Family Estrangement

Being one of several of my friends who has one or more adult children who don’t speak to us, or with whom we have a strained relationship, I was drawn to read Matthew Maniaci’s “Why Are Young People So Messed Up?” …

Estrangement is characterized as being physically or emotionally distanced from one or more family members or significant relationships. It is a complex and emotionally charged issue that affects millions of people around the world. Estrangement is far more common than many people realize. According to some estimates, up to 10%…

There are truly no words to describe the agony of not being believed. I worked for years as a trauma therapist specializing in abusive relationships and toxic families. Day in and day out I heard excruciating stories of people who were stuck, unable to move forward in life, peering over…

Surviving the Silent Wound That Never Heals! Family estrangement – a wound that never fully heals, a pain that sears the soul with a white-hot flame of agony. …

“No one would choose this! Why would anyone choose this? Who would go out of their way to be disconnected from a family that is supposedly loving, to lose all the support and community and connection that a family supposedly promises? What could someone possibly stand to gain aside from isolation, trauma, anxiety, fear, hopelessness and exhaustion? No! No one chooses “no contact”. It is always forced on us. It is simply the last resort because there are no more options left.”

But does that mean that your two boys will never re-establish contact with our family? The Impact of Family Estrangement — Last Saturday, my family and I were at a large local town Show, where I was playing flute for our district’s Concert Band, when I noticed a family member walking slowly between the Band and the audience, with her two young sons in tow. What made this significant was that…

I just finished watching The Last of Us (Pedro Pascal may well be my new favorite actor) this week, then watched The War of the Worlds (not Spielberg’s greatest work). This morning I woke with the phrase “survival fatigue” echoing in my brain. And that’s when it hit me. That’s…

Almost seventeen years ago, my sister told me to never contact her again. In those seventeen years, so much has happened (or not happened). We have not attended each other’s weddings, she has never met my children, and she never got to know my husband Jeff. We have not celebrated…

Spouses, partners, parents, children, siblings, friends — no one is off-limits anymore. — Every family has a dirty secret, and mine is this. My husband’s estranged from his dad. It was his decision, and he’s rebuffed all attempts to reconcile. It is, to my sensibilities, sour and unpleasant behaviour and I almost didn’t marry him because of it. Why? Because the concept of…