Dealing with estrangement - Q&A

Not sentimental at all Flygirl, just a demonstration of how much you love and miss them.

Estranged parents often have a huge desire to reconcile with their children and grandchildren. That’s not to say there aren’t feelings of hurt, anger and frustration along the way. This information is aimed to help you to accept your situation, be kind to yourself, and find the skills and empathy required to create the outcome that you want for your relationship with your children. This guide has been put together by the Stand Alone community, and is also informed by a talk from Dr Joshua Coleman to our community in August 2014.


What are the key causes of family estrangement?

There are many reasons that family rifts develop. Some parents reject their child’s choices, whilst adult children can also reject their parent or family.

As a parent, you may be uncomfortable with your child’s sexuality, religion or lack of religion, their choice of partner or their career path. You may feel they won’t take your advice or listen to your concerns about alcohol, drugs or mental health issues. You may feel your child is fundamentally a very different person to you, which can lead to a feeling of alienation. Equally, your child may feel any of the above towards you or the family.

Your child may want to work on your relationship and may wish for you to show more empathy towards the past or the present. A number of estrangements occur when adult children enter therapy or counselling and start to get a different perspective on his or her childhood.

Marriage and divorce may play a strong role in estrangements, both for parents and for children. Dating and re-marriage may cause conflicts if they are incompatible or compete for your child’s emotional or material resources. Divorce may also cause children to see their parents as individuals, and highlight their strength and weaknesses. The entrance of another partner into the family is common instigator for more family conflict.

Your child may perceive the relationship is psychologically or physically abusive, and your continued relationship is a reminder of their suffering. This is a very difficult estrangement to navigate as it requires the parent to do a lot of work to make a heartfelt and ongoing amends.

It’s important to remember and respect the separate realities that underpin life for each family member. Your child may hold a different viewpoint, which you might feel is ‘wrong’ or influenced by another person. However, the most successful and long-lasting reconciliations start with all parties accepting and respecting the separate realities and feelings that spring from family life.

No.
Sorry, but I can't relate to any of the above reasons for the estrangement in our particular case.
As far as I am aware, none of them apply to our situation. We truly do not understand why we have been alienated from our adult child and grandchildren, apart from the fact that after some research, we have come to the conclusion that our son's partner must have major problems, internal demons, whatever you may like to label them; and consequently is showing signs of covert narcissism, which is projecting on to my son. For whatever reasons, he seems to condone the very strange behaviour (possibly in fear of losing his family, so he willingly goes along with it), which portrays a very unhealthy and toxic family dynamic. It is too deep for us to deal with any more and move forward.
The losers are our darling grandsons, who are not given the opportunity to create a true relationship with this half of their family. Very sad, but it's all about control.

We've come to the same sad conclusion Flygirl and our GC like yours are the losers.

I am a new member and i have been reading your comments with much interest i have have lost my son (actual bereavement( now i have a living bereavement due to my daughter not allowing me to see or have contact with my grandsons i would like to read your 7 point help guide please

Hello Nanlyn : Welcome as a new member on Gransnet.

Can you look at the forums for Estrangement and I suggest you post on the one "Support" for all those dealing with the pain of Estrangement/separation. This thread does not get used as much but if you post on the other one I am sure you will get a warm welcome.

Newly estranged from my only child...Does this feeling th at you failed as a parent ever go away?

In my experience, everything that's felt at the beginning of an estrangement doesn't go away, but does ease given time.

No not for me

I've been banned from seeing my beautiful 3grandchildren and my son for 4years now , they are 4,6 and8. I thought of creating memory boxes then thought better of it. Why? Because I do not want my son and his partner's utter cruelty o be carried on and ruin the children's lives as well! Ignorance is bliss and I will take It on the chin for them, if they want to see us I will cook up some cockand bull story to protect any ideas they may have of their parents being the mutts nuts! It's the least I can do.....

Gramsks nope. Are you estranged from any of your children? As what you have written doesn't seem to come from experience but reading and listening to so called experts.

The only experts are the parents of children who have turned their back on them. We know how it feels. And like me are bewildered why it happened.

I echo Flygirl and Smiles our grandchildren are the losers in all this .

I have no huge desire to reconcile with my son or daughter in law at any cost. I didn't do anything wrong.

I miss my son and grandson's very much and love them. But it was his choice to cut me out of their lives not mine. The way he did it was cruel and cowardly. Not how he was brought up.

Creating a memory box is one way of letting your GC know that although you didn't have a relationship with them, and they were not a part of your life, they were in your heart Jaygee.

"I will cook up any cock and bull story to protect any ideas they may have of their parents being the mutts nuts!". I hope our GC, and they're the only ones we have, don't ever contact us but if they did, I certainly wouldn't lie to them about our estrangement with their father, I wouldn't discuss it.

"I have no huge desire to reconcile with my son or daughter in law at any cost. I didn't do anything wrong". I feel the same Whiff, the only difference being I have no desire whatsoever to reconcile.

Creating a memory box in some ways could be a good idea although for me there is not much I could put in it. To buy birthday cards each year would be too much of a painful reminder of the children and as for gifts I know the children are interested in technology and like to use tablets so putting tablets away for them is not practical. I prefer to save them some money and when they are older they can get it.

I to echo everyone that says the GC are the losers in all this but so are we the GPs as every child benefits from having those around them that love them so everyone loses out in one way or another.

I do not see how I can reconcile with my daughter even if the love is there for her she has disappointed me disrespected me lied on every occasion and even put my GC at risk there has been too much water under the bridge and I see no way back.