Low contact

As a psychotherapist I have had many clients of 30+ years who can't manage a decent relationship with their mothers. These clients are invariably women - and the common factor is that their mothers have had careers which in their daughters' eyes, have caused them to be emotionally absent. I think this is a generational thing. What stands out is that when these clients reflect on their 'happy' and 'secure' times as children, it's the grandparents who feature as the providers of these.

If your daughter hasn’t achieved as much as you, she may feel envious or intimidated?

I think MarieElla has a point. I've now reached a low profile place as I think my DIL has difficulty accepting that I have a good relationship with GChildren and my son. I guess it's the age-old dislike of MIL. I think I've always helped consistently with GC and still do. I think they are having marital probs and to be honest I don't want any part of that. It is for them to work out

Must be difficult but at least you see your grandchildren.
Sounds like your daughter has mental
Health issues. I feel so sad for the children.

I haven't seen 2 of my sons since before Christmas. We tend to communicate by text. The third one lives on NZ and I last saw him in 2024 when they were over here.
I speak to him on video calls.
I see DD a bit more often but we can go several weeks or more.
I don't mind. I'm used to it.

We have next to no contact with our son in Australia. He didn’t even call more than once when his dad had a massive stroke over a year ago. If we ring him he seldom picks up and says he is too busy. He is divorced from his wife because he cheated on her. A lovely woman who put up with him for longer than I expected. They have two teenage daughters, our beautiful grandchildren, whom we haven’t seen for many years and now hold out no hope of seeing again because we can’t fly out there again due to my DHs disabilities.
Our DDs also have little to no contact with him. He is doing very well for himself financially and the sting in the tail is that he flew out to a friends wedding in Ireland 2 years ago and didn’t tell us or try to see any of the family then flew straight back again. I was quite upset so challenged him about this saying we could have all gone to Ireland to meet up with him, but he said there wasn’t enough time despite being there for two weeks.

I’m lucky if I get to see my daughter once a month.
She is so busy with work etc.

Having said that. It’s quite a blessing as she can talk for England.
I come away from her feeling quite drained.
But I wouldn’t feel right if she deliberately avoided me.

I think our eldest daughter has decided on the extent of our contact with her by moving 1.5 hr away for no good reason. We’re both disabled after strokes and I have recently had a bad C diagnosis. Can’t pretend her actions haven’t hurt us.

Every week is not low contact that's regular contact in fact but once every few months is low contact

My experience has been that Daughters these days are quite awful, not to say nasty. I can't ever remember being like that with my Mum.

I csn assured everyone here I did nothing to cause the estrangement between me and my son.

He made his choice I never had a chance to ask why. He not only estrangement me by all our side of the family . Like my brother said what 🦆🦆🦆🦆 did I do.

Stop blaming parents for what their children decide to do . And stop calling parents liars.

Would you blame a parent if their child killed themselves of course you wouldn't. As that would be cruel.

Unless you have personally experienced anything best keep your mouth shut .

I had no contact with my mother for 40 years, she was a toxic narcissist and I knew if she was in my life there would be nothing but arguments and jealousy.
I didn’t want to risk her being emotionally abusive to my children as she had been to me, I didn’t know she had died until a year later and I couldn’t even shed a tear when I found out, some women are just no meant to be mothers

MarieElla

Not sure why my post was deleted!
All I'm trying to say is that sometimes parents don't reflect on their part in these issues and sometimes, they're blameless... but , in my experience, people don't take the decision to cut contact with parents without ample reason.

Then your experience is limited!

Whiff

Allsorts totally agree with your reply to Marie Ella.

My son estranged me via email .

Mine didn’t even bother with an email. Just ghosted me until his decision became clear!

Starfire57, I am sorry your daughter is going through such a difficult time and it's sad she doesn't avail of your support.
Perhaps you're being scapegoated?
I assume she's not open to Family therapy?

Sometimes the actual reason for going no contact has nothing whatsoever to do with the parents who have been estranged being at fault.

MarieElla

Sraefire57, I assume you have personal experience of estrangement?
I don't, but my cousin is estranged from her family and as I am close to my Aunt and Uncle,and to my cousin, I am aware of both sides. Although I think she is shouldn't have cut them out, I do understand her reasons....
My uncle can see where they had issues but my aunt refuses to accept she got some things wrong...and that's why they're stuck...
I actually don't think the majority of people go no contact without reason.
I also think Family Therapy can help.

Sometimes that reason, to be gentle here, is horse doo doo.

It can be wayward perception, assumptions, high expectations, or as many here have said, another person comes along and steps in, influencing and ruining family relationships.

Just because there is a "reason" does not mean it's right.

I am not estranged, but time has been cut down drastically since my daughter got divorced and became another person.

I get that she had a huge trauma, but that doesn't mean she can stomp all over the only person willing to take a stomping....although now, that's changing.

The very person who she should have stomped down on is her husband who ran off with a younger girl (who's own dad did the same to her mom) while my daughter was pregnant with their second child.

Can't stomp down on someone who doesn't care though, can you?

Sraefire57, I assume you have personal experience of estrangement?
I don't, but my cousin is estranged from her family and as I am close to my Aunt and Uncle,and to my cousin, I am aware of both sides. Although I think she is shouldn't have cut them out, I do understand her reasons....
My uncle can see where they had issues but my aunt refuses to accept she got some things wrong...and that's why they're stuck...
I actually don't think the majority of people go no contact without reason.
I also think Family Therapy can help.

Smileless2012

^Why such denial?^ because if it can happen to us, it could happen to them Starfire. If we can be estranged by the AC we 'd had a great relationship with up until being estranged, whose to say it couldn't happen to anyone?

The reality IMO that's being denied is this can happen to anyone.

This may be a correct assumption! No other logical explanation.

eddiecat78

MarieElla

Starfire57, I really don't believe things are ever one sided...

I believed that too and "there's no smoke without fire" - then I discovered someone can create a destructive amount of smoke without the slightest spark of fire.
You should open your mind to the possibility that there aren't always 2 sides to an argument.

AMEN to that. Also, it seems "unconditional love", for some reason, only is supposed to be for the child. That's very one sided thinking too.

You should open your mind to the possibility that there aren't always 2 sides to an argument

I agree eddiecat Which was my point above, regarding a financial abuse scenario as just one example.

Norah

^when a relationship breaks down its rarely just one person's fault regardless of whether it's the parent or child.^

Indeed. Two to tango.

Dancing becomes too difficult? Quit.

Low contact tapers to no contact.

Agreed. Adding that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even if only one party’s life feels improved after low or no contact. Peace of mind is important. Stress kills. I don’t see any point in allowing any relationship to do more harm than good. Life if far too short.

MarieElla

Starfire57, I really don't believe things are ever one sided...

I believed that too and "there's no smoke without fire" - then I discovered someone can create a destructive amount of smoke without the slightest spark of fire.
You should open your mind to the possibility that there aren't always 2 sides to an argument.

Smileless2012

Quitting the dance was the best decision for us Norah.

Well done you. Perhaps best for many in your dilemma.

Quitting the dance was the best decision for us Norah.