The section of my post @ 10.52 you've quoted was not intended to imply that you have estranged anyone CafeAuLait. I'm sorry if it came across that way.
Parents estranging their own children, because those children don't ascribe to their core values is just as extreme, painful and traumatic.
Your DH I'm sure will have experienced the same pain, distress and confusion that so many EP's experience so like you, I can see similarities. I have no idea what our ES's 'core values' would be, that feeling so strongly about meant we could no longer be a part of his and our GC's lives.
What could be so deserving and important, have such worth and usefulness (these being the key words in the definition of values) to supersede ones relationship with their parents or their own child.
As I question this from the perspective of an EP, no doubt your DH has done so too as an estranged adult child and you have also done as his wife.
I totally agree that the living bereavement experienced by EP's isn't the same as the bereavement associated with a death, for the reasons you have already mentioned, that said for me there are other reasons too.
There is no possibility of healing, the wound runs to deep and has yet, if ever to fully heal. There is no hope for us. After 8.5 years all hope has gone and we learned to our cost how destructive hope that goes unfulfilled can be.
For many estrangement like death, means there's no room for possibilities, the relationship is over and as you say "They are their own piece of awfulness".
I wouldn't turn our GC away if some time in the future they sought us out Whiff but I hope they never do.
PF you're in my thoughts too x