, I make another mistake and spend the night at an ex’s house instead of coming back to the dorm to hang with her after class. Cue the absolute screaming fit she throws about how I have never given her the attention she deserves, I leave her alone at parties, and I treat my mom like shit (apparently)?'”
“No one here is perfect, I have definitely made mistakes, but I treat my mother like the queen she is. I digress, the end of the 20-minute screaming match resulted in her letting me know that she has always hated me and she has been lying and pretending to be my friend since the first semester of freshman year. She told me that everything she had done was a lie to draw me close to her so that she could eventually ruin my life the way that ‘I ruined hers when I kissed that guy.’ I definitely didn’t see that coming.
After crying for days about losing my best friend, I realized that she was a little unhinged all along. Perhaps, I didn’t deserve to be forgiven for kissing the guy she liked, but I don’t think I deserved to be manipulated for YEARS! I said Buh-Bye.” —Anonymous, 28, Illinois
16. Lied about having cancer
“The moment for me was when I found out in 2021 that my mother had been lying to me about having various cancers for 10 years. She first told me 10 years ago, saying she needed money for medicines, chemo, glasses, rent, food, and everything else. I gave her thousands and thousands of dollars over the years because she said that she had no money because her illnesses disabled her, she couldn’t work, SSI wasn’t enough, excuse after excuse.
She also said that my middle brother was abusing her verbally and mentally manipulating me. I was having multiple panic attacks at work and calling out because of her. She knew all of this and would apologize and say it would never happen again, but it would all happen again a few days later. It turned out, the whole time she was actually buying and selling pills and cocaine.
I hadn’t spoken to my brother in 10 years because of the type of person he is, but I reached out one day with him to talk when things weren’t adding up. Not only is he in cahoots with my mom, but my mom was pinning us against each other without the other one knowing it. I’m done with her. My mom finally went to rehab once her world came crashing down.
Everyone has cut her out of their lives, and she’s been stealing money from those around her.” She’s in rehab but has somehow spent $2,000 in two months and won’t say what she spent it on. I don’t talk to her anymore; I just ask the family if they have any updates. I’m in therapy and on antidepressants. I keep tabs because one, she is my mom, and two, It reaffirms me cutting her out. She’s a disgusting person, and my life is forever better without her in it.” —Anonymous, 30, Frederick, MD
17. Attacked OP regarding daughter’s death
“My oldest sister and I had not been getting along since she kicked my mother out of her house. I had to drive six hours to pick up my mother and situate her in my town. Then my 22-year-old daughter died. The day after my daughter’s death, my oldest sister used her death as a weapon against me, bashing me on social media as a terrible father as a means of getting back at me.
I can’t imagine what kind of human being would take the worst possible moment in a parent’s life and weaponize it. That was the day that I had no sister anymore. Just because I share DNA with you does not mean you get to abuse me.” —Mike, 57, Texas
18. MLMs ruined the friendship
“A friend of mine sold vitamins for an MLM. She never pushed them on me until her company came out with marketing materials in Spanish. I’m a Spanish speaker — who knows tons of other Spanish speakers — so she started pressuring me to join her ‘downline’ and get my friends to join me.
I nicely and politely told her that I wasn’t interested, but she would not take no for an answer, to the point where she would make up reasons for us to meet and then pull a bait-and-switch and try to recruit me. She even pretended to field calls from other people in her downline in front of me, pretending they were telling her how fabulously they were doing because of her.
I cut her off when the lengths she was willing to go to truly got bizarre. I honestly shouldn’t have waited as long as I did.” —Anonymous, 42, Ohio
19. Anti-vaxxer
“I dumped my anti-vaxxer best friend when my brother was in the hospital with COVID, and I was working in the medical field up to my eyeballs in COVID patients, and my friend started ranting about ‘It’s just the flu’ and ‘ventilators are dangerous.’ It had been a long time coming, and I was just done.” —lightnlife
20. Grandma outted OP
“I came out to my grandma and made it clear that I didn’t want to be out to anyone else, so please don’t share this with anyone. She proceeded to make insinuations and jokes about it on Facebook, and when I confronted her, she said, ‘This is America and I have goddamn freedom of speech. I’ll say whatever the fuck I want.’
This was after years of her verbal abuse of both me and my father, as she lived with us rent-free for half the year. She frequently took my car for joy rides and generally had no respect for me, but I foolishly had allowed myself to believe things were getting better and I could trust her.
I, obviously, was wrong. She hasn’t lived with us since, all her stuff has been moved into a storage unit, and I never speak to her. She’ll never be allowed back into my life again.” —likelysam
