I've had so many "last straw" moments with my family... NMom--Went NC when GCSis told her therapist that GCBro acted inappropriately towards her during a therapy session after her suicide attempt. This was a complaint I'd made for years about him and was told I was "parading" myself around the house for "attention"--I wore sweats. Not the cute ones, either. The men's sweats from Walmart. Cut to GCSis making the same accusations and NMom is crying to all of us girls for not protecting us and apologizing. I thought she'd finally woken up and maybe our relationship could improve-- until 2 weeks later when she told me none of it ever happened. Right, I'm not going to talk to you for a while. I went NC for about a year and then went VLC after that because NDad was very ill.
NSis--This one was my best friend and I protected her and shielded her from our NMom. I took her in on weekends once I got my own place in college. I let her live with me rent-free for a year and got her a job when NMom kicked her out of the house--I had to work 50-60 hour weeks to afford her. She was consistently a terrible person, but I'd overlook it. She'd do something really shitty pretty much every month and then act like she did nothing wrong. It was like a drop of water dripping and dripping, wearing away at the same spot over time. Lying about me, making fun of my dog having cancer, lying to get an important heirloom from NMom, taunting me with it---I finally had enough when NMom died. NSis didn't want to call me so I could make the trip home (I lived several hours away). "F*ck Harbingerofgloom!" was what she said. She and GCSis booked it to my parents' home and cleared out my mother's jewelry box and stole heirlooms--our dad was still alive, nothing should have been taken. I finally had enough when she informed me I was hosting them for the holidays for a week because they "needed to get away from it all" and that I was to spend 5x as much on gifts so they could "still have a nice Christmas". I told her I was taking a break. That was 7 years ago.
GCSis--She and NSis are codependent and what one does, the other one helps with. When things went down after NMom's death, GCSis stole something that was mine and tried to manipulate the situation for NSis. I told her peace out. It's been 7 years.
GCBro--He was extremely abusive growing up and I had little to do with him until NMom died. I put up with him because our NDad, whom he lived with, was critically ill, and it was the only way to get info. I finally decided it wasn't worth it several months before NDad died. I won't go into specifics because it's too long and convoluted/crazy-making, but he basically threatened to bankrupt me and shrieked that I deserved to die, then tried to deny doing any of it. Most of it stemmed from his inability to admit that our father was not immortal (he had 3 things that kill you). NDad died, he made it 100x worse than it needed to be (we're talking Lifetime movie levels of bad), then tried to pretend that I hadn't been NC for several months. Denied that I hadn't gone months without talking to him (He literally said "That never happened." when I said "I haven't spoken to you in 7 months. Why do you think that is?"). Denied doing anything wrong. Told me I was psychotic for mentioning it, told me I was crazy. And I'm out. Solid NC because at best he's manipulative and at worst he's mentally disturbed.
How hard is it to just act right? I mean, I really wonder...