There is a ton of advice out there – coming from sources such as self-help books, television psychiatrists, internet forums and therapists – on what to do should you find yourself estranged from your parents/children. The New York Times even ran a series of articles on parental estrangement; what they termed, The Silent Epidemic.
Two potential remedies seem to be Universal, regardless of source of advise, if any sort of reconciliation is your goal:
1. See the potential rift and diffuse it early
2. Act immediately after the rift occurs
This got me thinking: In my case, the rift was not singular – the riftS were caused by repeated acts of child abuse, and there was no way for any party to act immediately – we were bound by our circumstances as perpetrator and victim; my parents didn’t understand or care that what they were doing was wrong and harmful, and I was a helpless child who was powerless to change my circumstances.
The advice above may be well meaning, but I can’t agree with it in principle. It is, at the very least, too simplistic:
No rational, thinking, feeling adult ends a loving, viable, meaningful relationship with his parents because of a rift. I didn’t walk away from Pat because of my wife’s influence, as I know Pat professes to believe. And I didn’t didn’t walk away from Ed because Pat poisoned me against him after their divorce – or even because of my wife’s discomfort when in his presence, as I think he professes to believe.
We walk away from our parents when we come to understand the relationship means nothing to them, or it doesn’t mean what it should, and it likely never did.
We may exit during a time of conflict, but conflict isn’t the reason we stay away; correlation does not imply causation.
After something such as a rift we might be angry, we might be hurt, and we might even distance ourselves from our parents for a time, but resolution would be possible and it would almost certainly occur if the relationship had held a position of value to begin with.
The reasons for true estrangement are never simple – nor are they, in my opinion, singular in nature.
My family was so dysfunctional no parent/child bond was ever formed. We were strangers living in the same house because none of us had any choice.
Lasting estrangement is complicated – deep seated. And whether it is initiated by parent or child, it is an agonizing decision based in a need for self-preservation – and that is a powerful force.
My position is well-considered; there is nothing either of my parents could do to alter it – and by the time I made the decision to close that door forever, there never was.
But it had nothing to do with rift or conflict, it had everything to do with who they are as people, and how they failed so miserably as parents.
Silence Shattered 