Hope is born in the Darkness, like a lighthouse calling out to a lost ship at sea, it will safely bring you through your personal storm. It will encourage and guide you safely
I Thought We’d Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation – Book by Laura Davis
Family estrangement is not a new thing. Families have been estranging members for years, and this can be a dark secret in some households.
“Why does dad not talk to his sister?“ or “I didn’t know dad had a sister.”
Sometimes in these estranged settings, siblings divorce each other or children decide their parents did not do a ‘good enough‘ job of raising them, and so now they are determined they are going to be far better parents than their parents ever-were.
With little or no regard for the people that raised them, some children cut their parents out of their lives.
So what is it like to be estranged from family?
Well, if it’s not you in control, then it probably feels like rejection or abandonment. This type of pain can cut to the core of mothers and fathers who have given their time, effort and money to raise their children. Maybe they were not perfect, but who is? And why should they be judged by today’s parenting standards when all they had were the tools of their yester-year.
Often, motherhood is the core purpose for some of these parents.
When children decide to dispose of them, they are ending a lifetime of work, with no acknowledgement of their sacrifice and no reward for their best efforts.
Some of these estranged parents recover and forge new single lives for themselves, but this is often not without suffering the feelings of grief, like that of someone who has lost a relative. In some ways grieving the loss of someone who is still alive can be worse than if they had passed because it becomes painfully evident that they do not want to know you. This is referred to as “complicated grief”.
Some parents just give up and their world shrinks down to a null existence. They never forget their children; their memories keep playing like CDs on repeat. They rarely give up hope that maybe one day things will be different, maybe one day they will reconnect and reconcile with their loved ones.
So, what do you do if this is you? How do you right the wrongs or at least the wrongs you feel you liable for?
How do you reconcile an estrangement? Can you reconcile an estrangement if the other part is not talking and simply want their space?
Such a parent may become angry, frustrated and swear to cut their child out of their will!
The answers are many and few, but first there is a need to acknowledge the pain and grief of the estrangement. Airing the wrongs that you feel have been done to you may also be needed. This can be confusing as you try to understand their perspective and how they arrived at cutting the ties that can bind families together for years.
From here, you may start to see the small glimmers of hope that appear with the understanding that’s come from the attempt of walking in their shoes and seeing it from their view as it were. Other times, there may not be any such understanding, however if there is a desire to either learn to live alongside though without them, or try to find a way to reconnect, then there is still hope.
Having a desired outcome of reconnection is the goal for some people and with this this as the focus, small steps of rebuilding trust and new happier memories can be forged.
I Thought We’d Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation – Book by Laura Davis
Family estrangement is not a new thing. Families have been estranging members for years, and this can be a dark secret in some households.
“Why does dad not talk to his sister?“ or “I didn’t know dad had a sister.”
Sometimes in these estranged settings, siblings divorce each other or children decide their parents did not do a ‘good enough‘ job of raising them, and so now they are determined they are going to be far better parents than their parents ever-were.
With little or no regard for the people that raised them, some children cut their parents out of their lives.
So what is it like to be estranged from family?
Well, if it’s not you in control, then it probably feels like rejection or abandonment. This type of pain can cut to the core of mothers and fathers who have given their time, effort and money to raise their children. Maybe they were not perfect, but who is? And why should they be judged by today’s parenting standards when all they had were the tools of their yester-year.
Often, motherhood is the core purpose for some of these parents.
When children decide to dispose of them, they are ending a lifetime of work, with no acknowledgement of their sacrifice and no reward for their best efforts.
Some of these estranged parents recover and forge new single lives for themselves, but this is often not without suffering the feelings of grief, like that of someone who has lost a relative. In some ways grieving the loss of someone who is still alive can be worse than if they had passed because it becomes painfully evident that they do not want to know you. This is referred to as “complicated grief”.
Some parents just give up and their world shrinks down to a null existence. They never forget their children; their memories keep playing like CDs on repeat. They rarely give up hope that maybe one day things will be different, maybe one day they will reconnect and reconcile with their loved ones.
So, what do you do if this is you? How do you right the wrongs or at least the wrongs you feel you liable for?
How do you reconcile an estrangement? Can you reconcile an estrangement if the other part is not talking and simply want their space?
Such a parent may become angry, frustrated and swear to cut their child out of their will!
The answers are many and few, but first there is a need to acknowledge the pain and grief of the estrangement. Airing the wrongs that you feel have been done to you may also be needed. This can be confusing as you try to understand their perspective and how they arrived at cutting the ties that can bind families together for years.
From here, you may start to see the small glimmers of hope that appear with the understanding that’s come from the attempt of walking in their shoes and seeing it from their view as it were. Other times, there may not be any such understanding, however if there is a desire to either learn to live alongside though without them, or try to find a way to reconnect, then there is still hope.
Having a desired outcome of reconnection is the goal for some people and with this this as the focus, small steps of rebuilding trust and new happier memories can be forged.
