New here

Unfortunately there are some questionable counsellors/therapists out there, and it's not unknown for an AC having sought help to suddenly accuse their parent(s) of being abusive/toxic/narcissistic.

What is particularly concerning are those incidents where having made the allegations, the accuser isn't prepared to talk to those they have accused, sometimes refusing an offer of joint counselling to try and resolve the problem.

When third parties are mentioned in relation to creating estrangements, these are not restricted to partners/husbands/wives but can and sometimes do include these so called counsellors and therapists.

Old friend in my experience time doesn't heal anything that hurts you like bereavement or estrangement you just learn to cope. As has been said on the support thread estrangement is a living grief which it is. But my grief for my husband far out weights what my son has done. Last autumn I decided to give up any hope of ever seeing or speaking to my son and grandsons anymore as the only person hurting was me. And am happy making that decision.

The grief I feel for my husband gets worse as the years go by as he has missed so much. Been 20 years but the anger and rage of him dieing gets me through everyday day . Still talk to him everyday and at times rage at him for dieing . I was born disabled but it was my fit healthy husband who died from cancer aged 47. I was 45 our children 20 and 16 . Our daughter is 41 now and son will be 37 soon.

You have to decide how long you will let the estrangement hurt you and let go of hope.

I know I am and always been a good mom and with my husband we brought our children up with lots of love and attention. And from all my side of the family. My in laws where horrors but my husband loved them so we never gave up on them.

My son and daughter in law have turned into my laws . But I love the son I knew not who he is now . But I am not the mom he knew as I wouldn't put up with any crap from them now. And if not that he ever will want a relationship with me it will be on my terms not theirs.

We all reach a point when we have to say enough is enough. Been 4 years since I saw and spoke to my son. He should have told when he came on my birthday . Not the cruel and cowardly way he did it 4 days later via email and follow up letter 3 months later. He wasn't brought up to be like that so I am ashamed of him doing it that way. Something happened when his dad first had cancer and I made him promise never to make me ashamed of him ever again he broke that promise.

I personally don't think Counselling helps, why keep picking the scab. I do wonder if anyone has ever been the perfect mother, father, child. The truth is no one has. As the late Queen said, recollections vary in past events. We all do the best for our children and love them and put them first. Of course there are dreadful cruel parents, they are not the norm and in the minority, how such children move on from that I don't know and have no answers and so of course I don't mean them.
You can only sort things out with each other if the intension is both sides, in my experience the decision when they cut off severs all contact and hope to do that.
You can’t waste all the rest of your life waiting for something that won’t happen. I want my daughter happy, shes not that with me.

Hello Baked

Like you, I have good-enough days and bad days. My heart goes out to you.
I have not had good experiences or reports of councelling, either. Councelling seems to be having a bit of a fashion of blaming childhood experiences and parenting (that means it's our fault!) at the moment.
Time is a great healer, so they say. Sometimes all we can do is wait, hope and pray.

Hi, welcome to GN.

Frankly, I would try to distance yourself from this daughter.

She seems to have a lot of problems, which therapy/counselling aren’t helping with.🤷‍♀️

Hopefully, one day, she will find something which helps her.

Meantime, I would concentrate on the relationships you have with everyone else.

I'm very new to GN. My 28 year old daughter has been having therapy for a few months and she is now convinced that I alone, mistreated her. She has given no examples, no instances of abuse, nothing except to blame me for hating herself and as of 2 weeks ago has cut me off and blocked me from everything. She initially went quiet in March the 18th, then after I had been sending gifts to her and little updates on the family chat, she never responded, I was silenced on direct messaging, I muted her from the family group as she told me I was the trigger for her pain. She has claimed, bipolar, agoraphobia,claustrophobia, turrets, POS, ADHD,CPTSD, autism, and identifies as Non binary, and trans. She has also told us that she is an alcoholic and has an eating disorder. Her dad and I are exhausted. We have other children. She is 3 out of 4.
She has screamed at me in the past, she has never hit me but she has told me that she would have liked to. I think my issue is that I'm the one being targeted. Her dad and siblings are still treated civilly. My oldest daughter, in her 30s, would be happy to never hear from her sister again. I have better days and totally bereft days. Is this what I should expect?
I should add that I am estranged from my own family due to emotional abuse by an alcoholic father and bed hopping narcissistic mother. I have two sisters who hated me until I was 34, when they decided they wanted me in their lives but I said no thank you. I'm 58, been with my husband for 41 years, we have 2 girls and 2 boys and 1 grandson. 2 of ours and the grandson live with us and we have a happy 3 generation household.
My husband questioned the beneficial results of her therapy as it seemed to be twisting her recollections, she said she thought it was helpful as she was getting to know herself. We have always supported each of our children, emotionally and financially. I have always told them how proud I am of them and always encouraged to do the best that they themselves are able to. I never told them that they could do better, try harder or change themselves to please anyone other than themselves. I have tried hard to be the mother I never had, nothing was ever good enough. I think I have to wait and see if she wants me back, or maybe, as I'm a JKR fan, I'll never be welcome.

Good to see your post Oldfriend.

Of course you've made mistakes, we all have as parents and our children have as adults too.

I think the influence of other people/families has a big part to play in estrangement absolutely. Not always of course, but the part that third parties can play should never be under estimated or denied.

Keeping 'the door open' by sending cards and gifts is a great idea providing they haven't told you to stop, and you're happy to do so despite receiving no acknowledgement.

I do agree that the longer the estrangement lasts, the harder it becomes for reconciliation .

Many thanks for all the replies posted.
I have dealt with this alone (widowed at 48, no parents or siblings) so I'm glad to have some support.

I expect I have made mistakes (who hasn't?) but overall, I think my kids suffer from pride, guilt, and fear of angering their partners. At this time, at least 2 of them have failed or failing marriages; its then they gravitate back towards me, and in truth, they become recognisable again. I think the influence of other people/families has a big part to play in estrangement.

The lines for communication remain open - they know where to find me and how, and I send for birthdays/anniversaries etc. I'm aiming to respect their boundaries, give them space, and leave the door open. Maybe they don't want to talk or write because they can't deal with their own actions? And, maybe their partners prefer not to have another Gran in their lives?

It seems a short-sighted approach; one day my grandchildren will ask, or find out about me. They are teaching the children how Grandparents should be treated!
(What goes around might just come around!)

Meanwhile, I send birthday and Christmas presents (and get no acknowledgement, let alone thanks), put money aside for the grandchildren regularly and try to get on with my own life, whatever that is.
It's a small world, and people see what's happened to me. I'm careful to say little and certainly nothing negative about my estranged family, but other people have described them as "cruel" and expressed surprise at their behaviour.
The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be for them to restore the relationship with me, if they ever want to do so.

I think, it's none of my business how people treat me; how I treat people is my business.

Simply because it brings closure if everyone is clear on that yes it does DL. It means that even if you don't agree or understand, at least you know why.

Well, if I’ve estranged anyone, I’ve made it clear as to why.

Simply because it brings closure if everyone is clear on that.

My step-kids made it clear as to what their problem was - either wanting money, or older people being a burden, too wearisome to bother with. 🤷‍♀️

All the talking in the world couldn’t have solved that, as age creeps up on us all, and we weren’t willing to hand over hundreds a month to subsidise gambling/alcohol addictions.

I know how much it distressed my adult ACs when their Dad estranged them, and wouldn’t give a reason. He should have told them, in my view. Then he swanned back in, 10 years later, and still hasn’t explained. It’s beyond me.🙄

I don't doubt that many estrangers not only believe they tried to explain and weren't heard, but that is what they did maxiepants but not all have done so.

Why do some doubt EP's and EGP's when they say that wasn't the case for them? I haven't seen an expectation from those who have been estranged that their AC should have explained to them why, but I have seen plenty of cases where the EP has questioned why they didn't, and estranged them with no explanation.

Estrangement happens for all sorts of reasons, and needing to get away from abusive/controlling/bad parents is only one of them.

User138562

I feel like this discussion misses the root of the problem. If someone is at the point where they are cutting contact, this is a signal that communication attempts are already failing. This isn't about the person who cuts contact not engaging anymore. They have reached a point where engaging feels pointless. If it takes being cut off to realize there's a problem, there's something you were missing.

No contact is the big red button you press when there's no other option.

So why did the stranger feel they had to push the button? Assuming they have their own legitimate perspectives and experiences (they do), something had to lead to that point. Attempts to resolve are already missing the mark. It's totally unnatural to toss away healthy and positive relationships so barring some pretty serious circumstances, people will not abandon healthy family relationships.

You have to look backwards for the failure point because the estrangement is not it. Continuing to look at the act of going no contact as the primary issue will always leave you wondering what happened.

This is one of the clearest explanations I've read of why people estrange.

It's interesting to read the posts from estranged parents/GPs that say things like 'if my AC has a problem with me I expect them to explain it to me' and 'my AC have never told me why they're cutting contact, they just do it'.

I wonder how many estrangers believe they've tried many times to explain the problem and felt they weren't heard, and eventually felt that going NC was the only thing they could do.

At least you don't have to deal with them anymore DL.

I wonder how they'd have felt if when they reached the age of 21 your DH their father, had decided he didn't want to be 'burdened' with them anymore.

What so many fault to realize when try make the “not engaging will never resolve the issue “ argument is that by the time it’s gone to no contact often the person who finally resorted to no contact no longer has any desire to resolve the contact. For themselves they have resolved the conflict . They took themselves out of it.

Nikolas, sorry Nikolas, you need the approval of GNHQ for your survey.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

Unfortunately people sometimes have very different ideas of what a healthy relationship looks like

This can even differ between siblings... I know that my own children are individual as an example and need different parenting.

When we look at how often people normalise things that society as a whole doesn't agree with now... Physical punishment as an example... One sibling may say "oh well, I was beaten and I am fine" and may continue to believe hitting children is normal and healthy. Most of us would argue that they didn't turn out fine because they think hitting children is ok. Most of us would agree that a sibling who didn't agree with physical punishment and was still traumatised by what is actually considered to be physical abuse now would be justified walking away.

The same logic applies on an emotional level. Just because it wouldn't bother a parent or a sibling. Some ways of interacting are now considered emotionally abusive or controlling or otherwise intrusive.

That's why it is sometimes more important to educate ourselves on what healthy relationships look like so that we can emulate that rather than rely on what we have normalised about our own experiences

Well, I wouldn’t mind, but we most certainly weren’t a burden. I looked after DH, and the only thing I ever asked them to do, in over 20 years, when DH became too poorly to drive, was to perhaps phone or pop over once in a while. We’re 40 minutes away.

Their kids were grown, and off hand, so it’s not as if they were haring around all week with young children, work and childcare.

But, although they’d took our help over the years, a lot, they were just too selfish to do that.

Oh well, I’ve removed them from my life now.🤷‍♀️

meant to post gambling/alcoholic addictions.

The situation with your adult step children DL shows that to say people will not abandon healthy family relationships is wrong, unless of course not being prepared to finance gambling/addictions is a sign that a family doesn't have healthy family relationships.

Our ES abandoned his family despite the healthy family relationship we had all enjoyed for 27 years. It wasn't perfect but no family ever is which is why it's imperative to discuss any issues/problems. Something we always did with him and continue to do with his brother.

As for becoming a burden as you get older as you say not sure what you do with that.

Smileless2012

All parties have to wish to engage. You cannot listen if someone isn't prepared to speak and being prepared to talk about any issues is what adults do. Sadly some aren't prepared to do so, so walk away.

Well, yes, with my SC’s, it was gambling/alcohol addiction from one, the “old people are too much of a burden” (?), from the other - not sure what you do with that.🙄

With my AC’s, I would expect them to point out what I’m doing to upset them so much, before it ended in estrangement.

Adults usually sit down and talk - all this flouncing around, refusing to engage, will never solve an issue.

*Estranger not stranger

I guess I made that word up

I feel like this discussion misses the root of the problem. If someone is at the point where they are cutting contact, this is a signal that communication attempts are already failing. This isn't about the person who cuts contact not engaging anymore. They have reached a point where engaging feels pointless. If it takes being cut off to realize there's a problem, there's something you were missing.

No contact is the big red button you press when there's no other option.

So why did the stranger feel they had to push the button? Assuming they have their own legitimate perspectives and experiences (they do), something had to lead to that point. Attempts to resolve are already missing the mark. It's totally unnatural to toss away healthy and positive relationships so barring some pretty serious circumstances, people will not abandon healthy family relationships.

You have to look backwards for the failure point because the estrangement is not it. Continuing to look at the act of going no contact as the primary issue will always leave you wondering what happened.

We don't know who will or won't engage in most situations, only that it is best to know that you did/tried the right things to have a better relationship...

All parties have to wish to engage. You cannot listen if someone isn't prepared to speak and being prepared to talk about any issues is what adults do. Sadly some aren't prepared to do so, so walk away.