Support for all who are living with estrangement

Anyone who offers differing advice or a different view is shut down as cold, attacked for being unsympathetic to the wounded new poster.
Quite often it's not the different view that is the problem, it is the way it is expressed. Hard messages can be given without being unkind , and many wise posters manage that, both those estranged and those not!

I am not estranged, although I do fear it. I have found good advice on here both from estranged posters and those who are not. I have also found what I think is bad advice on here from estranged and non estranged posters!

Guilt-tripping and attempting to shame him is not an appropriate response to an adult.
I dont think writing him a letter is attempting to shame him. It is giving him the facts about how his grandmother feels. He may or not feel shame, that's up to him! Knowing how his grandmother feels means he can decide how he wants to respond, again up to him as an adult!

Smileless2012, you have missed my point entirely.

This is a support thread GoodMama and this particular thread under various titles but always including the word support, has been running here on GN for more than 6 years.

Yes, we console one another and yes, we try to enable others to find a way through the pain and see a future without the AC and in many cases the GC they've lost.

Were you unfortunate enough to be estranged you would see that the misery of estrangement needs company, the company of those who live with it because only they can truly understand what it is like.

I totally agree with your last post, you clearly don't understand. You found a post just the other day amusing; it made you smile and chuckle. Now you say you come here in the hope that a new poster will be helped, at the end of a post which derides those who are trying to do just that.

Or Punch's wife Chewbacca

Thank you for your constant help GM.
If I were in your shoes I would have given up by now!

I honestly don't understand. This particular thread is filled with people who have estranged adult sons and daughters.
They list all the things they tried to do to keep the relationship they wanted. It didn't work. So they are estranged and have "no idea why".

Then new posters who are dealing with new estrangement or distance from their adult sons and daughters looking for help to salvage the relationship they want post looking for advise.

The estranged posters advise them to do the things that did not work for themselves and resulted in estrangement.

Anyone who offers differing advice or a different view is shut down as cold, attacked for being unsympathetic to the wounded new poster.

Then the poster returns with anger and sadness that the terrible advice did not work and they fear further estrangement.

Other estranged posters pile on, blaming the awful sons and daughters, referring to them as selfish and ungrateful children.

Then everyone enables and consoles each other.

I keep coming to this thread in the hopes a new poster can be helped. Estrangement is heartbreaking for all involved. But it seems on here misery loves company.

There's no show without Punch is there Agnurse!

Your son is not a little boy who can be disciplined anymore.

He is an adult who makes his own decisions.

Guilt-tripping and attempting to shame him is not an appropriate response to an adult.

agnurse ...her mother is "very elderly*...for goodness sake!

Thank you smileless2012 you put it more politely than i would.
I have written the letter and posted it, i hope he goes to visit her, because the son i knew would never have turned his back on his family let alone his grandmother who he spent lots of time with up until meeting his now wife.
If it takes shaming him so be it.

Bopeep's mother is elderly agnurse and she doesn't need you or anyone else to tell her that she's an adult.

Her son may well feel shamed into contacting his GM and the shame is that he may need to be shamed into doing the decent thing. IMO the only 'risk' is that Bopeep's son doesn't bother to contact his GM, and that if she never sees or hears from her again, Bopeep will always wonder if she could and should have done something about it.

Really, your mother should be writing the letter.

She's an adult. The risk is that he may interpret a letter from you as an attempt to shame him into contacting her, or an attempt on your part to gatekeep the relationship.

If you do write him a letter, I hope that sees sense and visits his grand mother before it's too late.

Thank you both, maybe i will try the letter.
My mum is housebound so a taxi to his isn't an option.
I have no idea why he is treating any of us this way, but to treat his grandma this way is unforgivable in my eyes.
I agree you should treat others like you would like to be treated.

Sorry, Treat Others as you would like to be treated.?

BoPeep, I don't know why your son has estranged from you but it must be dreadful. Is there no way your mom could visit your son, even if you arranged a taxi. You could see her into it and be there when she returns.. You shouldn't have to do that I know, he should visit,m but it might make the world of difference to your mom.thank goodness she has a caring and loving daughter. I hope I'm not being interfering, it's so sad for her.
If you behaved with friends as some children do their parents, they wouldn't have any friends left.
As for The School of Life. Although not overly religious myself, I believe in the Ten Commandments. Nrest others as you wish to be treated.

Would it be possible for you to write to your son and tell him how his GM feels? Suggest that he visit her and as long as he lets you know when he'll be there, you'll ensure that you're not there at the same time.

If he doesn't respond you'll know you tried to do something on your mum's behalf and there'll be no need for your mum to know the extent of his cruelty.

How do I help my very elderly mum, to come to terms with the fact she may never see her grandson my eldest again before she dies?
I have been today and she is really down about it, i myself am coping ok, but when she talks about it him it brings it all back and makes it very raw.
I really don't know how to help her

Hugshelp Ups and downs indeed and thankyou!¬

Still reading and thinking of you all. Nothing useful to add. Learning to deal with the ups and downs of having good days then awful ones, but at least some are ok now. Hugs to all that need them. x

GoodMama ...the article is interesting and certainly potentially helpful to some estranged Adult children and/or estranged parents. I think some of the arguments made a somewhat weakly made, but not all. Thankyou for posting it.

However, Cherries careful reply did not merit a somewhat insensitive reference to making someone "chuckle" on a thread where the vast majority of posters are likely to be estranged/fearing estrangement and therefore are sorrow/pain/sadness/bewilderment or whatever. The article may be useful to some of them. Being chuckled at will not be!

Very true Cherries.

Bilateral commitment to maintaining connection, improving awareness and understanding both of oneself and of the other person's perceptions, values and feelings, calm and considerate self-expression and a mature willingness to acknowledge imperfections and apologise graciously if appropriate are surely ideals worth upholding.

Thank you very much, Madgran77.

Another resource that may be illuminating and broadly helpful is www.theschooloflife.com. Chapter 3, called "Self-Knowledge: Growth & Maturity", of its "Book of Life" offers lots of wise ideas to consider. Yes, it is written and presented in an authoritative way at times when certainty is not actually warranted and consensus not yet, if ever, reached or attainable but with this and one or two other caveats in mind there are gems aplenty. Here are a few:

Section 01. The Ultimate Test of Emotional Maturity

Section 12. Why We Should All Think of Ourselves as Sinners e.g. "Good people (do not) abandon manners, kindness, tolerance and modesty."

Section 13 How To Be A Mummy's Boy "After a certain point, mothers become embarrassing and need to be surrendered and denied - not just mothers but all that they stand for ... tenderness, vulnerability and need". This piece could apply to women too who have been used to seeing themselves as largely self-sufficient, independent and emotionally invulnerable but now find this reassuring image somewhat threatened. A postnatal woman who finds herself suddenly dealing with feelings of vulnerability, fragility and insecurity that have been awoken by memories and experiences surrounding delivery and adjusting to the early, challenging phases of motherhood, for example, might feel a strong need to shut out, humiliate or denigrate her mother or mother-in-law because of a subconscious fear of being exposed as "weak" or "childishly needy".

The School of Life would like to see society more generally engaged in discussing what we mean when we refer to progress towards greater emotional maturity and intelligence. Its core message is surely one with which we can all agree: emotional development is a lifelong learning process that should be encouraged.

I also read the articles just mentioned and agree that it is insightful and not remotely chuckle worthy as we are discussing one of the most traumatic things that can happen to a family.

I still wonder (and I’ve posted this in the past) whether the children who do the NC to their own parents, would be so blithely accepting of the same treatment from their own children.