No parent is perfect, but they should all do their best to love and support their kids in every way they can. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen.

What would you do if you were largely ignored and neglected while you were a child, and then when you moved out, you didn’t talk to your parents for over seven years when you heard that your Dad was sick?

That is the situation that the young man in this story was in, so he decided to go see his parents and try to mend fences before it was too late. When he showed up, however, he realized that his parents didn’t even know he had gone no contact with them for seven years, which really upset him.

They had a huge fight, and now his Dad is even sicker, so he feels bad about that, but doesn’t know what else he could do.

AITA for being upset that my parents didn’t realise I had gone no contact?

When I was growing up I was always the forgotten child and treated like the least of my siblings if my parents remembered my existence at all.

It can be very sad when a child feels this way.

I can go into more detail about it if anyone is interested, I just don’t have enough space here.

After leaving home I went no contact with my parents for the past seven years, although I have had sporadic contact with all my siblings, I just did not ever contact my parents.

It is good to try to patch things up while he still has time.

Then my brother told me that dad was sick and might not have long left.

So I went over to my parents a few days before Christmas to try and mend some fences.

Wow. This would be heartbreaking.

They had no idea what I was talking about. The problem is that I have seven brothers and a sister who are constantly visiting them with any number of my nephews and nieces so my absence wasn’t noted.

At first they were convinced that they had spoken to me plenty during that time. Then it was anger at me for being so petty and selfish, overly dramatic and not respecting family and that I was a giant jerk for putting this on them when dad was ill.

Maybe getting everything out in the open will help.

Everything came out, including me, in the ensuing shouting match. The first and only time I have ever stood up to them.

In my defense, I was mad and upset so I shouted back drawing on all the issued that I had tried to bury. It scared my youngest brother enough that he phoned my other brothers to come separate us.

Dad’s hesitation was reasonable at the time (this story took place during COVID).

Now it turns out that the stress has made dad’s condition worse, but he doesn’t want to go to hospital because he is scared that he will get the plague and never come out again if he does.

I am torn between thinking that I was completely justified in being upset that my parents didn’t realize I had gone no contact, but guilty that my trying to mend fences for my own closure damaged a family that was doing perfectly fine without me.

Sure, he could have handled it better, but he had good reasons for being so upset.

And that I could be a massive AH because my parents have nine kids and are now dealing with dad’s illness and all the lockdown stuff, so I am probably being unreasonable in expecting that they might notice that I had cut contact.

Plus now I have a lot of guilt thinking that at least part of me wanted them to miss me to punish them for my childhood.

AITA?

It is always best to keep your temper under control, even when it is completely understandable to lose it. Obviously, the parents in this story are terrible for neglecting their son and not even noticing he wasn’t in contact with them. Anything beyond that is just details that don’t much matter. Hopefully everyone can patch things up, but I doubt it.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a teen who has spent a decade raising her younger siblings, and thinks it’s time to walk away from her family for good.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this difficult situation.

Here is someone who recommends that he go back to no contact and never think of them again.

This commenter feels bad for him, and so do I.

It must have been a very painful experience. Hopefully he can get past this.

There are many strong and healthy families with lots of kids.

This commenter says that this is a heartbreaking situation. I definitely agree.

Whatever he did wrong was nothing in comparison to what he endured. It is just awful that his parents haven’t spoken to him in over 7 years and didn’t even notice. Then, to make it worse, they got upset with him for even bringing it up.

Absolutely unacceptable.