When Children Abandon Their Parents - Sensitive

I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. I Googled estranged stories and right under their link was the the one for children who have estranged saying Do NOT go to estranged stories so I looked at it. I guess I'm way too sensitive right now cuz what I saw when I looked was children saying awful things about their parents. Its a separate group not connected with this one. It doesn't take much for me right now to be triggered to hurt but I didn't want I to think you'd bern thought to give out wrong info. I remember feeling like this before and calling a distress line that only wanted to go aftery children like that would help but that's how upset I am so I hope u understand I was talking about a different group than this one.
 

Kathryn, really...no matter where you are there are folks on ES who have been there too. Your heart shatters, but my Dad kind of framed it one night. We write chapters of our lives. Some books you might reread and some you might not. Estrangement means our kids are writing their chapters without us. We have to pick up and write our chapters without them. That's really it. I tossed all the pictures...hurt like Hell but yeah...really go back to ES when you're ready.
 
I ( we) recently changed our wills,we have it with a company run by a group of solicitors ,due to the fact my husband of 30 years ,ex can apparently put in a claim on our estate if something happen to us together, :confused: We have also cut his two children aged 39 and 43 out COMPLETLY ..The lady who handles our wills said its a common thing now days for elderly parents/ grown children to be estranged ..I recently cut my eldest Grandaughter out COMPLETLY after her unwarranted treatment of us by not inviting us to her wedding ....
 

At one point, my son's thoughtless cruelty literally broke me, as nothing in my past ever had. He went through me with a verbal buzz saw. I was in pieces for two years. He has no idea what he did. Young, stupid, lashing out. Found out years later,

it was about his disappointment re being unable to attend grad school?? It is better now, but there is a distance. I find it difficult to trust him. I know I cannot ask him for any emotional support, or probably much of anything else either. He wants a loving supportive mother, he does not want to be a son. He is thirty four, married, no kids yet.
 
My oldest daughter has separated from our family. It hurts like hell. Last weekend was my birthday. While my husband tried to make the day special for me, all I could do is hope for a card, an email. We went to dinner and as nice as our meal was, all I could think of is my daughter lives only 3-5 miles from where I was sitting. My other daughter tries so hard to make up for the absence of her sister, it's so wrong. She no longer has a relationship with her sister. Why? No one knows. My husband sees our daughter maybe once or twice a year. If he wants to see her, she makes him (at the age of 70 and is as deaf as one can get) drive to downtown Seattle. It's always near her birthday and Christmas. Mothers Day is the worst for me. We go to brunch and I just see all these families together and it kills me (my other daughter lives in Az). Last year at brunch, I cried the entire time. My poor husband acted like all was good. I just couldn't stop crying. Folks walking by our table probably thought my husband was some wife abuser or something.....mascara running down my face, eyes all red, it was terrible. I'm just shocked one of my children would turn out to be such a selfish, cruel person.
 
Really sad stories,especially for the parents who don't know the answer to 'why'.


My mom passed away when I was 7.my father remarried a year later.she was abusive to me and I had a bad childhood.

I tried for years to keep in touch in my adult married life,visiting them in Maryland etc. A few years back,the last phonecall to them,my stepmom was cold on the phone,I was shocked asked what was wrong and she told me her dad passed away and ii didn't call her for the condolences. I don't know how I was suppposed to know.
Anyways,lol I had a meltown,breakdown,I don't know what it was,(my dad always took her side,the pu''y that he was)
She remained upset and I got tired of puting in the effort to try and stay close for my dads sake.
I cut off ties from the abuse that had gone from physical to emotional.

I haven't spoken to them since and I have learned to disenstiize myself to remaiin sane.

Now,my maternal grandmother who I lived with in Greece,I loved her so much that I even changed her diapers in the months before she passed.

I would do the same for my MIL.she was an amazing woman.

My children,son is 25 and lives on his own since he was 20.he comes up every weekend cause he lives and works in the city and we are texting all the time but I would never want to burden them at my old age.my son tells me he will take care of me and my dauughter tells me to pick an old peeps home,lmao I have to remind her that she is living in MY home and her 18th bbirthday is around the corner,lol

We do our best .damn if you do and damn if you don't sometimes.
 
I don't think the distance has much to do with it based upon the fact that I got along with my daughter when we were 1800 miles apart. I am now 30 miles away from her. We did not talk for past 2 years. Recently we reconnected through the death of her oldest daughter, with whom I was close. We will see how it goes. It will require work on both sides. We have both made mistakes along the way. It is too easy to forget our own omissions.

A great read which has a lot of insight into our ageing relationships is OLIVE KITTERIDGE by Elizabeth Strout.
 
I am so amazed and saddened by many of these stories. I have many friends, myself included, who's children have become estranged and not one has an answer as to why? I was only hearing from my grown children when they needed something from me. When I started to refuse their requests their contact with me diminished. It hurts most because I do not know the reason why?
 
There is a saying and I will try to translate it from Greek:
'Where you are,I was,where I am,you are coming'

When these kids get old and are treated this way,maybe they will realise what they did.
 
It can go all ways. My mother stopped talking to my oldest brother when I was in high school. He is 11 years older than me. She never spoke to him again. I think it was inevitable but in the end it was something I did that was the final thing. I didn't do anything wrong, I know. What my mother could not stand was that my oldest brother stayed in contact with our biological father. Now I haven't spoken to my oldest brother since I was 24.

My other brother has asked me why I don't talk to him. I told him a couple of reasons once and he said "I didn't know that"
 
Worst thing I FB'd to the oldest. One day you might have a child like you...heaven forbid but it would serve you right. No you're just my birth mother, for fourteen ****ing years you were clueless". What can you do? They're writing they're life past you...get over it...breaks your heart in a million pieces...but yeah go on or off yourself.
 
I'm not "estranged" from my daughter.....it's just that I don't seem to have any relevance in her life. If I want to see her, I have to call and ask her to go to lunch. Maybe she's too busy, maybe she can fit me in. She doesn't call me and say, "Mother, I haven't seen you for a while; let's meet for lunch."

If we're both in town, we'll have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

There has never been any harsh words between us or any big blow-ups. As I said before, it's like I'm an aunt that you like but don't see any need to see much of.

A lot of it is her present husband; he's controlling and has done his best to split her from the family. He's done a pretty good job. He tried to keep my granddaughter away as much as possible but wasn't successful.

It is what it is. I doubt it will ever change.
 
I'm not "estranged" from my daughter.....it's just that I don't seem to have any relevance in her life. If I want to see her, I have to call and ask her to go to lunch. Maybe she's too busy, maybe she can fit me in. She doesn't call me and say, "Mother, I haven't seen you for a while; let's meet for lunch."

If we're both in town, we'll have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

There has never been any harsh words between us or any big blow-ups. As I said before, it's like I'm an aunt that she likes but don't see any need to see much of.

A lot of it is her present husband; he's controlling and has done his best to split her from the family. He's done a pretty good job. He tried to keep my granddaughter away as much as possible but wasn't successful.

It is what it is. I doubt it will ever change.
 
This is perverse: "One father of three children tells of how he and his wife have been cut off and ignored by their eldest son who is now a highly successful businessman. On mother’s day he refused to visit, “We received an hour-long rant on all the things we’d done wrong as parents, including once driving away from him when he was naughty. We did this to all of our children at one stage or another and was quite effective. It taught them a lesson and made them behave better. They turned out ok and we were just trying to do the best we could as parents at the time”." I mean, truly sadistic and pathological. What child would want to have any contact with these diseased parents. And, after all this time, they continue to believe they were right in doing this. Pathology at its grandest and most soul-destroying.
 
This is why we need our own lives, completely independent from our children. In my case, I see the estrangement is technology-based. It has changed my offspring completely, just as the internet, etc., is rewiring all our brains in ways that are not good. My daughter will send an email, and not telephone. She thinks I know things that she has not told me because she has written about them elsewhere. I feel like - and know I am - living in a completely different universe. (But most all email communication is evil). I will discontinue use of the internet entirely as soon as I can figure out how to construct an environment without it. I do not have a cell phone. Landlines are being discontinued. I'm not about to live without electricity, etc.

How did I come to this forum? There is no one, other than strangers, to whom I dare speak one word that sounds like, or is, a criticism of my daughter. She and I have had one of the best mother-daughter relationships she has ever heard about or experienced, so she tells me. I've never thought much of my contributions as a parent, other than to make sure that there was as much constancy as possible, and to assist when needed. (I swear I am not putting myself down. It's just true. Not everyone should become a mother or parent). I don't like it that my daughter is so changed, nor that there is nothing I can do about the use of technology for just about everything, nor how it has changed the way we think and interact. ("We" meaning everyone). I feel as if the pod people have taken over the universe. However, I know there are people out there who do not utilize technology to the extent that it has effected their brains and the way they interact.

In some ways, it is going to take having a kind of "cold" heart, at least to begin with, in order to release from the bonds of "mother." I see no other way around it for now. I don't want the drama. My health can't take the drama. My daughter doesn't need the drama. BUT have you ever noticed that, almost the moment you have that thought, the daughter, (or son?) will contact you and want you to BE the Mother? It's a similar phenomena to guys not being interested in a woman until she's become truly independent. This is all too much in too short a lifetime.

Would you agree that it is time to close the book on making these attempts. I'm at that point. I can't - I refuse to - be destroyed because of any of this sort of thing.
 
Maybe it's due to the idiotic "happy family" enculturalization, and that's that. Maybe, and I think this is true now, this is the way it is supposed to be. Maybe it is past time to close the book and not be involved. I don't know about you, but I've never cared about having grandchildren, for example, and there won't be any. I have never been one to talk about my child at work, or at social events, etc. That sets me apart and places me in a group that I haven't figured out how to find. If you don't want to talk babies and grandchildren, that makes you odd, right? I say, good for you that you stopped responding to your children's requests. Maybe we should just look on the relationships as strictly a business arrangement. Sentiment, otherwise, can be deadly. "Love stinks?"
 
Estrangement in any family can be very painful. If the reasons are understood, then maybe dialogue can help construct a form of bridge to help families to reunite and even heal. Forgiveness can go a long way to create peace in our lives. Abandonment can often lead to regret. Even if a parent is guilty of poor parenting skills, sometimes it's best to air these feelings and let it go. I was raised during the days when spanking was socially acceptable, not beating or abusing but as a way of controlling children when they misbehave. It left no emotional scars on myself, my siblings or any other neighborhood kids. It did not teach us to hit or be violent with others or our own children. Schools also used it as a tool for grade school children and believe me, when I was in school children behaved pretty well.

It isn't easy to figure these things out because if it's only one child, say, out of a brood of five, you could scratch your head and wonder why. I have a neighbor in her eighties, widowed, who had four children--three of which visit her all the time. When her husband passed, I noticed the name of another daughter that I had never met. Innocently, I said to her, "oh I didn't know you had two girls, does she live far away?" To which she said something like, no, she lives a couple miles away, we are estranged but I have no idea why. Ouch. I didn't know what else to say but I wasn't trying to be nosy, and I am very sorry to hear that. Last week, I visited this lady and she told me how bad her year had been. She lost a dear daughter-in-law, her sister and her estranged daughter! How painful that must be.

I look at things differently, maybe, than some people. We have the ability as adults, to maintain boundaries. If the problem is with a parent that is intrusive or demanding, limit your exposure. You can get your point across without being indifferent. Keep phone calls brief, send a card. Encourage children to have a relationship if possible, allow them to get to know their grandparents despite the relationship of the parents.(unless, of course the kids protest) Grit your teeth and visit once in a while, you can keep visits brief too. Just try not to eliminate them from your life completely unless circumstances are so terribly bad you cannot find it in your heart to do this.

My older brother and sister had an estrangement with my Mother, for a couple reasons I fully understood. A couple years before she passed, amends were made and I for one, so glad. They had her to their homes for extended visits and that is all she talked about for those two years. I don't know if they ever trully forgave her but what they did was get passed it. We cannot change our pasts but we can either chose to forgive or try to let it stay in the past and move on. It requires one to first extend that olive branch. It may be "freeing". Life is short.
 
My s-i-l is in a home for older adults that can no longer take care of themselves or who have issues, such as dementia, which is her case. My wife and another of her sisters goes to visit her every Monday. She has four boys, (one deceased). Only one of the three visits her once every other month. The other two are waiting for her to die, so they can collect their inheritance. The oldest boy told me that a few years ago. All three of them are in for a big surprise. She left all of her estate to various charities and the three boys each get only $500.00.
 
My ex is about 85% estranged from our daughters. What it comes down to is that other things are more important to mom than her children - church groups, work, the new husband (whom she broke up our family for to be with), travel, etc.
 
Lynda said:
I am relieved that my daughter and her children are no longer in my life. I no longer have to walk on egg shells worrying that something I say be taken the wrong way. I would not want this daughter to take care of me if I become unable to take care of myself. I think I would be abused. I don't really know what I did that was so wrong, but I don't really care anymore. I don't have the time or the energy to worry about it. I'm fine with who I am and have no need for the drama. I am happy that we both can have a sense of relief now and not have to wait until I die. Sometimes I think our culture puts to much pressure on us to like our children/parents. I don't like my daughter and she doesn't like me. It's okay. We are better off to acknowledge it and get on with our lives with those with which we have positive relationships.

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Lynda I could not believe what I was reading in your post because it is exactly like me and my daughter.
It is a relief that my daughter and her children are not in my life any more.
We don't like each other either and looking back our relationship was always stressful so it was bound to turn out this way right from the start.
Nice to know it's okay not to like your realtives and your relatives don't have to like you either.
 
There are Crazy Makers in all of our lives. When they are from our own family it is especially sad. But, they are who they are. And the #1 rule of life I have learned after all these years is "You can't control other people". (Well you can try, the government does it sometimes with concrete walls, bars on the windows and big guards with guns.) We can only be the best we can be and, when necessary, protect ourselves from the CM's even if, sadly, they are family.
 

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