Adult children who consider separating themselves from a toxic parent often worry whether they'll ever be able to reconcile. But these factors may signal that estrangement is for the best.
Not one of these myths is true.Again, despite the myth that the cut-off is an impulsive act, the deliberation is often agonizingly slow, filled with worries and misgivings, and researchers have confirmed that there’s often a pattern of estrangement followed by a hopeful reinstatement of connection, and then another cut-off., I call this back-and-forth “going back to the well;” intellectually, you know the well is dry but emotionally you are once again hopeful that it is not.
The following patterns of parental behavior which end up advancing estrangement are drawn from interviews forUnwillingness to discuss or hear the adult child out Many adult children—and I include my younger self in that number when my mother was still alive—discover that there’s no conversation to be had, and that they are shut down almost immediately even if they have made every effort to be calm and measured.
Once it becomes clear to the adult child that it’s not going to be possible to institute any kind of meaningful change to the relationship, she or he is inevitably pushed to consider estrangement.It’s important to recognize that while adult children are shamed by the mother myths, so are mothers; controlling or abusive treatment is always rationalized as being necessary so admission would require a complete about-face.
Estrangement is a last-ditch effort to stop parental abuse. It gives you room to heal, although it doesn’t heal per se. It never comes out of nowhere.
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