Estrangement's mixed emotions
How an estranged child might be happy and sad about the estrangement
Technically to be estranged is to be alienated or no longer close to someone. Sometimes the word is used with regards to a marital breakdown but, in this substack, I am only thinking of it in terms of family relationship breakdown. It’s interesting that it’s viewed as no longer being close or affectionate. I reckon most estrangements happen because you were never truly close or affectionate. The word that resonates to me is alienated. That one really describes how I think people feel in the days, weeks, months, and years following an estrangement. You might never have felt close or affectionate but now you feel alienated. Out in the interstellar wilderness adrift from social constructs that might have provided the very foundations of what you built your life on. After all our family is our first base, our first source of security and the first place where we learn what it is to be human. We are brought up to believe that these relationships are for life and are unconditional. These feelings are likely felt by people on both sides of the estrangement.
I think, even in the most dysfunctional families, a child views the people they grow up around as permanent and a parent views the relationship with their child as permanent. We hold that belief our whole lives. Lovers, friends, co-workers, etc, these people we expect to be transient in our lives (though we may not like it) but our family are supposed to be permanent. What does it feel like when we learn that that may not be the case?
We might be the instigator of the estrangement and so, to outsiders, they may view us as “to blame”. I don’t think most people who end a family relationship view it as being a choice. I think most people view it as the last resort (barring outside influences such as coercive partners, unethical therapists, etc). Being the initiator has no bearing, I think, on how alienating it is to cut yourself adrift from a family member. One would think that the lack of closeness or affection preceding the estrangement would help with the pain in the aftermath. I’m not so sure that’s the case. After all, usually there has been years of hoping that the person will become who you’d like them to be. Years of trying to accept that they will never be who you’d like them to be but trying your best to accept them for who they are. Finally, you reach a point where you maybe realise that accepting them for who they are and retaining the relationship comes at the cost of hurting yourself. By the time you have completed that journey and the estrangement has begun, you’ve probably got years of sad events and memories to process followed by the certain grief that you will feel about not having the mother, father, brother, sister, or other close family member that you would have like to have had. I truly believe that these feelings are felt in many ways by both the estranged and the estrangee.
There is no doubt that an estrangement will cause sadness or have sadness preceding it. Everyone would like to have a happy, supportive family that you can turn to as a source of love. However, becoming estranged, either fully by no longer seeing the person or psychologically by seeing the person minimally and not emotionally engaging with them, generally happens because one person in the relationship senses that they will be happier if they leave it.
Interestingly, a UK survey in 2015 showed that 80% of participants reported that their estrangement had a positive effect on their lives. This paradoxical feeling of both happiness, sadness, relief, and anger characterises most family estrangements, I think. It's what makes it hard for other people to understand. I understand that it is particularly devastating for parents to hear that their child is happier without them, unfortunately it might be the truth. Unfortunately, it is important to understand that your child may believe that things are unfixable. They have likely tried fixing things with no success. The gulf between their needs and the family member’s needs are too great, or their commitment to misunderstanding each other is too entrenched. A lifetime of poor communication rests in the chasm between both parties like a swamp, completely uncrossable.
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I love reading the thoughts of people with lived experience of estrangement.
I would love to read any insights and/or advice you might have about any children/grandchildren involved. I am estranged from my mother after years of struggling with establishing boundaries that progressed to low-contact, and finally no contact. I have children still living at home and one away at college and have honestly had a difficult time talking with them about the situation. They know there were issues of neglect and entitlement that led to my decision, but I worry about over-sharing or burdening them with things I shouldn’t.