Have you been disowned by a family member?

[MimitoAlex]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc.

Yes this...

 

[ronandannette]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc. That had to take a huge toll alone, as so many immature people these days seem unable to maintain relationships with anyone who dares to hold a differing opinion or perspective.

Yes. And with culture changing at a dizzying pace, the words tolerance, offence and even love/hate have taken on skewed new meanings. We’re seeing the very real and devastating consequences of semantics dividing people in ways we couldn’t have dreamed of. It’s like an evil spell we’re all under. My prayer is that everyone will find ways to stay true to their own beliefs and worldviews while finding it in their hearts to be very, very moderate in their approach to others and steer this crazy mess back towards true tolerance of diversity and harmonious co-existence.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc. That had to take a huge toll alone, as so many immature people these days seem unable to maintain relationships with anyone who dares to hold a differing opinion or perspective.

The research does seem to indicate politics are increasingly becoming a reason for adult children to split off from their parents (however this pre-dates the pandemic) but at least from what has been self-reports in these studies it's more like parents being anti-gay or non-supporters of the Community, racial or ethnicity prejudice, as well as the conspiracy theories that have increasingly gotten a hold of the 60+ age group.

However, I do think there is a valid point to the differing opinions but would say that in real life it's more complicated than breaking it down to "dares to hold a differing opinion or perspective".

 

[Aladora]

Yes, a few. One by my choice and the rest by theirs.

One of my husband's sisters refuses to speak and has since before our son was born in 2005. She never contacted us when he was born and never reached out while I was going through cancer treatment in 2007. In 2006, we flew to Ontario and when we were there we went to a 50th wedding anniversary party for DH's grandparents. His sister actually skipped the party because I was there. Zero idea why she has a hate-on for me but I truly do not lose any sleep over it. A few years ago my mother in law got remarried so we were all there. We had to sit our son down and tell him that he actually has 3 aunts, up until then he only knew my sister and my husband's youngest sister.

My uncle and cousin have not spoken to really anyone in our family for years. In 2007, while I was doing chemo for breast cancer, my aunt was going through her second fight with breast cancer and sadly she passed away right after my 3rd chemo treatment. The relationship with that part of the family was already a bit rough due to a disagreement about my grandparent's wills. There are a few trust funds that my grandfather set up and they were all to be divided equally between the 5 grandchildren. My mother had 2 sisters. Her older sister has 2 children, she has 2 children, but the younger sister only had 1 child. My uncle and cousin felt that the trusts should be divided into 3 (1/3 to the children of each daughter) instead of the way that they were set up (divided by 5 and each grandchild gets 1/5).

So yeah, like many of these stories here, it all started because of money.

The one by my choice is my father's wife. I had zero contact with her 2015-2021 and since 2021 I have seen her exactly twice for a few hours. That one is a super long story but suffice it to say, the very last time I will ever see her is the day of my father's funeral if he predeceases her. I'm not looking forward to that day but I am looking forward to not having to deal with her ever again.

 

[robinb]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc. That had to take a huge toll alone, as so many immature people these days seem unable to maintain relationships with anyone who dares to hold a differing opinion or perspective.

I think that everything has become much more vitriolic in the past 5 or so years. I personally think the change in attack politics and the public belittling of anyone who doesn't agree politically gave folks free rein to do the same IRL. It's a real shame. I actually lost a long time friend over politics and Covid. She and I disagreed on both and she would come into my FB page to share some nonsense and tell me to "wake up" and my politically like-minded friends would attack her. I would try to calm the waters telling my other friends to leave her alone because she was one of my Cubs baseball friends. I disagreed with her but I *always* knew we were on different ends of the political spectrum so her outbursts really didn't bother me. Sadly, she did not feel the same way and she eventually defriended and blocked me.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think that everything has become much more vitriolic in the past 5 or so years. I personally think the change in attack politics and the public belittling of anyone who doesn't agree politically gave folks free rein to do the same IRL. It's a real shame. I actually lost a long time friend over politics and Covid. She and I disagreed on both and she would come into my FB page to share some nonsense and tell me to "wake up" and my politically like-minded friends would attack her. I would try to calm the waters telling my other friends to leave her alone because she was one of my Cubs baseball friends. I disagreed with her but I *always* knew we were on different ends of the political spectrum so her outbursts really didn't bother me. Sadly, she did not feel the same way and she eventually defriended and blocked me.

Back in 2015 I unfollowed my mother-in-law due to her going towards the conspiracy realm. In person she would say some things here and there and we'd be able to move along in topics quickly enough.

I found it was very easy to just unfollow on FB and just never see that. But it's a lot harder if someone keeps going on your page. Even now though my mother-in-law will FB message me random stories (thankfully a lot less than she does to my husband) and I just make it a point to basically ignore it all.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc. That had to take a huge toll alone, as so many immature people these days seem unable to maintain relationships with anyone who dares to hold a differing opinion or perspective.

I've certainly seen things from family members via social media that they would never in a million years say in person. I haven't disowned them but I do view them in a different light after seeing that.

Social media in general has allowed some people to withdraw to corners of the internet where everyone is like minded. I find people that do that have a hard time adjusting to real life interactions where people have differing views. Tolerance and debate skills no longer exist and they resort to deep cutting insults or leaving the conversation.

 

[robinb]

Back in 2015 I unfollowed my mother-in-law due to her going towards the conspiracy realm. In person she would say some things here and there and we'd be able to move along in topics quickly enough.

I found it was very easy to just unfollow on FB and just never see that. But it's a lot harder if someone keeps going on your page. Even now though my mother-in-law will FB message me random stories (thankfully a lot less than she does to my husband) and I just make it a point to basically ignore it all.

It was more than an unfollow which just keeps most stuff out of your timeline. She unfriended me and blocked me so I can't see her posts at all.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

So sorry for everyone's experiences in this thread. I often wonder how many more family estrangements have occurred as a direct result of all the anger and social media fighting since 2020 over politics, masks, vaccines, fake news, etc.

Not in my family, but I've seen this happen. Parents got drawn into paranoid conspiracies circulating on social media and then became obsessed and enraged when adult kids didn't agree. Kids tried really hard to just make agreements to not talk about certain subjects, but the parents kept twisting any mundane topic back onto their conspiracies, and so now they don't talk at all.