Not fully estranged but gaining depth into what it is

Oh dear, you are correct, I have mistakenly believed I am talking to the same person. I will continue the discussion with Smarter instead. Thank you my dear.

It wasn't me who mentioned overlapping boundaries, re your post @ 7.29 Luminance and yes I know it's OK for us to disagree.

It is absolutely ok for us to disagree Smileless2012 Was there anything on my comment regarding boundaries that resonated with you or helped you understand what healthy boundaries are? Were you able to think of any examples of where healthy boundaries might overlap rather?

Your last paragraph has been my experience too Madgran.

Your replies contradict each other Madgran77 yet I fully understood. Ha.
🙂 I don't think they do contradict though. 😏

Basically I think it is always possible to give difficult messages/advice in a way that CAN be heard (ie not distracting away from the key messages through unpleasant/ provocative language etc) ...BUT whether someone is actually able to hear appropriately expressed difficult advice depends on a range of things such as circumstances; personality; mental health etc. or even the nature of a thread where other advice has not been appropriately expressed and they are therefore feeling attacked/goaded etc. (Seen quite a few threads deteriorate from that!)

Personally I have had more experience of people welcoming difficult but honest advice well expressed than rejecting it on GN overall ...but that is over quite a few years now that I have been on GN.

I disagree Luminance. I've never had a problem giving advice in a respectful and empathetic way or having that advice rejected.

If I had a pound for every time someone's felt it necessary to state the obvious Madgran, I'd be a wealthy woman. How things are said is for me very revealing and probably more revealing than some realise.

Your replies contradict each other Madgran77 yet I fully understood. Ha.

Luminance ...*it is almost impossible to give any sort of advice however kindly worded here*

I have always tried to give sometimes difficult advice on here kindly but honestly. I have many experiences over the years where that diffiicult advice has been taken and some where the poster is clearly unable to "hear" any advice because of various reasons, which are often demonstrated in their responses.

Smileless How something is said is just as important as how it's said

Absolutely. It is perfectly possible to give hard messages in a way that can be "heard"!

Respect for each other as free thinking adults- completely.
When children are involved it becomes less clear where the boundaries should be in order to protect the child from harm.
In addition I would say that once boundaries are breached there should be a re-setting through apologising for hurt caused and in turn forgiveness for the person who apologises.
Saying sorry is sometimes the hardest thing, but often the healthiest if you want to continue in a relationship of value.

Do you have some examples of overlapping boundaries so I might better understand your point Smileless2012? Personally I would view respecting boundaries as unconditional love, because unconditional love respects others differences. I would give an example of, whether an adult child chose a.different religion or not to follow a religion at all. They may set a boundary that, this is not discussed because they wish no pressure to choose what the parent chose for them growing up as an adult. Violating that boundary would be placing a condition on love would it not? By saying I will continue to do what you do not like and you must accept it.

Luminance

From my own personal experience, short as it is, it is almost impossible to give any sort of advice however kindly worded here. Something gets picked out and picked on and the general message is ignored. I am not estranged myself but have a little understanding of what estranged parents or estranged children go through in my personal and professional life. I would say that, treating each situation or person by merit is the best way to go. There is a deep underlying suspicion of each other here in some cases but not all I would say. Boundaries generally do not overlap, were I to have a boundary that I do not discuss my religion with my sister for example, she cannot have the boundary that I must discuss my religion with her. Boundaries are rather simple things that do help relationships stay healthy. There is a lot more to myself or my sister than religion in this case that we may talk about. Perhaps not on a Sunday morning but otherwise.

Hmm yes. Boundries should not overlap. But when they do, I think therein lies the problem. Then it becomes who's boundry is more important, or better, etc? I think in loving relationships, boundaries should be flexible, movable. Perhaps not all.....some things may be of more serious nature. Any picky type things should give way to compromise by each. An unmovable boundary is indeed a wall, hard and cold. So people need to use boundries wisely. Or break down ine once in awhile for love. I think that's a problem...people are less and less willing to compromise, tend to cater about their own needs over another's even if there is supposed to be love. The idea of boundries themselves , with all their popularity actually, ironically, prove that there is no such thing as unconditional love, Boundries are conditions. Kinda funny how that works.

From my own personal experience, short as it is, it is almost impossible to give any sort of advice however kindly worded here. Something gets picked out and picked on and the general message is ignored. I am not estranged myself but have a little understanding of what estranged parents or estranged children go through in my personal and professional life. I would say that, treating each situation or person by merit is the best way to go. There is a deep underlying suspicion of each other here in some cases but not all I would say. Boundaries generally do not overlap, were I to have a boundary that I do not discuss my religion with my sister for example, she cannot have the boundary that I must discuss my religion with her. Boundaries are rather simple things that do help relationships stay healthy. There is a lot more to myself or my sister than religion in this case that we may talk about. Perhaps not on a Sunday morning but otherwise.

Thank you Smarter and thank you for your insightful, thoughtful, fair and balanced contributions.

Smileless2012

What we have also witnessed on this thread Luminance are some rather unpleasant responses to the OP. It's extremely difficult to listen too what's being dressed up as advice when in fact it's anything but.

How something is said is just as important as how it's said and posters should be responded too on what they have actually said, not on what someone else decides they've said because it suits their own agenda.

This is insightful and I am in total agreement with you.

Luminance

What we witnessed here on this thread is that sometimes posters find it quite difficult to listen to advice. Sometimes that manifests in rather extreme ways and other times is manifests in a never ending argument against it. To my mind both are the same thing. You really do have to be able to listen to people telling you you may be wrong. That of course doesn't mean they are right but it does show that you value others perspectives and accept that they view life with different values. Inability to do that, such as my sister's case, often seems to lead to estrangement. Often it seems to me that life in estrangement, when your views and your way of doing things affects another and they are mentally impacted by it, the outcome against them is experienced as abuse. Love should never hurt. You can be extraordinarily different characters and still live within each others boundaries. If being unwilling to do so hurts others then the impact may be experienced as abuse. It is power and control, damaging and painful to experience.

What you say about the lack of ability to listen to advice, at times may be true, but only on assumption of a guilty as charged parent. I think many parents have not done what we might assume due to their either language or sheer frustration coming to this forum.

Some come out of curiousity, what could lead to an estrangment, etc and others come out of perhaps some desperation that maybe someone has the answer.

When they find out nobody has the answer, it can be further frustrating to be attacked or judged on top of that.

None of us here have the answer. How could we? We have no clue, not one insight as to what really happened. We don't have a playback video to look it.

For all the talk of boundries, it occurs to me that one person's boundries might actually cross anothers! Then what?

That should read 'How something is said is just as important as what is said'.

What we have also witnessed on this thread Luminance are some rather unpleasant responses to the OP. It's extremely difficult to listen too what's being dressed up as advice when in fact it's anything but.

How something is said is just as important as how it's said and posters should be responded too on what they have actually said, not on what someone else decides they've said because it suits their own agenda.

What we witnessed here on this thread is that sometimes posters find it quite difficult to listen to advice. Sometimes that manifests in rather extreme ways and other times is manifests in a never ending argument against it. To my mind both are the same thing. You really do have to be able to listen to people telling you you may be wrong. That of course doesn't mean they are right but it does show that you value others perspectives and accept that they view life with different values. Inability to do that, such as my sister's case, often seems to lead to estrangement. Often it seems to me that life in estrangement, when your views and your way of doing things affects another and they are mentally impacted by it, the outcome against them is experienced as abuse. Love should never hurt. You can be extraordinarily different characters and still live within each others boundaries. If being unwilling to do so hurts others then the impact may be experienced as abuse. It is power and control, damaging and painful to experience.

This isn't an obscure forum emanuel, it's a place to talk about estrangement for those who have been estranged and those who estranged.

Projecting your pain which I'm sorry you have experienced and your understandable anger on to EP's here isn't going to help you, it doesn't help anyone which is why the EP's who post here don't tar all EAC with the same brush.

As Smarter has said the real abusers simply do not care which is why they're no there.

emanuel

She's not on here because she doesn't know about this obscure forum, but believe me, if you ever ran into her, she would spin you tale about how she did nothing wrong and I'm just horrible for abandoning my own mother after everything she has sacrificed for me.

She cares about losing me a whole great deal, to the point that she became unrecognizable physically, no longer leaves the house and cried everyday (and talked about suicide) for at least the first year I cut contact.

On the surface you would think she loved and cared about me a whole lot, but in reality, she would be sitting in jail (if there was any real justice in the world).

It's intellectually lazy to claim that just being on this forum is enough evidence that you weren't abusive/care about your kid.

If you REALLY care about your kid, you would be listening to all this great advice that would lead to healthier relationships; instead of enabling each other's pathologically toxic behavior.

Lots of the parents here have said that the sons or daughters had a good relationship with them in childhood and continuing into adulthood. Then something changes. It seems it's usually a life changing event, like a new spouse, or a divorce, a new baby, etc. Then in these changes, some confllict arises and there is estrangment.

What you are saying is, your mother physically abused you, so you did not have a good childhood, so you left her because of that abuse.

This is a completely different scenario to many of the stories here.

So really, I think you are comparing apples and oranges. It's pretty cruel to make everyone here feel like abusers when they were not.

I think what you may be doing is what they call projecting. I would say, I feel this doesn't help you nor any of the grieving parents here.

She's not on here because she doesn't know about this obscure forum, but believe me, if you ever ran into her, she would spin you tale about how she did nothing wrong and I'm just horrible for abandoning my own mother after everything she has sacrificed for me.

She cares about losing me a whole great deal, to the point that she became unrecognizable physically, no longer leaves the house and cried everyday (and talked about suicide) for at least the first year I cut contact.

On the surface you would think she loved and cared about me a whole lot, but in reality, she would be sitting in jail (if there was any real justice in the world).

It's intellectually lazy to claim that just being on this forum is enough evidence that you weren't abusive/care about your kid.

If you REALLY care about your kid, you would be listening to all this great advice that would lead to healthier relationships; instead of enabling each other's pathologically toxic behavior.

While I sympathize with you, if a child is not targeted with the abuse rather the mother is abused, , then that is a completely different thing from what happened to you. Sorry it did, just sounds awful and it makes me think...why isn't your mother here, trying to say she didn't do anything wrong? Because the real abusers simply do not care. They are not here but rather out enjoying their AC free lives. I believe that. Unfortunately there are people who never wanted kids and it shows. They usually don't pretend they do. It seems unfair to judge all the people on these support boards because of your experience.

There was real advice, but just how so many on here perceive their children's reason for estrangement to not be real. Instead, they are perceived as an attack or powerplay.

I know my (estranged) mom sadistically abused me throughtout my entire time knowing her since that was the only way for her to enjoy our relationship, to get anything out of it. Because she was too psychologically stunted for anything genuine. Conversation, connection, understanding. She was utterly incapable of any of it.

I imagine those who are incapable of seeing the good-faith advice (that's being clearly laid out) can heavily relate to my ex-parent's stunted psychological profile.

I thought there was.