My parents have threatened to disown me (20F) if I return to university.

Im sorry but there is no choice here.

Unless you plan to live the life your parents dictate to you, you have no choice but to keep going to university and sort out your own finances.

What may seem like an immediate fix of the problems is NO FIX AT ALL. You dont have the mindset of having your entire life and future dictated by your parents.

Tell your parents that you have to finish your education. That you wont have your future dictated by a vindictive vengeful act from a person who abused you, and then enforced by your father at a time where he should be helping you cope. be careful not to make it a discussion. Tell them, then hang up the phone - Im seriously telling you that confronting them directly with what they are actually doing and then completely grey rocking any further contact from them is THE only way to maybe nip this in the bud. If your mom realises you wont back down, and your dad realises it too, and your mom and grandmother start to work on him, he may come around. But if you act as though there is wiggleroom for him to dictate to you, you will NEVER reach a status of authority over your own life, with him. Tell them you'd want to see them and have contact with them, and that to not have any contact will be entirely their choice if thats what happens.

Do NOT buy into the idea that stopping your education is a cure-all for anything going wrong in your relationship with your parents. The issues are seperate and have nothing to do with one another. That your father is choosing to use this conflict as a way to stop you from recieving an education he was against from the get-go speaks volumes of his personality and spirit. Do NOT attempt to apeace this man. Let him be stubborn. Im telling you that no father wants to grow old and sick and die knowing he lost his child through his own choice. He may think he has you under his thumb, with no way out. But he doesnt. He will reach out to you eventually or your mother will. Dont believe she is going to accept a year, or 2 or 5 of this because he is stubborn.

I have been NC with my parents since I was 24. My dad reached out to me when he got cancer for the second time, and I told him he had made himself irrelevant to my life 10 yrs ago when he threw me out like so much garbage. Now Im not you, my story isnt yours. But if I forgive my dad, it will be for me.. for my piece of mind, not to ease his regrets on his deadbed.

The key to handling NC is to make friends, get invited for their holidays and family celebrations, so that you arent alone at important moments. You learn to substitute the people who couldnt love you unconditionally, because of their own hangups, with people who love you as you are. Its tough. Im not going to lie to you and tell you its easy. But the alternative: To make yourself small enough to fit someone elses idea about who you should be, and what you should do with your life, is like willingly submitting yourself to live your life as a slave to someone whipping you with their: I love you, I just want whats best for you, dont you love us, we worry so much for you, why cant you just do what we ask - etc etc .... nowhere is there ever going to be a mention of what you as a person seperate from them would want for yourself. That is not part of the love awarded to you from your parents.

/r/relationships Thread