Creating “no contact” boundaries is an approach to managing difficult relationships that has been touted as a game changer across social-media platforms. On the surface it sounds logical—you have no contact with toxic people…those who bring negativity into your life.
But depending on the circumstances, no contact actually can have have negative repercussions for all parties involved, whether it is adult children cutting ties with parents or siblings or anyone cutting off a long-standing friendship, warns marriage therapist, Michele Weiner-Davis.
To explain the no-contact rule and why it’s a troubling trend, we turned to Weiner-Davis, a therapist with experience in family therapy, who has specialized in couples therapy for four decades.
Why the No-Contact Rule May Hurt More Than Help
Since cutting people out of one’s life is painful even under the best of circumstances, in most situations, trying to fix, heal or nurture a relationship should be the starting point. “As an eternal optimist, I don’t feel that emotional cut-offs are the best way to solve relationship problems,” says Weiner-Davis. You may feel incredible relief in the moment when you make the decision to cut off someone who, in your mind, has been toxic and/or who has taken a toll on your emotional well-being. But no matter what you tell yourself, when you break off a relationship with someone who has been important in your life, it remains a drumbeat in the background. You can compartmentalize it to some extent, but there always will be reminders or triggers. Example: You might wake up on that person’s birthday and remember some of the good times you had together and feel sad that you’re not in touch.
The cut-off can be like a thorn in your side, and it takes a lot of energy to try to suppress those feelings…and it takes a toll emotionally and physically. This can even impact your immune system. “It seems to me a no-brainer to take whatever steps you can to make sure this doesn’t happen,” says Weiner-Davis. You can start by acknowledging that relationships are messy—even good relationships have hard times.
There often are unintended repercussions to taking a cleaver to a relationship. Example: If you have children and you cut your parents out of their lives, you’re robbing the kids of a relationship with their grandparents. A difficult adult-child-parent relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a difficult grandparent-child relationship. Some people even have told me that their strict parents are much more loving and warm with their own kids. Another downside: No contact teaches children that the way to handle conflict is to back out of the relationship.
I also see people going no contact with friends. People do outgrow some friendships, and perhaps there is a person who you feel your life would be better without. But some people develop a pattern of cutting out friends over small disagreements instead of being able to talk things through. “I guarantee that when you have meaningful relationships in your life, you’re going to feel hurt at some points,” Weiner-Davis warns. Knowing that it happens and knowing how to work through it is important. Not having that skill—and not recognizing how important it is—will leave you alone and lonely. There will always be a source of disappointment and, therefore, disconnection. Having the ability to work through difficult times is very empowering.
Reminder: Many people on the receiving end of no contact don’t understand why the relationship was terminated. They were never given the opportunity to have a conversation—they were just told the relationship was over. You can see how this is a lose-lose situation that no one learns from.
How to Make Desired Changes Happen
I often hear that, after months or years of trying to repair a relationship, the parent or spouse or friend was simply unwilling to change. But rather than cut off the person, it’s important to look at what went wrong and see if that can be resolved. Here’s how…
Communicate better
Communication has two parts—how the message is delivered…and how it is received. How you go about communicating what you want can make a world of difference. When you talk about what you need, what you want and how you feel, do it in a way that makes the other person more receptive.
Example: If you approach the problem by blaming—“You really ignored my needs”—you’re likely to be met with defensiveness and anger, which you’ll interpret that as an unwillingness to change.
More effective approach: Use what’s called “I-messages” that take ownership of your feelings, reactions and perceptions. Example: Instead of “You really ignored my needs,” try “I have felt unimportant to you, and that hurts my feelings.” While the other person can argue with you about whether or not your needs were ignored, he can’t argue with you about how you feel.
Explain what you would rather have happen
We are experts at describing what we are unhappy about, but we are novices at describing what we would have preferred to have happen. Be very specific when you articulate your requests.
Example: A spouse might say that her partner is careless or insensitive but fail to say what behaviors she would like to see instead. Partners will tell me, “I wish my spouse was a better communicator” or “I want more love…or intimacy…or respect.” These words sound like they’re packed with meaning, but what love or intimacy means to one person may be different from what it means to someone else. To avoid misunderstandings, spell it out in action-oriented behavioral terms. Instead of saying, “I want you to be a better communicator,” say, “When we talk, I would appreciate it if you made eye contact with me. I would also love it if you initiated conversations once in a while. And when I speak, please ask me questions or comment on what I say. That way I will know you are listening.”
Use these same tools for any relationship that’s problematic. Example: If the difficult relationship is with a parent who doesn’t respect your boundaries with your kids, be specific about what upsets you. Say, “It is not okay to let them stay up until 9:30 pm. I really would like it if you honored their 7:30 pm bedtime” or “It would be great if I could trust you to not give them sugar, even if you don’t agree with me and even if you feel like spoiling them.”
Develop empathy
This is especially important when it comes to your parents.
When people complain about how their parents were harsh or not nurturing, I ask them to tell me about their parents’ childhood—they may have been raised by very abusive or challenging parents and have had traumatic experiences themselves. How they were parented doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it helps if you have some empathy for what they experienced and remember that no one, including their parents, is born knowing how to be a parent.
Finding the Right In-Between
Part of the problem with the no-contact rule is that it’s all or nothing—you can’t speak to the person you cut off…you block their calls… you unfriend them on your Facebook page…and so on.
But there are alternatives: You can decide that you don’t want to cut a person out of your life completely, and instead you can limit the quality and quantity of time you spend with them. You can establish boundaries that enable you to nurture the connection as opposed to having a disconnection. And you can do so without living in an ongoing state of anxiety. You can learn new skills to stay centered even when your loved one gets prickly, remembering that some of their difficult behavior has nothing to do with you.
When There Are Benefits of No Contact
When there has been ongoing abuse, either physical or emotional, and when the person who has perpetuated the abuse is unwilling to hear their loved one’s pain or do anything to change, ending the relationship may be the only way to save yourself. Sometimes with the help of a therapist, you realize that doing so is self-care. Oftentimes, people who make this decision under such extreme circumstances feel a sense of empowerment and a sense of personal agency, having finally extricated themselves from a very unhealthy relationship. And, in many cases, they do not feel guilt or regret.
When to Seek the Right Therapy
We are our own best experts when deciding what we can and can’t tolerate in a relationship. Only you can decide ultimately what’s best for you. But that doesn’t mean that you should make that decision alone. It may help to have a professional who can help you see the situation from all angles.
One caveat: All therapists are biased—“Yes, I’m biased, too,” says Weiner-Davis. But not all therapists are aware of the subtle, insidious ways that their bias channels conversations. If a therapist has had what he/she considers to be a happier life because he has cut other people out, it might be reasonable for him to assume that would work for you rather than help you build skills to improve your relationship. Be an intelligent consumer—ask any therapists you’re considering about their views of going no contact and under what circumstances, if any, they think it would be a wise decision.
Also: There is a difference between seeing an individual therapist and a relationship-oriented therapist…
An individual therapist focuses on you, wanting to know about your upbringing and connecting the dots between experiences you had as a child and how they may influence you as an adult. That therapist’s goal is to help you evolve as an individual. She accepts your one-sided explanation of your situation because that’s all she has to go on.
A relationship-oriented therapist will bring the other person into the session to have a constructive conversation. He will ask about the ways in which this relationship difficulty has been approached to see if there are alternatives. His lens isn’t just on one person…it’s on the interactions between two people.
“I’m all about people getting help for whatever ails them in their lives,” says Weiner-Davis. “But go to the person who is most appropriate for the problem at hand. And in the case of a relationship issue, I am biased about going to someone whose background is about relationships.”
The Time to Act Is Now
I have a dear friend who shared a powerful story. Her sister and their mother had a cut-off, and it was very painful for my friend, who tried to mediate their conflict. She finally got them to agree that it was time to come together to mend the relationship. Sadly, the mother had a heart attack and died before it happened.
You may think, Maybe someday when things are different, I will [fill in the blank]. But that day may never come. So ask yourself, if the difficult person in your life died, how would you feel about the relationship ending this way? If the answer is “not so great,” then there’s no time like the present to do something about it.
