If I Speak - 113: Should I go ‘no contact’ with my parents?

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Moya and Ash answer a mystery question about why so many people are going ‘no contact’ with their parents. How do our elders understand this epidemic of estrangement? Plus: How to deal with a jealous ex-boyfriend who lives down the road. Come to see us at Crossed Wires in Sheffield on 4th July! Tickets available here: https://crossedwires.live Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

So you might feel that you've had more than enough of us for one summer, but just in case you are a thirsty, thirsty little piggy with your snout at the content trough, why not join us at Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield on July 4th? You can get tickets at crossedwires. Live and there are going to be other live podcasters there as well. So just in case you want to add to your yapping diet, as well as if I speak, they'll be Blind Boy. There'll be bold politics with Zach Polanski and many more to boot. So go to crossedwires dot live and grab your tickets there.

Hello and welcome to another episode of If I Speak where Moja does not have her lipstick. Shameful. I said I didn't like the colour. It's just the problem is I have stress-exma, stress-exma, for those un-initiated. So every colour just blends with my filter. at the moment. If I wear pink, it just looks the same color as my filterum. I mean, this would be one to throw out to the audience, like, what's your gross bodily reaction

to stress? Mine, of course, is. IBS. Oh, the old classic. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, to the, to the tune of Bob Villain's chant in my head, it's always stress, stress, stress gives me IBS. Oh my God, that's so good. That's so good. That's very catchy. Um, okay. Well, okay, well, Are you IBSing at the moment or are you in a good place? No, my, my bowels are glorious, I would go as far to say. Well, that's my first question question. What do I ask now? There's nowhere to go.

There's nowhere to go. Of course, well, there is somewhere to go. And that somewhere is our regular introduction segment, which is 73 questions minus 70. Oh, that was, oh, that's segue. Oh, that was delicious. I feel like I was a BBC 6 radio presenter on that segue. You know what? Enjoy that post-coital cigarette, you know?

When you do a good segue, sometimes you just got to bask in it. You've got to wallow in that mud, roll all around, a little piggy really enjoying it. Oh, that was lovely. I feel like John Peel. I do have questions for you, though. Ash, are you prepared to receive them? My loins are girded. Okay.

Number one, as always, based on my life. Because I'm the centre of my own universe. What is the biggest life change for you in the last five years? I've been losing a parent. That is a big life change. That is a very big life change. I wish I could say, like, because all the other ones were like big, big, but you can definitely see how one thing is like progressing to another, like moving in with a partner,

getting married, buying a house. deciding how we want to live, like all of these things were emerging from something that was already there. Whereas losing a parent was like the bus and mean girls just, so. That's very real shit. And to be like, it is something that I think we've talked about this before, but when I heard that, I was like, oh my God, I've asked the one question.

I was like, no, no, no, I asked the question you gave a real answer about real shit that's happened and happens in people's lives every day. but English people like me are so unequipped at dealing with death because we're so scared of it. I think that when people ask a question which is answered with somebody died,

they feel that they've done a faux par. Yeah. Oh no. Oh, no. The thing that happens to everyone. Yeah, you're like, oh, no, I've made them really sad, but it's like, I think also not being able to talk about these things and not being able to say, like,

someone I loved very much died and that feeling that a mirch of silence because you don't want to cause anyone worry about a faux par is also very, very painful. I think it's also just facts. Like, it's not as if when I say that and I'm like, and now I must weep into the white carnations.

It's like, no, that's just like a factual thing. I think about my stepdad every single day. I think about the fact I miss him every single day, but that doesn't mean, I think people presume fragility. And obviously sometimes you will feel fragile. But it's just, it's just a part of you now. So I would say that it was the biggest life change in that. That was, I definitely feel before and after.

And then there was also like the blurry year and a half afterwards where like I couldn't, I still can't fully remember what happened in which order. Like there's a sort of brain fog. But I sort of, I do feel like there was a before where you're like, ah, my relationship to the world is governed by the fact that, like, within my family unit, I am a child, right? Like, I am below and sort of backed up by, like, parental units. But then when one of them dies, it changes your orientation to the whole. And it's like, oh, no, I'm a, I'm an adult now. And I can totally see how if it happens to people when they're younger, that's, you know,

I don't mean it like, it happened to me at like the right time, but it's like, it happened to me at the right time. Like being in your 30s and like having made choices which are very stabilising in your life, it's a good time for that to happen. Whereas for friends of mine who are 14, 15, 18, early 20s, bad, bad time. and of course younger than that as well. The next question I have is so trite. Go for it. All of mine for you are mega trite this week.

Okay, great. Well, there's obviously, maybe, actually. We don't know. If there's a leadership contest ongoing, this is relevant. If there is not a Labour leadership contest ongoing, it's still relevant. Shagmary Kill. Ugh. Angela Rainer.

West Streeting, Andy Burnham. Okay. RIP was streeting, but... No peace. No peace for that one. But for the good of the realm, I must say goodbye to you. And now I've got to work out with whom I could have the happier marriage. I probably could have a happier marriage with Angela Rainer. Do you know what I mean?

Because she likes a drink. She likes a good time. You know, I think that on a day to day, we could muddle through life pretty well. I think that Andy Burnham in other ways would be a very good marriage partner, right? I think that he'd always, you know, make sure that the mortgage was paid on time. But I have a feeling that he could be grumpy in such a way that I would find very, very difficult to live with. And sex can be very quick.

Polisicoe. Put that in your morning email, you cowards. Okay, so three second burn, I hear what you're saying. I hear, I'm picking up what you're putting down. Thank you, that was a good answer. What about you? What about you? I'm a nun. I don't participate in politics. Oh, bullshit.

Obviously I kill Wes. I think that he's the only man in Britain right now, or only parliamentary politician who is more unpopular than Kirstama, or could be less likable than Kirstehr Stama, actually, which is quite a feat. I would probably marry Andy. I think his sober nature, and I don't mean sobriety is in alcoholism, I think his sober nature is probably more suited to me

than Angela's. I think we'd get into too many fights. I think Angela, I don't want, you know, sorry. We are playing Shag Mary Kill. I would have a beautiful night with Angela. It would be passion-filled. But I think long term I'd marry Andy. I do think he might skew a bit avoidant

from what I've heard about his ability to shy away from hard decisions and just disappear into the ether. So I think I'd get him a bit more. Just like you for real. I mean, the thing about Angelo, and this was one of the deciding factors for me between Shag and Mary.

I wouldn't say there was a load in it, but it's one of the deciding factors. No loads in it, are there? I couldn't, I could not stand, I could not abide a post-coital vape. Oh, yeah, gosh. She's quit now, hasn't she? Oh, man, she'd be hitting that penjimate after I was...

She would be... She would be... You'd go back to the pen. She'd be like, that was so good, I've got to go back to the pen. But yeah, she does... I don't think I could stand a vapour as well. I don't know if Andy vapes. I must ask him before we get down to City Hall.

Note to self. Ask Andrew Burnham... Do you vape? If he vapes before we tie that knot. Fill you fair fix? Will you... Then will you vape? Okay, actually, so third question.

Inspired on the spot by that. What do you think is the greater evil in society? Gambling, vaping or alcohol? Oh, okay. I know that in terms of lives ruined, it's got to be alcohol or gambling, right? What I would say is that I feel quite strongly about gambling. Like, I just don't do it, right?

And I love vices of all kinds, right? But, like, I don't do it because it is just designed to take people's money in return for, like, nothing. Whereas I think with alcohol, if you're not a problem drinker, conviviality, third spaces, love, love, love, been a big part of human history since we started fermenting things. gambling is just so fucking predatory. You know, like the reason why there's a saying that the house always wins

is because the house always does win some way. Like it is just a parasite engorging itself on your hard-earned money. And I don't think that it has any of the social or communal benefits that alcohol does. But, you know, obviously problem drinking is a massive, massive thing. So I know that. objectively it has to be one of those two. But if I'm talking about what gets under my skin and rankles me the most, it's vaping. Tell me more.

Tell me why. I just, you know what, I call them, I call them cuck sticks. I just think they're so fucking cuck. Like I just, I just, there's something babyish about it. Like, oh, I need myself soothing, you know, oral stimulation. I just, I hate them and I hate the smell of what'd you call it?

Vap fumes, vape steam. Vap fumes. I hate it. And just the way in which it's like dangling off of people's bottom lip, I hate vaping. What about you?

I mean, people would think I'd choose booze. I wouldn't for all the reasons you've said. I think a delicious wine on a beautiful summer evening. Oh, what a treat. Mama Mia. And yeah, alcohol, obviously, what I hate is the lack of support around alcohol abuse

and the inability of our society to really admit the way we encourage alcohol abuse. I don't think there's any such thing as a safe drug, but I do think that out of the three of them, alcohol is the one where you have more people who were able to engage with it. In a way that brings them pleasure rather than pain,

it's just the people who experience the pain often get to live in like this denial for so long. Maybe their whole lives and it'll ruin their lives. Gambling, I agree. I would get rid of it out of the three. But I'm with you on the vaping in terms of personally thinking it is the sign of a degraded society.

However, one thing recently I was thinking about having listened to a podcast on, well, actually, no, it was a book. It was John Robbins' book on his addiction to alcohol, his alcoholism. And he was talking about, he talks about gambling in there and he talks about vaping and he talks about boozing, obviously.

But at one point he talks about WKD and I thought, oh yeah, vaping is just when they bought in the Alco pops. Vaping is just the Alco pops of our generation. It's the Alco Pop. We get the Alco Pops we deserve and they're small, horrible littering batteries. Oh, I mean, I... I saw my partner vape because he's quit smoking.

He's quit smoking, but he's one of those people that like, if he's had a few drinks, he will take up a vape. He will bomb smokes off of anyone. Yeah. And I saw him hit the vape. And I genuinely was like, no sex for you in this calendar month. Like, it's not happening. Like, I need this image to be gone from my mind.

It does upset me. And it upsets me how bad vaping is. for you and how they said, oh, it's a substitute for smoking. And I'm sure there'll be some listeners who write and say, well, it was perfect. I used it. But I know many more people who'd not even smoked who took up vaping. And now have a real vape problem. I know someone who's like, oh, I'm so tired of the time and they get all these mad headaches.

And I'm like, it's the vapes. Because on the occasions I've, you know, had a few and then smoked a vape. That's when I will get a mad hangover after a few puffs of vape. Yeah. Because the amount of nicotine in that accessory is so much. I'm quite lucky I never was a big smoker. Anyway, I totally agree with you. I'm with you.

It's not chic. It's not chic. At least the cancer sticks looked a little bit chic. Yeah, cancer sticks look chic. Glasses of wine look chic. Indeed, even a baccarat table looks chic. I don't even know what baccarat is. I just don't know as a really cool.

I've never played Blackjack or Baccarat or even like five. I don't know what these things are. Shall we move on? Shall we move on? Yeah, shall I go to the mystery question that I think. you have coming. Yes, let me make my phone noisy and hold it near here. Today listeners, producer chal is going to send us another mystery question because, you know, we're quite busy and we want to be surprised occasionally. Also, I just think that sometimes you

have to have, like you can't force a good idea for the pod. No, you can't, you can't, it's like when you go to toilet before you've had your morning coffee. You love toilet. I love, I love, I love time. There's a line in the new devil wears Prada 2 movie, which is very bad, by the way, Ash. I don't know if you've seen it. I've seen it. My partner really wanted to go see it.

It's so bad on so many levels. But the only line... It's the only one of the bits that pissed me off the most. I knew it was going to be a shit show from the start when Simone Ashley's assistant character is talking to Andy and having this exchange and Andy clearly wants Simone Ashley's character who's doing a role she formerly did to respect her or at least like her.

because this is still the character of Andy. She wants everyone to like her. And she's like, oh, she gets a bit of headway. She's like, oh, I had the 2005 Chanel connection. Simone Ashley's assistant is suddenly engaged. She's like, oh, the 2005 with the blah, blah, blah. Oh, I love that connection. Do you ever still wear it?

And Andy goes, no, I sold it. And Simone Ashley, acting, does a facial expression. And you know, in that moment she's shocked and these two women will never find common ground for three quarters of the movie because she's like, why would you ever sell Chanel? But then there's a whole interaction between them and at the end of the interaction So when Ashley's character has to spell it out to the audience

saying, why would you ever sell Chanel? We know that's what she's thinking. That was my point. I thought, had that exact same thought in the Lady Gaga bit which was, you know, I don't even want to go into the context. Basically, something which is screamingly obvious has to be put into words.

And I just think this is a film for an illiterate culture. Yeah. I'm not getting the ding. Oh. I keep talking about the devil's proud to be honest because there was one moment in that film where they do say something screaming hard. Here we go.

You'll never get to hear what that moment is, listeners, sorry. Okay. Let's go. From mystery producer Charlie mystery question. More and more people are going no contact with their parents, often to the confusion of their elders. Brave, question mark. Or cop-out, question mark. I've slumped in my chair. You can't see that I've slumped in my chair because of a big an conundrum. This face, this question poses, which is, what do we owe family? Is the word oh even a fair one to

use? Is blood thicker than water? Should we be protecting the self or the collective? What's healthy? How can you exert power or agency or set boundaries with your parents? And is that even a reasonable expectation? Is that a reason? It's something I really struggle with because just because I've gone to therapy and been told you got to set these boundaries that my mother's not in the room with me. If I'm setting a boundary, what she's hearing is a confusing new concept

of me just saying, I don't want to do X, Y, Z, or I'm not going to do X, Y, Z, because I don't think it's healthy. But she has no sense of my workings or why I've got to that place. Because also to even explain that at length, sometimes it's appropriate, but sometimes it feels like introducing information into a relationship that's already so embedded in entrenched its dynamics that it would just take years itself to explain that feeling and who's to say that my feelings are more important? And also, I mean, I'm so muddled up with this because I don't know where to start.

Maybe a place to start is what are the reasons that people go no contact with their parents because there's lots of them, right? Yeah. Sometimes it's you're living a life that your parent, thinks is harmful and refuses to support. So that might be to do with gender. It might be to do with sexuality. It might be to do with things that happened in your childhood, which you feel harmed by, that your parent is unable to recognize or make you feel they've taken

accountability for. There's guilt. Like what I call the guilt obligation vortex. There's, I guess, like a lack of boundary behaviour. So treating your life as it can, as if it continues to be an extension of their own. I'm trying to think about what else makes people go no contact. I mean, obviously you've said the harm thing. The unequivocal one is when there's been abuse in childhood as well. And I think. I think we should separate that out from what you said about like when someone perceives there's been harm. Because there's, there is such a clear difference in those two things, I think, when there's been like undeniable abuse of any form. Rather than behaviours that are considered harmful that may well have been harmful, but a parent or the person who's deemed responsible for you, then enacting those behaviours or allowing them to happen.

may not see in the same way and others may not see them in the same way. Like, that's the difficulty. It's like who defines the harm. There's no contact with one parent and not another. Sometimes because of how you perceive they've treated the other parent. The other parent. The problem is there's just so many different situations in which to go no contact with a parent. I suppose what, so you can't really do a blanket thing of like,

well, it's good in this one, it's not good than this one. I think what's more interesting is the idea that is this a new thing? Like, is it actually new to go no contact with parents? No, back in the day, they just called it estrangement. Yeah, and also people would sail off to fucking America. They go to America. Not the new world. And the letters would get slower and slower,

and then they'd dry up altogether because they'd built a new life. Parents themselves would go no contact with kids. It's called my father. Well, I was going to say, I didn't go no contact with my parent. my parent was no contact with me. And then I would have periods where I go, well, I'm no contact with him. And it's like, no, I'm not.

He's no contact the whole time. I've just stopped trying to call him. So I think that's maybe the interesting flip, it's the idea that we've brought this concept into modernity, which is, okay, there is a thing that's called no contact, and we're codifying it. And it's something that children do to parents, rather than parents being absent.

It's a choice. a condition. Estrangement is a condition. Yeah. No contact is a choice. Yeah. So why did this choice? When did this choice start popping up as what I wonder?

And why in this moment does this choice feel like something we want to discuss? Because I've seen articles on this as well. The Guardian had an article on this recently, I'm pretty sure, about going no contact with parents and what they're calling the rise of it. And again, it's not so much as whether it's a rise, it's maybe more people are talking

about this as a specific choice, a life. lifestyle choice. I'm not going to speak to my parents. I'm not going to engage with my parents. And putting aside perhaps the cases of, you know, abuse, etc., maybe more what they're talking about this article is when it's, when it's, I don't want to say character studies, it's case studies, that's a horrible way to put it. Carrot studies. There's Garrett studies. They don't make you glow in the dark guys, because you believe it. Maybe these instances that are getting more attention are again places where there isn't specific harms or specific abuse that has occurred, but it's more like, I find my parent really difficult. I don't like the way they treat my partner.

I don't like this. It's things that could in the past or would in the past have been considered livable. And now they're normal, normal, right? So I mean, like, I know that this is rooted in misogyny, but the idea of a nightmare mother-in-law is a staple of our culture. And now people are making the choice, or at least talking about the choice, to not put up with that anymore. And that's the difference. Like, should we be putting up with a nightmare mother-in-law?

That's the question. Like, it is, because I don't think it's a binary here because it's hard. Because you're like, well, no one should have to be in a comfortable environment. They're like, yes, you should sometimes. Yes, you should. But then when you've experienced a nightmare mother-in-law, a nightmare father-in-law and nightmare-in-law family, and you think, God, it's so much, it's just cut people out.

It's easy, is it better for you? Also, like, sometimes there are clashes of scripts and expectations. And so I'm thinking about, like, in South Asian culture, what the expectations of a mother-in-law are. So I'm not saying that this is absolutely universal. I'm saying that this is the sort of more traditional setup, is that when you marry into a family, your mother-in-law gets to run you around like a servant, right?

Like you are supposed to fetch and to carry and to cook and to clean. And you are subordinate to her in terms of the family hierarchy, even if you're highly educated and you're working, right? This isn't actually about being a quote-unquote tradwife, like all of these expectations are also on top of, you must have light skin, you must have a master's degree, You must have a good career. And it's something which is repeated down the generations

because the payoff is when you become a mother-in-law yourself. You get to visit this on whoever it is that's married into your family. And I've seen people really struggle with that, like really, really struggle with it. And the things that have been said are not nice. You know, I've seen and heard mother-in-law's being like, you're getting fat. Like, what's wrong with you? Because it's like, well, I get to say all these things to you because all these things were said to me.

This is the perk. This is my payoff for all of my suffering. And it's really, you know, the idea of no contact in that context is so much of a rupture from what the culture is around. family and the culture around looking after people in their old age. And all these things don't sit well up against each other, right? There are these generational differences. There are cultural values around taking care of people in their old age, of the time they're living with you. And there's also like healthy boundaries, healthy individuation, healthy expectations. All of these things are just a complete mess. And I would say in that context,

going no contact would be, like I said, it's more of a rupture than in more traditionally Western ones because of the norms of the set up, if no contact was a response to that very, very unreasonable mother-in-law. I mean, I think you've heard something with the class of expectations because I was just thinking about families I know and how almost every person who enters the family they're greeted with open arms,

but it doesn't matter how well they'd fit in with the family denominator. There's always a weird period of adjustment where things turn on them for a bit because they don't do things quite the way that's expected. Or there's a faux par, etc. And I know you're saying like, oh, in South Asian families, this would be a huge rupture to do no contact. But like my family, for example, no contact is a huge rupture as well

because the family is a collective. It's seen as collective. And I have a huge amount of guilt from the fact that I like ferried out. Like one of our listeners recently sent in a dilemma that I really related to about this, which is I fared out and went alone. And family have told me they're so loving. They're always there when I come back. But they've told me, oh, we always knew you'd come back at some point.

And I didn't even realize this idea that I'd left. Yeah. I'd chosen to leave that. I was like unaware that it was considered I'd chosen to leave the family in some way by distancing myself. I wasn't aware of how I was distanced to myself from the family and how it was clearly like a topic. Not the biggest topic. They've got lives and much more important things to talk about,

but clearly enough of a topic to be discussed within the family setup. And I've talked to, like, friends, for example, about their family experiences. And, you know, they'll tell me things about how they've made a big decision about their lives or something and accidentally told their family in the way that they knew their family wouldn't take it well because family decisions are meant to be decided together. There's the illusion of, we decide this together and then you go ahead and do it, which is so different to my family as well in some ways. because like they all want to talk about,

but I'm allowed to just kind of go do my thing. But then I, what's the word? Sacrifice being a core part of the family dynamic as that. So I'm thinking as what are like people who marry into the family and people who've married into families. And what's like when you meet the parents? I don't know. Have you experienced being, what's it like?

You obviously won't want to talk about your partner. No, no, no, no. Look, I'm more than happy to talk about my in-laws because I actually think I like hit the jack part of in-laws. And I'm not just saying that. Like, you know, with my partner, how he is with his parents, it's really different from how I feel about mine. And the difference isn't one of love. It's one of expectations.

His parents have an approach to him and his brother, which is very much like, you guys know what's best about what's going to make you happy. And there is a lot of trust and very little expectation, very much. very little guilt. My partner is someone who is so unencumbered by guilt. I'm like you, jammy motherfucker. How did you get here? And I think that's because his parents have, they put a lot of trust in their son's authorship of their own lives. And I don't, I still can't work out, I'm not saying like, why is that? That's wrong. I'm saying like, where does that come from? Because that is so unusual in families, regardless of race, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of religion.

It is so unusual. So for me, coming into that family, they were actually the ones who were nervous about making a faux par. Like, his parents were really nervous about, like, in some way, I mean, you know, and there are reasons for this, right? Like, you know, incomes very brown, you know, seen to be daughter-in-law and they're like, oh, shit,

like, how do I make her feel as welcome as possible? Like, you know, they were nervous about there being differences in class status and education between their family and my family, like all of those things. But like, there were very, very few expectations put on me. I actually think maybe they felt it was the other way around. If it went in any direction, I think it could have gone the other way around. And with my family, I think there's an awful lot of love. and there is a lot of fun, I think that expectations are very, very strong.

And it's not that there's punishment when people deviate from that, but you understand that people think you failed to meet those expectations, which are not communicated in advance of you failing them. And that's much more a dynamic in my family. And I think that this sort of, loop back around to the question of no contact is that what I think everyone has to deal with,

and this is part of growing up, is what does it mean to individuate? What does it mean to go from being a child to an adult? What does it mean to have authorship of your life whilst also being close to, you know, your family of origin, your system of origin? Is it possible? Is it possible? to do that. And so for my partner, the answer was yes. And it was very, very easy to do that. For me, it was that bit more challenging, but I would still ultimately go family good thumb up. And then for others, they find that it is impossible. It is impossible to have proximity to their family of origin whilst having that authorship of their own lives. And I suppose this is a question

I want to throw to you is how much can one offer their own life when does individuating become an unhealthy attachment to individualism oh ash that's a question

I struggle with on the daily I'm constantly flip-flopping between I need to make myself part of the collective and I need to just fucking strike it on my own and do whatever I want and follow my dreams but you can't follow your dreams about infrastructure Actually, I think that is a useful way to think of it.

If no man is an island, then maybe we should think ourselves as the British state. Something I think about quite a lot is how, and maybe this is a stupid analogy, but like how private companies pretend that they are somehow divorced from using the infrastructure of the nation, like, you know, from Amazon workers pretending that, oh, we don't need to pay any tax. because we don't owe anything to the state because we're this island company when it's in fact used the roads, use the same like delivery systems, use the same infrastructure that's been built in, even in the fulfillment centers,

you're using the land or using the water, like you're using all these things and you're taking all this money from the economy and not putting anything back in, like it's just extraction. And if you think of yourself as a person and you just want to extract from the family unit without accepting that there's a tax to pay.

I think there's something to consider there. It's like what, we can't all be rapacious emotional capitalists thinking like I'm only meant to get good out of this. I do think sometimes you just have to suffer a bit of bad. And yeah, it's fucking hard and annoying. But am I learning more through trying to change the relations I have with some family? And there's some family which I do basically have a no-conciliation. contact relationship with, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't codify it as that because I think that's too harsh.

And again, I'm not saying this for people in who are listening who feel like that is a judgment on them for going no contact and that they, you know, they have reasons and they've been really harmed. Like, fine, fine. I'm just talking about, I think in the specific cases that I've discussed where it's like the harm is nothing as concrete as abuse, etc. Like I think it's a better practice to individualate yourself while still being within this structure, within this sort of like family unit, then striking out your own, because that's not really individuation, that's just like isolating yourself. Well, I was thinking that maybe if someone's considering should I go no contact, which maybe some listeners are, for me, my Uno Reverse Back to You question would be,

is it possible to have a relationship with this person? I'm not saying necessarily a good relationship. Like, I'm thinking about someone who maintains a relationship with their mom, and their mom throughout their entire childhood never once said, I love you, right? Never gave hugs. And that did an awful lot of damage to them, being, feeling that unloved. But they still have a relationship of kinds. You wouldn't say it in any way resembles an idealized mother-child relationship.

relationship, but they've got one. Whereas did I ever tell you about the last conversation I had with my dad, my biological dad, not my beloved deceased? You might have, but tell it, tell it again, Stan, play it again, Stan. Okay, so this was about six years ago. This was the last time I spoke to my dad. And a family friend who grew up with me, like a cousin, had died after a very short, very intense illness, died very young. And this family friend was as a child, as a baby, quite close to my dad. You know, my dad was one of the first people to hold him. And there's a whole backdrop of other things there, but I don't want to go into that story

because it's like actually the world's biggest bummer. Anyway, so I thought, and in that sort of muddled way where you think you're doing something for one reason but you're actually doing it for another, this experience of like really sudden loss made me just feel like, fuck, like there will come a day

where I will experience what you experienced, which is you lose the father who you never really had a relationship with. And I'm really scared of that happening, feeling like I didn't do everything I can. So I rang him and I was like, oh, you know, I wanted to have this conversation with you because so and so died. And it made me think we knoweth not the hour. And so if you want to just go for dinner, like, no expectations of like an ongoing relationship, but like, I do just want to know more about who you are. And he said,

well, if we're going to do that, you have to know that I've had my reasons for not, you know, not having a relationship with you and I want to tell you my side of the story. And I said, I don't think that's necessary because that puts me in a position where I essentially have to hear you out on why you abandoned me as a baby. And you're never going to get me to agree with that. Just as I'm never going to get you to agree that that wasn't the right thing for you to do. So why don't we set that aside

and we just have this dinner? And he was like, no, you know, this is so typical. You don't want to listen. You know, nobody wants to listen to my story. You know, why did you call me anyway? And I said, well, I'll call you because so-and-so died. And he said, well, in future, don't do that again, to which I said, you know, I can really see why mum divorced you.

And he hung up on me. And that was the last time we spoke. And two things were really important about that. One is because my partner could hear the entire conversation, because it was sort of leaching through the phone speaker, for the first time, a another human being outside of my family could understand just how mental this man is. Because I've always felt that when I try and tell the story of like, you know, I've met my biological father. I can count the number of times on one hand. And like a couple of those times were like mega fucked up. Like one time I was, I think maybe eight and he was trying to say how like it again was trying to persuade me of the rightness of like not having a

relationship with me or like when I was a teenager and like I went up to visit him and he just didn't give a fuck and so uh ran off and got into all sorts of trouble um you know at the times where he said I don't you know I'm happy dying never seeing you like all these things when I tell people that it sounds made up and so for the first time when someone outside the family system heard it, I was like, validated. Like, that's so good. And then the second thing, and like, this is the difference, I think, between how you experience things as a child and the conclusion I came to as an adult is, as a child,

I did not, because my mom also never slagged him off to us. And that was actually quite confusing. She was doing it because she was like, I don't ever want to be that parent who poisons the children against the other parent, which is totally. morally correct. But the side effect of that was that I didn't have a way to make sense of why is he doing this. You know, well, I must be able to do something to turn him around. And that's how I felt as a child. And then because of this conversation as an adult, I was just like, you can't have a relationship with this man. Like this person or this version of himself that he is when me and my sister hove into view, you can't have a relationship. You can't have a relationship. relationship with him. So even though I don't want to, I don't want to steal his valour. He's the original no contact girly. It's me he was merely adopting the no contact. Now that is a decision that I'm comfortable with, if not happy with I'm comfortable with, because I cannot realistically

in any sense have a relationship with his man. Yeah. And I think that also hits on another point, which is like when people think about no contact with their family or their parents, it's like first consider, can you have any relationship with them? And I'm not talking about like a parent-child relationship because there's, you know, there's now decisions. So, for example, I asked my mum what she thought of a big decision I was making the other day. And she said, that's really stupid. That's really stupid.

Your knockers are big enough. You do not need. No, if I am, I would never get breast. enlargement surgery. I've had big boobs. We know this. We've talked about this. It was not good for me. No, she said, no, that's a silly decision. You should do X, Y, Z. You should try all this. And her advice in the past would have pissed me off because it was just like this blanket disagreement. But I actually thought, and I was like, actually, she has no idea about the conditions. Like, I haven't talked to about it. And I no longer need her to give me the advice in the way that I used to. Like, I'll take it on board,

but she's not my North Star. Like I've spent so much of my life doing things for this like my mother's approval without her even knowing that's what I'm seeking. And it's an ever-moving goalpost because her metrics of approval are not the same as mine. So I'll seek it on something that I think I'm definitely going to get it and then I'll get a critique back

and I'll be dashed on the rocks again and seek it in something else. Whereas the one place where I would really be able to gain her approval to do something that she wants would be actually quite bad for me. not good, I think. So it's like, okay, how do I want to relate to my mother now? Do I want to relate to her as this parent figure?

Or do I want to relate to her as just like someone in my circle that's giving me advice that I can take or leave? I'm going to choose the latter in this situation. And that really changed how I thought about it. I was like, okay, I can deal with this. Like, when I was seeing my mum as this like authoritarian on high, I have to everything she says figure, the parent with a capital P, it wasn't good for our relationship. And I would always regress into the child.

But now we are adults. And if I want to have a relationship with, I have to change how I react to her and whether the child is always coming out when I talk to her. Because when the child comes out around my mother, it's sulky, it's sad, it's rude, and I get tired of her really quickly in a way that's very mean. And it's not her fault. But it's just the dynamic that was set in my childhood. So it's like, okay, I could bring the adult out.

And then we could have a nice day at a gallery. And I could think, oh, we've had a lovely day. Not peers, because we're not peers. There's a generational gap. And she has different experiences to me. something else, something new. And it's like, okay, that's a relationship I want to have. I think that you've hit on something, which is, you know, I don't think you can expect parents to be bounderied. Now, which boundaries get crossed, obviously, like, this comes back to the essential

first. That's the first boundary that was crossed. From then, when it was game over, like, what's you've been out through someone's birth canal? How can you expect to turn around be like, treat me as an equal? Well, do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, I wasn't boundaryed as a baby when I was screaming at 5 in the morning because I wanted

my milk mother. Literally like, oh, you've literally changed my liquid shit. Like, even if you didn't give birth to the child, you've changed their liquid shit or you have washed their knee. You've seen them at their most vulnerable and helpless.

And when we get older, we're like, now treat me as an equal. Scraped me up on the floor when I tried to impress a boy by drinking a bottle of tequila. They have a wealth of experiences of us, not as equals. And then we suddenly hit like, Adolfo and we're like,

and now you need to respect me too. That's the thing. Is that like, I think, you know, I'm not saying that like it's okay for, you know, it's like which boundaries gets across. Like I think it all comes back to you. Like, is it possible to have a relationship with this person? But no, my mom's not going to be boundaryed.

She loves me more than she loves her own life. Right? Like she does. And like, you know, my mom's love for her children can be ferocious, sometimes a tiny bit scary. I'm like, oh, like I can see how people kill now. Like, you know, there's this, um, there's this something very primal about it. And so if I go, turn around and I go, well, I want that love to suddenly be boundary. She's like, fuck off. That's not the deal. I gave you life. That is not a boundaryed love. Um, and so I think that that's, that's not a reasonable expectation. what's interesting, and I think that this is, you know, different children. You can have the same biological parents.

You don't have the same parents. When you said that for the first time on this, do you know how many times I've told other people that? Do you know how many times like Ash says on the podcast? That is one of your sayings that has swirmed its way in here. It's become a seminal text in my head. The wisest shit I have ever or will ever say. Like my relationship with my mum is really different from my sisters.

And my mum's involvement in my sister's life is very, very different from how I want it to be for mine. And I think that's, that's fine. But it's like, I don't think it's fine. I know cognitively that's fine. I do not feel that it is fine. But it's like, one of the things that I can see my mum really trying to do. And like, I can see the effort it takes her. And I, I really appreciate this. and I love this about her, is that when I say something to her that is clearly at odds with her idea of what a happy, safe, secure life would be for me, I can see her take a breath and she goes, okay.

She goes, okay. And I can see it's taking every fucking sinew in her body to allow me to author my own life in this way. And she won't always succeed But fuck me I love that she's trying Yeah and that's what you can do Try

And so in Because I think we should move on to some people's problems In a minute But in sort of my I want to say last word on it But then I always say like three more words On the subject Is there are some clear situations

Where as you say You cannot have a relationship with the parent That may be where there has been abuse That may be another situation And, like, you know, you have a madman on the phone who is saying things that know. This man is a fruit loop. Yeah, he's a fruit loop. Which is saying things where you're like, I cannot hope to have any sort of relationship with this person

because they're just not living on the same planet as me. And it would cause me great distress to interact with them for even a short period of time. Fine. But there's also places where it's like there's going to be difficulties in friction in the relationship. And you have difficulties in friction with your friends, but you might not cut them off as easily because there's something else with family. It just gets the raw, quick of you. And I think a lot of the no contact is avoidance, which I love and totally get.

But maybe it is actually better to, for our own personal growth, if you still want to think about it, individualistic terms, to try. And I think trying is one of the noblest things we can do. Last, last, last point, right before I went away, because, you know, the last two years were sort of defined for me by like feelings of crisis, feelings of responsibility. And I was really locked in the guilt obligation vortex. And going away for a month and a bit to the other side of the world, which just before I went, my mum said, I don't expect any causal text from you. Just go and have fun.

Is that for me, I was like, and of course I texted her. I just sent her like random photos of monkeys all the time. I was like, here's a monkey. That blessing to sort of like exit that system of obligation. of obligation has made me come back and how I feel being around her is really, really different. And so I think that there is this thing because there will be some parents who are listening to this. You know, we've had some dilemmas written in by parents, which is my child is making a choice.

I don't know how to wrap my head around it is sometimes the most generous thing you can do is give them that leeway to go. Like, I don't need, if my anxiety to keep you close, or in my orbit is at the wheel all the time. That's how I'm going to lose you. And so even though it was like a relatively small thing, it's a holiday, it's for a month and her just being like, hey, no expectations of like causal text.

I've come back and I'm like, Mommy, I love you. Mommy, I love you so much. Yeah, because she gave you the space. To feel that on your own rather than the obligation to perform what you thought, think is like acts of love. It's how to describe it. I think that's a lovely note to leave it. Speaking of acts of love.

What's the act of love this time? Well. This is our regular scheduled dilemmas segment. I'm in big trouble. If you are in big trouble, medium trouble, molecular, atomic trouble. Email us at if I speak at navaramedia.com. That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. Moya, I'm going to race through reading this one out because I actually think that you are the best person to answer it,

to kick things off. Okay, let's go. I'm opening it, which is why if people are watching these clips, I'm looking at two screens, it is merely me reading the dilemmas. It's because she's got multiple screens in the Goon Cave. All right. This is Ash and Moyer. Loyal special one here. I love you both and love the different approaches you bring to discussion. As a Marxist, I really love hearing Ash dissect more personal and cultural issues through this lens, whereas Moyer is able to bring in really insightful and often very relatable counterpoints. I'm also avoidant. Listening to your podcast makes my day.

I, 22F, recently broke up with a partner of six months, 22M. I sort of sprung it on him a few days after a big and miserable argument that was started by him accusing me of flirting with my best mate, a gay man who my partner knew is gay. I know it wasn't a particularly long relationship, but trust me, it was very intense and unusually serious for two 22-year-olds. We also knew each other for a while beforehand. I broke up with him because he is very jealous and insecure. He would put me in very hurtful, stressful and sometimes humiliating situations to the point I stopped bringing him out with certain friends because they were worried about me. Not only was he jealous about me having friendly interactions with other good-looking men slash women or getting hit on at work, I bartend, but it was also jealous of me having a quite large circle of friends and that I would get more attention than him.

He doesn't get hit on anymore. He is self-hating but in the way that he feels he deserves much better, i.e. more attention, better job, higher social capital, etc. The relationship was starting to make me miserable, anxious and drained because of the incessant clinginess, need to know what I was doing, the constant reassurance he needed and ridiculous fake scenarios he would make up. My empathy started to dwindle. No matter how much I reassured. him and told him how much I loved him, it was never enough, a bottomless pit of need. He is very self-aware and would also apologise and take accountability, but almost as a way to absolve himself of what he was doing. This makes him sound bad, but I promise he is also incredibly lovely, kind, talented,

generous and funny. A warm and loving person who would try to do literally everything for me, got me lots of very amazing personal gifts to my taste, took care of me and loved me more than maybe anyone else ever will. Context over. Since I broke up with him, he has completely cut me off. He's gone no contact. Unfollowed me on everything, given my stuff to a mate to give to me, said he was going to delete all photos of me and that he could never ever see me again because it's too painful. You know what I'm thinking? You didn't have to cut me out. I'm not making fun of you special one. It is just... That is the song. It's the song.

Initially, I thought in a few months he could recover and we could be friends, but now I'm not too sure. I selfishly called him in a weak moment the other night, suggesting we see each other so I could bring him his books. Yes, an obvious ploy to see him. But he was cold, told me to give them to the allocated friend and hung up on me. This was the first time I actually cried since the breakup. I can't stop feeling like he's trying to punish me and that he hates me now. I really miss him and hanging out with him, but I also feel so much happier and lighter in myself. Now I'm I'm free. I also am finally doing stuff I stopped doing in the relationship. In a lot of ways, I'm kind of slaying the breakup, seeing my friends more journaling, a lot feeling happier, taking

myself out on dates. I've already been asked out by a few people and even had a cheeky kiss, though I'm not interested in getting into anything sexual or romantic at the moment. I really don't want to lose him as a person in my life, but from the way he responded to my calling, I'm not even sure if we could be friends at all. I miss his sweetness and insight and the lighthearted silly fun we were able to make out of any mundane activity. I'm also very worried about his well-being due to mental health issues. So now he has lost the person he relied on emotionally. I don't know what he's using to cope. Another factor is I recently started taking antidepressants, which have made me have a far tolerant, far lower tolerance for bullshit,

and for lack of better words, have become nonchalant as fuck. Should I have broken up with him so suddenly, do you think we can eventually be friends, or do you think he won't want any communication with me again? Or is it even a good idea for me to be friends with someone who is such deep-reated emotional issues? By the way, he lives a 25-minute walk from mine and have already bumped into his flatmate outside Liddles since the breakup. Apologies if this is too ranty. Would love to hear any thoughts you have. Be harsh. I probably need it. Much love, a very conflicted special one. Are you like Moyo go first because you're the bad cop? No, no, no, I'm going to also be bad cop. This is going to be bad cop and worse cop.

I'm actually going to just be normal cop. And now I'm going to say, this is just a breakup. The overthinking you are doing is trying to make it into something pathological or pin your emotions on, yeah, there's obviously like avoidance in him that you've broken up with him and gone, oh, I miss him so much. But that is also just what happens in a breakup. You break up with someone and then you get the withdrawal. and you feel sad, you are worried about this person that you loved,

but you broke up with him for a reason. There is a book written by the same people who wrote, he's just not that into you. And unfortunately, terrible and yet seminal, useful text, and actually quite useful text, I'm not going to lie. Very misogynistic at times, also very right at times. It's called a breakup because he's broken follows the same lines. It is called a breakup because it's broken.

The relationship was broken. You were miserable, you were anxious. So you have left the relationship. Your life has improved already. You still care about this person? You're worried about him. That's normal. It is no longer your job to do those things.

It was never actually your job in the first place. But all these questions and all this worry is just sort of like padding over the fact that you had a breakup and it was sad and it's painful. And I think a lot of the sort of like wringing our hands and thinking that we do around breakups and questions. of like, but there's this factor and this factor. It's just to kind of dress up the immutable fact that this hurts, this hurts. We want to make it more than this mundane pain because it feels like the worst thing anyone's ever had happened to them ever. But unfortunately, if people have this every single day, when my friend had his first breakup,

he went, did you know people could feel like this? And that's how you're feeling break up. You're like, did you know people could feel like this? And the answer is yes. And you'll feel like this for a bit and then you won't follow this anymore. But the main thing I'd say is don't make any decisions. and the no contact thing he's done is actually good. Yeah, that's actually good.

That is a good thing he has done. You can't be friends in the first few months, and you can't predict with you be friends. It's like giving someone a loan, right? If you give money away, my thesis is, you have to give that with the expectation you will never get it back. Do not ever loan money that you are prepared

not to get back, to get back, that you have to get back. You have to give money and be like, I might never get that back. You have to break up with something I might never get that back I might never have that person back in my life that is the deal you make when you break up with them

it is sad but it is necessary because the relationship will no longer function as it was it may never function as it was and the way you talk about this man leading with his faults you go afterwards yeah these are nice things but like the faults have become front and centre

you even say in the last bit can I be friends with someone with such deep emotional issues maybe but it might not be your ex and you have to go no contact for a bit and swork on your own life special one i say this with love you and your ex are sort of mirrors of each other you are both unboundaried motherfuckers and you both have a poor understanding of where the self ends and the other begins and that's okay like that's really typical for

relationships in your late teens and early 20s. There is often an intensity and a sort of cycle of being very, very present, lots of gifts, all of these sort of signs of I'm giving you attention and I want attention from you and a feeling of crisis when that attention is pulled away. So for your that was your friendships with other people and for you it's in the breakup. And I think that this is a really important learning. And I think it's learning that most people have to do, which is that one, you cannot completely fold another person in every aspect of them into your life, by which I mean everything they do is your responsibility. and everything they do has an impact on you, which is so disruptive to your life.

And two, when the relationship is over, those bonds of obligation are severed. I mean, obviously, if they're drowning, chuck him a life ring. Other than that, it's, I'm talking about literally drowning, not, I think he might be having trouble with his mental health. he might be but it's on him to deal with now with his existing support network or to build one like you've also got no sign that he is in crisis i think that you're perhaps struggling with you were the centre of his world there were bad things as well as good things that came with it and now that that's gone you're missing you're missing that piece which made you feel so essential and so critical to someone's very existence um

And this is just a part of growing up and your sense of what love is developing over time. Love is not gifts. Like love is not personal, personal gifts. It's not that's a sort of, every time you get a gift like that, that's a tug on your sleeve. It's not the same thing as care, respect, love, building a life for someone. And that's all we have to say about that because it was a person. Perfect encapsulation of how you change what you think lovers. And that's such a joy to discover as well.

You're 22. You're going to have some more intense love affairs and you might have a big caring love affair and you'll have all these different things in your life and the world is your oyster and you should enjoy it. And I'm 31. And my life is just beginning. So. So, Ash, should we go live our lives? Yeah, should we go live our lives?

All right, special ones. You've been great. Oh, actually, one more thing. If you would like to live our lives with us for a little bit, you can come. come to the Crossed Wires podcast festival on the 4th of July in Sheffield. We are so excited about this. We're going to be doing it overnight. We're going to be hanging around.

We're going to be living up with Sheffield. I love Sheffield. I love Sheffield. It's a good city. Ash actually knows Sheffield pretty well. I would say reasonably well. Yeah. Do you think it's your second city after London if you have to pick a UK city?

Ooh. Yeah. Okay. I should have done that as a fucking question, shouldn't I? Down. And on that note, see you next week's special ones. Bye.