Should I Go No Contact With My Mom? 12 Honest Questions

The scene below is a composite, drawn from the kinds of experiences many daughters describe. It isn't one person's story.

It's 1 a.m. and you've typed "should I go no contact with my mom" into a search bar for the third time this month. Earlier tonight she called to say your sister "actually makes time for her." You laughed it off on the phone, then sat in the car for twenty minutes before you could go inside. Part of you wants someone to just tell you: yes, leave, or no, you're overreacting. Nobody can do that for you, and you'd be right not to trust anyone who tried.

What we can do is give you better questions. This page is built on the idea at the heart of this site: there's no winning with her. There is choosing. No contact is one choice. So is low contact, staying in touch on new terms, or trying counseling together. Each one costs something.

The short answer

Before you start: one rule

If you're not safe, safety comes first. If there's violence, threats, stalking, or she turns up where she isn't wanted, the question isn't "which option" yet. It's how to stay safe. Please look at our resources page and the hotlines at the end of this page before anything else.

For everyone else: grab paper, or a notes app, and write your answers down. Patterns are easier to see in writing than in your head at 1 a.m.

The 12 questions

1. Is it harmful, or is it hard?

Not every painful mother is a dangerous one, and not every hurt calls for the same response. Nedra Glover Tawwab, LCSW, author of Drama Free, puts the question like this, in an interview with SELF:

Write down the last three interactions that hurt. Were they one-off clumsy moments, or part of a pattern: put-downs, rewriting what happened, punishing you for having limits?

2. What have you already tried, and what happened?

Shorter calls, fewer visits, saying "please don't talk about my weight," leaving when she started. If you've tried limits and they were respected, even grudgingly, that's information. If they were run over every time, that's information too. Many daughters who end up at no contact have tried softer options for years first. Jess Sprengle, LPC, quoted in Psychology Today, says no contact "is almost always a last resort."

3. What happens in your body before and after contact?

Dread the night before? A headache afterward? Days to feel like yourself again? You don't need anyone's permission to take that seriously.

4. What do you want to be different?

Be concrete. "I want to stop dreading Sundays." "I want her to stop commenting on my kids." "I want to stop being her therapist." Psychologist Chivonna Childs, PhD, speaking to Cleveland Clinic, suggests thinking carefully about what you hope no contact will achieve, and whether that expectation is fair given who she is. Some goals can be met with less distance. Some can't be met by any option, including no contact. (No option will make her into the mother you needed.)

5. Is fear, obligation or guilt answering for you?

If every answer begins with "but she'll be upset" or "she'll tell everyone," that's worth noticing. That pressure has a name, FOG, and it's what the film FOG is named for. Our page on fear, obligation and guilt explains it. Morrigan's low-contact mantra helps some daughters here: "If one of us has to be upset, it doesn't have to be me."

6. Who else is affected?

Your kids. A partner. A father who still lives with her. Siblings. Shuman points out that cutting off one parent can affect your relationship with the other, and with siblings who don't understand your reasons. None of that means you have to stay. It means you get to plan for it.

7. Is there anything good you'd lose?

Some daughters have a mother who is cruel in private and genuinely fun at a museum. Some have nothing good left to protect. Shuman suggests that if there are redeeming parts, it may be worth trying other adjustments first. Be honest either way. There's no wrong answer, only an honest one.

8. Could you live with a "civil" relationship?

The first of Morrigan's options is to "Carry on as you always have, but with your new awareness protecting you." She calls it, in part, "a weather-topic relationship": light topics, little shared. Karyl McBride, Ph.D., LMFT, describes the same thing as a civil connection: "It will be civil, polite, light, and not emotionally close." Could you live with that? Would it be enough distance? Our guide to staying in touch on new terms shows what it looks like in practice.

9. Would less contact be enough?

There's a lot of ground between every Sunday and never again. Tawwab again:

She gives the example of a relationship that's "We talk four times a year." That's low contact, and it has its own costs. Morrigan warns that it can mean "constantly manning the boundaries."

10. Would she take any responsibility?

The fourth option, counseling together, only tends to work in a narrow situation. McBride: "It can only be done, though, if the parent is accountable and wants to work through family issues and childhood pain." If you've ever seen her genuinely own something, that's worth weighing. If every conversation ends with you apologizing, that's worth weighing too. More on family therapy.

11. Are you ready, or just exhausted tonight?

Both are real, and they're different. Tawwab's test for readiness:

Try not to make the final call right after a bad phone call. Make it on an ordinary Tuesday, when you're rested.

12. How will you feel in a year? In ten?

Shuman calls this "the most important consideration." Relief often comes first; grief, guilt or missing her can show up later. That doesn't make a decision wrong. She writes:

Picture each path ten years out, including the day she dies. Which version of you can you live with? (If she's already ill, see when your mother is dying.)

Reading your answers

This isn't a score. But patterns tend to show up:

• If your answers are mostly about safety, or limits that are always run over, no contact may be the option you keep coming back to. Read what no contact involves, and how to tell her, or not.
• If you want distance but not a cutoff, or there are kids, a parent, or money tying you in, low contact is built for that middle ground.
• If there's something good you want to keep, and you can stop hoping for closeness, staying in touch on new terms may fit.
• If she has ever genuinely owned harm, joint counseling might be worth one honest try, with a therapist you choose.
• If your answers point every direction, that's common. It may mean you need a pause more than a decision.

Every one of these is a legitimate choice. As Tawwab puts it: "You have to do what feels best for you."

If you still don't know

You don't have to decide tonight, or this year. McBride's suggestion:

A break of a few weeks or months, with a clear end date you set, can show you what life feels like with more space. A therapist who understands family estrangement can help you sort the answers, especially questions 5 and 12.

And whatever you choose, you can choose again. Morrigan says "you can break No Contact at any time." People move from no contact to low contact, and from low to none, as their lives change. That's not failure. It's choosing.

The film FOG, by the filmmakers behind this site, follows a daughter facing this exact question in her childhood home.