Empty Nest, Full Heart, Lost Connections

When Love Leaves, Memories Remain

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  • No Inheritance for You

    Random memories come back to me as I navigate the world of estrangement. I can honestly say that we never saw estrangement coming. The hurt is so deep because we would never cut one of our children off in a relationship sense. We loved them from birth!

    Back in 2014 I spent the day crafting with my future daughter in law. We had a really fun day. My son was here hanging out with his father while we crafted. We made scrapbook pages and a few note cards. At the time, life was good and it seemed as if our son and his girlfriend had a decent relationship with us. I say decent because no relationship is perfect. While I do not know of any issues that were there at the time, 12 years later I wonder if I missed something?

    The girlfriend stayed at the house and at one point before the wedding, moved in with us while she waited to move into an apartment. Am I wrong to look back and think, “They just used us AGAIN?” It is certainly what it feels like. We are good enough when they need a free place to stay.

    Fast forward to current day and we are not even worth a text or phone call much less an in person visit. Radio silence.

    Which brings me to a very controversial topic. The estranged adult children who sneak into the support groups lose their shit and attack posters on this said topic. Cutting estranged children out of the will. Yep. They lose their shit. They say, “This is why they are estranged!” “If you did this, then you are the problem!”. Well, I have a lot to say about this. Do you remember the soup Nazi from Seinfeld? “No soup for you!” he yelled.

    While we love our son, his wife and their kids and might welcome them back if they decided they want a relationship again, we have cut them out of our will. If you hate us in life, you will not benefit from our retirement and savings in death! Hell to the NO! Even if you decide we are worthy of your attention as we age. Hell no, you won’t be back in. We won’t ever trust that these free loading moochers came back out of a pure desire to have a relationship. If they ever strike up a relationship again, we will be clear that they are out of the will. Then and only then would we know for certain we were not being used.

    What these adult children need to understand: your parents may not welcome you back after your abusive treatment. Your parents sacrificed for you and loved you. Your parents sat at your ball games freezing their asses off, burning up on the extra hot days and even sitting with umbrellas in the rain. Your parents taxied your ass all over BFE and back. They fed you, clothed you and put up with your tantrums and teenage drama. After several years of silence, the relationship wold never be the same.

    I know that I would never trust them. My husband feels the same way. Trust has been eroded. We do not want them taking care of us should something happen. They will have zero say in ANYTHING. They have shown us who they are and we do not trust that they would EVER have our best interests at heart. They do not deserve to be given a penny of our hard earned money if we should pass away. Not a penny. We have written a will that states their lack of inheritance is intentional.

    Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I am sure if we die they will say, “See they did not truly love us.” I call bullshit. We love you, son and daughter. But we are stupid enough to give people we hate our money and possessions any longer. It all goes to the children who love us in life. No inheritance for you!

    ~Evelyn

  • Calling Bullshit on Butt Hurt Assholes

    Adult children these days get butt hurt and cannot get over it. I blame myself and my husband for coddling our oldest son and making him think the world revolves around him. We didn’t allow him to have confrontation and learn that it is part of life. Well, I thought we did as not all of my kids are not this way. Our oldest grew up in our family and we were not perfect, but we never cut anyone out. Somehow he missed out on the part that family sticks together through thick and thin. Not abuse, but through the good and the bad. Family life is messy.

    Having 4 kids, you’d think that our oldest and his wife would understand how messy family life can be. Maybe it won’t hit until their kids get into their teen years. For us, that is where my oldest had his hormone rages and bucked us at every turn. Maybe it will take teenagers for he and his wife to get it. Our oldest was a grumpy teenager. Always mad about something – having to do chores, schoolwork, or helping around the house with anything. At one point he wanted to move out on his own because he hated it here so much. Once we came up with a budget, he realized that he would not be able to finish high school because he would need to work full time to support himself.

    He settled a bit once he went off to college, things got better. He came home on breaks, brought his now wife here to meet us. She moved in with us for a few months before they got married and life was fine. As I have written before, things were good through their first several children. We helped. Then they moved in with us for four months. What happened that made them cut us off when they moved out?

    We honestly do not know. We didn’t make them pay for anything while they were here. Not even laundry detergent or dish soap. Was it perfect? No. They got on our fucking nerves, but we never raised our voices or kicked them out. It’s family. When they had asked to move in for a bit, I specifically told them that we would all get on each others nerves, but told them that we would get through it because we are family. Just like we didn’t kick a disrespectful, petulant teenager out and cut him off when he was being a complete asshole. Family life is messy.

    Somehow, we raised the oldest to be a self-righteous and self-centered jerk. A free loader who uses people and throws them out with the garbage. Just calling it as we see it here at our house. We did something he and his wife are butt hurt over. Somehow they cannot get over their butt hurt and embrace family.

    My husband and I are certainly glad that we don’t hold grudges. If we did hold grudges, whew wee………. we’d never speak to the kids again. LOL Does anyone raise children and NOT have issues? Nothing major. Just the normal hormonal crap teens go through where they snap and yell. The normal bullshit when they think they don’t have to follow house rules and call you horrible names when they get pissed when rules are enforced.

    So today I call bullshit on these butt hurt assholes. We put up with all of their bullshit for several decades and they expect unconditional love 24/7. As parents we make a few small mistakes and they cut us out forever!? Complete and utter bullshit.

    ~Evelyn

  • Therapy is the Best

    Therapy is great. I went to therapy again today. I ponder the same thoughts over and over again. My therapist tells me that this is normal. Especially for parents with estranged adult kids. We question every moment of their childhood. Over and over again.

    There are so many things that I do not understand.

    I don’t understand how a son can say that he is NOT angry with his mother and father but blocks them from every form of communication. How is it NOT anger that causes a son to cut off his parents in such a way!? Normal people don’t cut off people with whom they are not angry.

    I don’t understand how he, his wife and their kids could live with us for 4 months and then turn around and treat us like shit by cutting us out of their lives. I will never be able to wrap my head around this. How can they use us like this? I call it using because it seems so cold and calculated. They moved in when they needed a home, knowing what was to come. As soon as they moved out it was radio silence.

    Today, I discussed my inability to stop thinking about what I could do to fix this. The truth is that I can’t do anything. They won’t speak to us. How can we fix ANYTHING if they won’t speak to us!? We can’t. They won’t text, speak on the phone or meet in person.

    They supposedly love us but have to protect their mental health. Really? They didn’t have to protect their mental health when they needed a place to live. You don’t stop communicating with people you love. I’m guessing that as time goes on, they will blame us for not continuing to reach out to them. They will turn it around, forgetting that he sent the texts ending our relationship. I can see this coming from mile away.

    I think that’s what hurts my heart so much. My son doesn’t love me. My son hates me. His actions speak louder than words. I know he is angry because he has cut all communication. If he truly loved me and wasn’t angry, he could handle our once every 4-5 week texts!

    They can say they love us and aren’t mad all they want……. But that is simply NOT true. It’s such a weird place to be. Their words don’t fit their actions. I don’t treat people I love this way. I don’t treat people I’m not angry with this way. It’s just not normal.

    We are not alone. Every single day I hear from people who are in our shoes. Good, decent parents who have been abandoned by their adult children for stupid reasons. Funny enough, the son who lives with us reminded me of a friend with whom the other son didn’t speak to for years. He was mad at the boy for a dumb reason and finally started speaking to him again.

    Which leads me to my next thought. These estranged adults are miserable people. They are always angry with someone. I cannot imagine always being angry!

    Tonight, I told my husband that life is too short to be angry all the time. It takes too much energy. Don’t get angry with your estranged child in return. It is too draining and life is too short. Go out and build a life you are proud of. Don’t waste time with anger.

    We are living our best life, getting ready for retirement. We are enjoying our adventures. If our grands ever reach out to us, we will have a great time getting to know them. We will have a life full of adventure to share with them.

    Therapy has helped me to get to a place where I can live with this loss and hope for a future with my grands one day.

    ~Evelyn

  • The Emotional Toll of Child Estrangement

    It’s very hard to go no contact back. Very hard. It is easier than getting nothing but hate filled rhetoric back, however. The hate really takes the wind out of your sails.

    The last text that I sent to my son was simply to tell him that I love him. I got nothing but hatred back. I told him that I hoped he could forgive me one day. He said that he had but that just needed to be done and equated me to a murderer. That was such an insane comment to receive back. He and his wife claim they are not angry, but you do NOT treat people you love and care about in such a manner.

    He told me that he blocked me, but I have never tried to call or text since that day to see if this is true. I continued to send gifts and cards to the grands, but don’t even know if they threw the stuff away or if he and his wife let the grands have the gifts. My husband just stays silent and doesn’t seem to be as affected by their behavior as am I.

    These adult children who cut their parents off –if this is their idea of love, it is really scary. My son and his wife supposedly love us and are not angry with us….but they won’t have anything to do with us. It’s a strange way to treat family members you say you aren’t angry with! It is all so bizarre, this new age psychology.

    After Christmas without anything from them, I felt like a total fool. My husband told me that they would not change their minds and I thought that somehow they would realize they had made a mistake in cutting us out. I never had a relationship with any of my grandparents. On my mother’s side, her mom died before I was born and her father when I was 5 or 6. My father did not have a relationship with his parents. I only met them 2 or 3 times in my entire life. They died before I graduated from high school. What I wouldn’t give to have a relationship with them.

    I often think about how different life would have been if we had today’s technology back then. We had to pay for long-distance phone calls. I hope that when my grands get old enough to get their first phone that they will reach out to me. Maybe it won’t be until they are in college, but I can hope, right?

    Every. Single. Day. I think about what I could have possibly done so wrong to deserve this treatment. We were not bad parents. I have read so many stories of parental alienation. I’m not talking about kids who alienate themselves from abusive parents. Good parents. Not perfect parents, but good parents. The statistics are quite sad.

    Research indicates that parents estranged from their children, particularly those experiencing parental alienation, are at a significantly higher risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. Approximately 
    47% to 50% of parents moderately to severely alienated from their children have considered suicide within the last year.

    No, I am not thinking about harming myself. I’m talking about this statistic in order to highlight how much the grief hurts a loving parents’ hearts. These children don’t seem to care what their estrangement does to the parents who love them.

    I remember all of the diapers I changed and the long nights I stayed up when my son was sick. How many times did I clean up his vomit? Too many times to count. I was a mom taxi for years and years. Cook and maid. I did all of these things with love. My husband worked hard to support his family while I ran the household. We were not perfect, but we loved our kids.

    My son ended our relationship with him via text. I finally decided to respect is wishes and have gone no contact. It took two years for me to finally realize it was best to just give him what he wants.

    ~Evelyn

  • Easter Reflections: From Joy to Estrangement

    When I woke up this morning, I wondered if my son remembered all of the Easters we had as a happy family. I would wait until they went to sleep before putting their Easter baskets together. I loved doing this each and every year. Just as much as I enjoyed coloring eggs every year.

    Sometimes it was chaos getting 3 boys ready for church every Sunday. Easter Sunday was no different. My husband’s parents would send a check to purchase Easter outfits for the boys, so we always had them dressed up for the special day.

    Sometimes we had to hide the eggs 10 or 15 times for their Easter egg hunts.. They enjoyed this so much. I would fill plastic eggs with various candy and sometimes quarters and dimes. One egg would even contain a dollar bill. I often hid them so well, they were never found. When we pulled the shrubs from the front yard a few years ago, I found at least 3 eggs filled with candy from years past.

    This Easter is different. We are celebrating with our one son today. Still making the traditional lamb and sides, but things are different when you are estranged from a child and their children. We thought that we would be doing Easter egg hunts over and over with the grandkids like we did in years past. We still cannot wrap our minds around the why of this. Things were fine for so many Easter celebrations and all of a sudden they were not.

    We hope one day our son and his wife have a change of heart and let us back in. Until then, we find joy in our other children and the celebration of family traditions with them. We cling to the memories of the wonderful Easter celebrations of the past and know that we were good parents.

    ~Evelyn

  • Coping with Estrangement During Easter Celebrations

    Happy Easter to everyone! Easter is a hard time to cope with an estranged adult child and grandchildren, isn’t it? I remember all of the wonderful Easter traditions our family has had over the years. Every Easter, we did the resurrection eggs as part of our Good Friday and Holy Saturday traditions. The boys loved the resurrection eggs and later, the grandkids had fun with them when they visited at Easter.

    Every year, we colored eggs. I was always coming up with a new way to dye them. We sometimes used the tablets or food coloring. One year we used all natural things to dye the eggs — onion skins, grass, flowers, blueberries, raspberries, etc. It was SO much fun. Every year, we made a lamb shaped cake, too. Of course, every Easter, the Easter Bunny brings baskets with candy and toys!

    It’s always been a tradition to make lamb on Easter Sunday, too. Traditionally I roasted a leg of lamb. Last year, we smoked it in our smoker. This year we will grill lamb chops. It’s a wonderful tradition and my son who still lives with us LOVES lamb.

    I wonder where we went wrong? For the life of me, I don’t fucking know. We were not abusive. We have always been attentive, good parents. Yet here we are celebrating another Easter without our son and his family. When I talk with my therapist, I always ask, “What did I do that was so horrible to deserve this punishment?” Therapy is personal and my husband does not go to therapy, so I can only speak for myself. I have so many questions. I honestly do not know what I did so horribly wrong to deserve this brutal punishment.

    My grandkids are growing up without getting to know us. I wonder if they ever think of us and wonder why we are no longer part of their lives? We used to be. What do the kids tel them about us? Will we ever get to see them again? Will they remember us?

    If you are reading this, it is okay to feel how you feel. I love Jesus, but I also cuss a little. Not being able to share family traditions with my grandkids is one of the things that really hurts deep down in my soul. I am not a horrible person. I am not perfect, but I do have a lot to offer my grandkids.

    We will have a small family celebration on Sunday without my oldest son and his family. We will gather around the table to give thanks and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. It’s not the same without his family, but time marches on. We continue to live life and to celebrate all of the wonderful things life has to offer– even when we miss him and his family, it can still be good.

    If you are struggling to celebrate holidays without your estranged child, please remember that they can still be happy. They will always be different without your child, but it doesn’t mean you cannot have joy.

    Wishing you peace and many blessings this Easter season.

    ~Evelyn

  • It’s Okay to be Pissed Off with Your Adult Estranged Child

    It’s okay to be pissed off with your adult estranged children. I was a good mom. I was far from perfect, but I was not abusive. NEWS FLASH: there are no perfect parents. Unless you are referring to Mary and Joseph, of course. When you do the best you can and are not abusive to your children and they turn on you, it is okay to be pissed off.

    I admit that I struggle with this concept. I love my boys, but the hurt of my oldest cutting us out of his life pissed me off. Especially for such stupid reasons. Annoying? Like he wasn’t an annoying little shit sometimes! But we still loved him, raised him and didn’t drop him off at an orphanage. And now 32 years later he and his wife have cut us out of their lives and won’t let us see the grandkids. They refused to have a civil conversation. Until the very end, they would only send vile, hateful, and lecturing texts.

    It was our fault for allowing them to lecture us. We did ignore their attitude in an attempt to keep the peace. We love our son, h8s wife and their kids. When they lived with us, we kept our mouths shut about their parenting style as it was not our place. We put up with a lot while they were in the house. Let’s just say there were things tat were destroyed and we stayed silent.

    I’m here to tell other parents in this situation that it is okay to be pissed off. We were used over and over again and then dropped like hot potatoes. We were good enough when they needed a place to live rent free. We were good enough to babysit when they needed to go looking for houses or out to eat. Then, when they moved out a few years ago — they stopped talking to us. Any questions about being able to see the grandkids was met with venom. It was very obvious that we were being cut off.

    They refused to come visit. Always an excuse when we invited them for dinner. Always an excuse when we invited them just to visit for a bit. They stopped inviting us over. For a few months, they allowed us to meet at a park to play with the kids. Then, that stopped. When we enquired, we were told nothing was wrong. They were not mad. Then, after only seeing the grandkids once in 6 months we asked why they were mad. All hell broke loose! We were accused of self fulfilling prophesy. It was hard not to send a text back with a laughing emoji. What the actual FUCK!?

    Follow the timeline. They lived with us, mooched off of us, paid no rent. Did not buy laundry detergent or dish washing detergent. Life was fine and they were happy to be in the house using free AC and heat. We had fun doing crafts with the kids. We had fun playing board games and movie nights. When they moved out, it went cold.

    We didn’t text daily or even weekly. We tried to respect their boundaries. We asked ourselves, “Is it terrible that we would like to meet the grandkids once a month or so for an hour at a local park?” “Why can’t we even drop gifts off on their porch?” We questioned what we had done to make this happen. We were not abusive to our own children and were never abusive to the grandkids.

    Out of nowhere a list of traumas came to light. We bothered them too much. They had their own lives to live and had not yet even visited the people in town they knew before moving back home. We were horrible for wanting to be part of their lives. We were annoying. And they didn’t like my social media use. And this is where I screamed, “What the actual fuck!?”

    My daughter in law sells things on social media and now has over 40K followers. She posts very strange videos where you can see the children in the background, but here she was criticizing MY social media use. And to be clear, I don’t give two shits what she does online. Or anyone else for that matter. BUT if you are going to come after me for MY social media, I’ll point out the pot calling the kettle black.

    Both of our kids claim to hate social media. She only uses it to make income for the family. Which causes me to laugh. Seriously. Who gives a fuck what you use social media for. You do you, boo. But don’t you DARE judge me for my social media use. Go fuck yourself. Yes, I am that pissed off. I had never even cared about her social media use. Always on the phone when we visited or met them at the park.

    A few years ago, prior to the great black out, we were blocked on social media. I suspect because she knew that she was being a hypocrite and did not want us to see the utter bullshit she posts online. It makes my social media look tame. If her followers knew how she treated her parents (n-laws), they might not purchase her religious line of products.

    If you have estranged adult children who used you before throwing you away, it is okay to be pissed off. No one should use another human being and toss them once their usefulness is no longer. It is SICK. No one deserves to be abused this way!

    The hurt is deep. My therapist once told me that anger is a secondary emotion that usually arises from being hurt. It’s true. I have been devastated to the point of depression. When the sadness gives way now and then, it turns to anger. When I realize how we were good enough when they needed us and then they tossed us, I get SO angry. If we tossed them like they tossed us, you know they would be pissed and the horrid things they have aid to us would be a million times more hateful.

    Don’t be ashamed because you are pissed. It is a normal emotion when you spent your life raising a child into a human being who disregards your worth and treats you like shit.

    ~Evelyn

  • Understanding Bullying by Estranged Adult Children

    Online bullying has been an issues since the creation of the internet. If you take a peek into the online support groups for parents of estranged adult children, the bullying is unreal! Children join these groups and go after parents seeking support. I told one lady today that if these are adult children who have cut their parents off, that they like treat their own parents the same way. It gives us insight into the issues.they are having with their own parents.

    In my own life, the texts messages my son and his wife send are over the top and hateful. At one point, my son equated me to a murderer! What the heck!? The vile things he sends through text messages are some of the same things we see online. Not having to face me, he just lets loose via text message. This is the same thing online bullies do They dehumanize the folks they are sending such hateful messages to. These millennials are very cruel on social media, text messages and other forms of electronic communication. It’s easy to do when you hide behind a screen. These texts of theirs are BULLYING. They attempt to manipulate us with the hateful words and instructions. Their lectures are, in fact, a form of bullying. They are NOT our parents. And, oddly enough, they would be screaming TRAUMA if we texted them in the same manner! I call bullshit!

    It is hard to imagine the son that we raised would says such horrible things to his own mother/parents. I honestly do not know where his anger comes from. If my parents had reached out to tell me that they loved me, I would have been so happy to hear this. One of the reasons I try to tell my sons every day (that I see them), “I love you,” is because my own parents rarely, if ever told me. I grew up hearing that I was hated, that I was stupid, on and on. I vowed not to be like my parents. I never called my children names and told them every day how much I loved them.

    I was far from perfect! The memories of the fun we had when they were growing up sustain me. The son that moved back in after college lets me know that what I remember is what he remembers. Thankfully. I often ask him if he suffers from the same trauma that my oldest suffers from. He does not. Which makes me wonder how two sons can have such different views of childhood memories. To be clear, he doesn’t think I was a perfect mom, he just thinks I was a good mom despite my shortcomings. AND he wasn’t traumatized by my small parental failures.

    I do not deserve the hatred. Many of the parents I am in touch with don’t deserve it, either. It breaks my heart that I could play a role in raising a son who could treat his own mother this way. If I had been abusive or mean to him, perhaps this would be justified. I have never abused him. I have tried over and over to make amends and to apologize for the things he has accused me of – being annoying, trauma dumping in support groups (which I just don’t get his caring about), and for anything he holds against me. I don’t know what all the issues are because he refuses to speak and his rambling, hateful texts don’t always make sense.

    Many in the millennial generation cannot function normally in society. EVERYTHING is a trauma to them. However, the do not believe the horrible things THEY say to their parents traumatizing. Their parents deserve to be treated with hatred and venom. They never even think about the trauma THEY are causing their parents. They treat their parents as less than human. It’s sadly pathetic. They abuse their own parents and cannot even see their own hypocrisy.

    And here is the TRUTH: they do NOT care. They only care about themselves. They do NOT care about any trauma they cause anyone else because in their world view, the world revolves around them. I blame myself for contributing to the raising of such a self-centered son. I was not the perfect parent, but I do believe that I made him believe that he was perfect and that anytime he perceived his needs were not met, it was a “trauma”. It was not my intent to raise such a self-centered trauma centered kid. But here we are.

    ~Evelyn

  • Navigating Grandparent Estrangement: Personal Insights

    We always imagined retirement would be filled with time with our grandkids. I was a stay-at-home mom who went back to work when the boys went off to college. After giving up my military career to raise them, I needed to find a new career once they were out of the house. By then, I thought I’d be having sleepovers with the grands and spending Saturdays doing crafts with them.

    I had big dreams of spending time with my grandchildren just as I had with my own boys. I turned one of the guest bedrooms into a special room for the grands, so I always assumed that they would be here. Once they moved out, I kept the room just as it was for two years. Sadly, in those two years, they never came to visit once. To protect my mental health, I redecorated the room. I was tired of passing by and being reminded of the four months they lived with us.

    It’s now been two years and three months without contact or a visit, which just confirms I made the right decision to redecorate the room. Coming to terms with estrangement is very difficult, but embracing reality helps one heal. I still struggle with WHY my son and his wife cut us off.We have never been given real answers other than we are annoying and our social media is disturbing. 

    I’ve done some research, and most sources list the top three reasons for adult child estrangement as: divorce, addiction or mental illness, and estrangement due to their spouse. It is estimated that one in four families is dealing with some sort of estrangement.

    Divorce is a difficult situation for the entire family. Often times, kids are caught in the middle of the parents and their conflict. This can be exacerbated when the in-laws or other family members get involved and either knowingly or unknowingly contribute to the alienation of the divorced parents from their children.

    Addiction and mental illness are on the rise. Especially with the legalization of marijuana and other THC-containing products. Often times, parents initiate the estrangement by kicking the child out of the home or seeking hospitalization.

    The child’s spouse can contribute to the estrangement by either demanding the adult child end contact with his or her parents. Often the spouse dislikes the parent who is alienated. This could be a personality conflict or due to some perceived criticism.  In times past, the man could sway his wife against her parents, but in recent times there has been a dramatic shift in daughters-in-law taking control and causing no contact between the son and his mother.

    There is a great blog post written about the Daughter In Law Cult that helped me to understand a little bit of what might have happened with my son. I’ll/we will never know because they cut off all communication and refuse to have any type of conversation. For a while they would text horrible things and I finally told them these types of conversations need to be had in person and not via text. That’s when we woke up to a flurry of text messages and it all ended.

    That’s another thing that perplexes me- the unwillingness to have an actual conversation. Is it emotional immaturity and an inability to communicate? I think that Gen Y millennials grew up using technology and have the inability to have a face to face conversation. Oddly enough, I have noticed the phone in the hand of our daughter in law almost constantly while she derides me for my social media use. She blocked me from her IG account with over 40k followers. She’s an influencer and sells handmade products.

    The hypocrisy is really bold, in my opinion. But here we are. I often wonder if they will regret their choices one day. Do they ever think of the parents they cut off? What do they tell the children who remember their grandparents? We may die never knowing what our grandkids know of us. We may live to see the day the grands are able to contact us. I hope for the latter and dream of the day I am able to reconnect with the grands I know and meet the ones I do not.

    ~Evelyn

  • The Mother Side of the Coin and other Blogs

    I read a blog post from 2020: The Mother Side of the Coin. She’s a mom and a family therapist. She is also an estranged mother. She writes what so many of us feel after raising our kids in loving homes.

    A quote that hits home for me: “In my story, I had to learn that my children’s alienation from me could never be commensurate with any mistake I ever made with them. I had to learn about the retrospective guilt that every parent can feel when evaluating our history of parenting our children. I had to learn that who I am is not defined by my children’s alienation.”

    Absolutely! You are not less of a person because you are estranged from your child(ren).

    She goes on to write: “It has been nine years. I don’t know where my children live. I no longer try to call or send a text or write an email to which I never get a reply. The absolute silence that has existed, after my divorce from a marriage of 25 years, has been deafening.

    I have compassion for my children. I believe we are living in an era of nonchalance and it is their era, informed by the commonality of ghosting and social media abuse. Today, there are more adult estrangement articles that support the child’s right to sever their relationship with their parent even when the parent exerts effort at reconciliation.”

    ^^^^^This. So many of the parents in the support groups I frequent have tried to reconcile. They have admitted they were not perfect, but they are not abusers. They have reached out to no avail. I did the same thing — reached out until I was made a fool. Sadly, it took me a few years to learn. We haven’t even met our youngest grandchild. My husband has been no contact since it started, but the mother side of the coin is that we moms are more emotional and want the connection with our children we carried in our wombs for 9 months and raised. It is gut wrenching for a mother.

    Her blog is full of references and I highly suggest that anyone going through estrangement.

    Done with the Crying is another blog I like, too. Sheri has some posts that I have found to be helpful. Renew Your Inner Garden is a good one to read when you find yourself ruminating and going in circles. The mental loops can be exhausting. She’s also written a book called Rumination Remedies, a workbook to help stop the looped thought patterns. I have the link for this workbook on my resources page. You’ll find her blog helpful and full of great resources.

    Sadly, we are not alone. I, for one, am very glad that there are others who so openly and willingly share their stories.

    ~Evelyn