Cutting a family member out of your life isn’t easy, but sometimes, it’s necessary. And now, reality star Kristin Cavallari is opening up about having to cut off father Dennis Cavallari because of the way he has treated her — and more importantly, the way she says he treated her children.
For many parents like the former The Hills star, the mistreatment of their children is the catalyst for making a major change, and it seems like Kristin saw this as a chance to break the cycle.
Kristin says that her decision is the 'best thing' she could have done for herself.
“I cut my dad out of my life about two years ago, which has honestly been the best thing I’ve ever done,” Kristin revealed during a recent episode of her Let’s Be Honest podcast. “I actually didn’t even realize that my dad was a narcissist until I was an adult.”
Her relationship with her father had never been perfect.
She went on to share that when she was growing up she didn’t want to spend time with him because he made her feel like she “wasn’t good enough.”
“But then the flip side of that is, sometimes he would put me on this pedestal and talk me up,” she noted. “Now as an adult looking back, I’m like, ‘Oh, it was when it benefited you and made you look good.'”
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The final straw involved her father and her children.
The catalyst for her finally cutting him out of her life was an incident between her father and her children, Camden, Jaxon, and Saylor.
“How I got my dad out of my life was something happened with my kids and it crossed the line. And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m f—ing done.’ And he blamed me for it like, threw everything back in my face,” she revealed. “I was always like, ‘I can take it … I can take the abuse.’ I have my whole life. But it’s like when you start now messing with my kids, I’m not doing it.”
She isn't alone in her decision.
The comments of the video were full of people commending Kristin for her choices, and sharing their own experiences with cutting off family members. It seems like her choice to share her story helped a lot of other people feel like someone out there understood.
“I’m in the process of cutting my narcissist mother out of my life and I feel so my peace in my decision and now in my life,” one person commented.
“Let’s normalize leaving toxic family members.” another said.
Kristin has shared stories of her relationship with her dad in the past.
This isn’t the first time Kristin opened up about her difficult relationship with her dad. In a February 2020 episode of Very Cavallari, she opened up about the way her brother Michael’s death in 2015 changed her relationship with her father.
“My dad and my brother were close, and, because of that, I think our relationship is very surface. It puts a little bit of a void between us,” she confessed.
