Support for all who are living with estrangement

Ladies, please feel free to improvise and tailor to suit you as I do for myself, now and then. It doesn't have to be an imaginary letter written on notepaper but could be an imaginary digital message, telephone call or face-to-face conversation taking place in the location of your choice. Make it work for you so that you can safely experiment with wording and tone and give voice, with feeling, to whatever you want, hope or need to read/hear/say.

For example, Starlady, "Mum, I fired yet another accusation at you by glibly assuming that you were in denial. I may even have lost my temper and shouted this at you. This was wrong and foolish of me as (a) I'm not a mindreader able to peer into your or anyone's mind and identify its defence mechanisms with cast iron certainty (b) judgemental accusations levelled against us, shot from the hip and with anger attached, are likely to make most of us on the receiving end feel defensive and therefore less likely to listen in order to think about them carefully and try to reach a better understanding. Of course I would be exactly like this myself if you suddenly fired accusations at me in an emotionally uptight/hostile/superior/self-righteous/rude/disrespectful way. I understand that you must have been seething - and still are angry with me - because I tried to force you to accept what I saw as 'the truth'. The version of me who is writing this/sitting with you today knows that just because I latch onto an idea and invest it with deep meaning does not of itself make that idea wholly and categorically true at that time/for all time. It may not even be partly true. For example, magicians often use suggestion in their tricks. Is the woman really sawn in half or levitating in the air? Flat Earthers insist that the earth is, well, flat. Why, I wonder, do they need or want to believe that so badly?

Why did I level these accusations at you and charge you with being "in denial"? I don't really know the answers for sure, Mum, but will do my best here to search my memory and try to explain. Is it ok with you if I try to do that? It may be the case that I will need to make several attempts. If so, can you please bear with me?"

Smileless2012

I'm sorry not to have replied to your earlier post. No, I have not been told that my d-i-l wants NC with me but I'm aware of enormously reduced contact - 0 communication initiated and virtually 0 replies to my messages, enquiries, cards and gifts as well as never appearing in any videos. There's more that I could say to explain why I interpret this as indicating partial estrangement but I prefer not to go into detail. If she is ready to begin to disclose and discuss her reasons, views and feelings with me when I visit later in the year, provided that she is respectful, I will listen and try to consider what she says as calmly as is possible for me at that time. We will see what transpires.

Because she has given me 0 information to explain this radical change, I can only guess what she might say to me in a letter. That still helps me to some degree, though. My main source of support is you, dear Gransnetters. Thank you.

I wonder how many cutoffs are due to age related issues -

Cherries, yes, those are exactly the kinds of things I wish I could say to my mum now. Unfortunately, she has been gone for several years so I can't. Fortunately, though, our relationship was good,, overall.

One caveat - In my case, I did know the reasons for my complaints. What I was wrong about was assigning motives ("mindreading," as you say). I should have just told her the behaviors that were bothering me and maybe why - I-messages - "I'm upset when this happens because it makes me feel..." and not try to tell her who she was or what she was trying to do.

Eventually, I did tell her a few behaviors that bothered me, and she made some changes. Not 100% the way I wanted but enough that we both felt comfortable. All's well that ends well, I suppose. But yes, you're right, I did make unfair assumptions in the beginning.

Welcome, DillytheGardener! My heart goes out to you and all the heartache you've suffered - and at the hands of your own mum and sf (stepfather). I don't think you're in the wrong for those periods of estrangement. Imo, you're protecting yourself from further hurt. And maybe, it's also your way of expressing your anger at how she treated you as a child. You say she tells you she "doesn't like" you. Have you ever told her how much she hurt you all these years? If so, what was her response?

Actually, I'm a little surprised you let yourself be exposed to more hurt by jumping in when there's a crisis. It's very brave and unselfish of you, but why is it that your brother, the "Golden Child," as some people call the favored one, gets away with not helping at all? What would happen if next time, you said, "Sorry, I can't be there this time/can't do anymore/etc?" He lives there, maybe let him take a turn at helping her. Or do you fear he would just let her suffer?

Rock and hard place, I guess. Keep mum out of your life, no matter what, b/c she has hurt you so much vs. be there for her in a crisis b/c, hey, she's still your mum. I get the sense of obligation to help her out (too bad brother doesn't seem to share it). In the future, though, if you're going to spend a lot of money, anyhow, why not hire someone to come in and take care of her? And why doesn't she pay for it instead of you? Or at least, split the costs? You shouldn't be spending your savings, surely. Hugs!

I just wonder if there is a gathering groundswell of prejudice in general against older people, and that gives ‘support’ to ac when they begin to think their perspective is right.

Put aside for this argument all of those valid cases where an arms length or nc approach is clearly the correct choice.
Abuse in families has been a problem In society for millennia.

I would argue that previous generations suffered from the same difficulties within their relationships, but it was harder to go it alone because society still supported a level of respect and/or trust in the patriarchal model.
Of course people were more interdependent, financially morally, religiously and educationally etc., which must have helped to prevented a complete breakdown between them.

The sixties generation (roughly speaking us) wanted to give our children more. There was better or at least different ways to rear a child on offer. We gave our children the right to make their own choices, not governed by church or institutions.
We had more money than our parents to spend on children.
I could mention more.

The western way of life has exploded with choices and we brought our children up to use those choices to their advantage.
It’s not our fault but an unavoidable fact is they now feel it is their right to make those choices with regards to their own needs.

They don’t in my view have the experience to see that there are always negatives as well as positives to any choice one makes.
That lack of foresight (with the backing of so called self made ‘experts’) gives them the false confidence to insist it is their ‘right’ to do as they wish, without give a second thought to the future (in this case of their own children’s long term mental health).
I think we in our naivety thought we were giving our children a better future by making them the centre of our worlds. By giving the time money and consideration our parents couldn’t give us.

Maybe it was arrogance or stupidity on our part but we never thought they would find fault ( and so many!!) with us. Because we love them we thought they would love us too.

Along the line love and faithfulness were supercieded by ‘my rights count first no matter what’.

About your relationship with your dils - If you could identify for yourself some of the "unhealthy behaviors" you're repeating, perhaps you could figure out ways to avoid them? If you tell us what some of them are, we might be able to help you change them, but I understand if you'd rather not. Also, you might get more feedback on that if you started your own thread.

Welcome Dilly I think that both you and your mother have benefited from the periods in which you've estranged yourself from her.

The benefit to you has been some rest bite from her criticisms and overt favouritism of your brother and for your mum, the fact that you are able to do what you can for your her and never took the total non contact route.

I'm sending you somebecause despite having to deal with a difficult and at times upsetting relationship with your mum, you have done your best to preserve as much of it as you can.

Your mum is fortunate indeed to have such a lovely daughter and I hope one day she realises and thanks you for all you've done and continue to do.

A good post Namsnannyand it does beg the question why, if you have more than one child, one decides to go non contact when the other(s) doesn't and they were raised the same.

Your situation with your d.i.l. sounds similar to the one we had with DS's wife cherries. That said when we were together we felt we got on rather well which was the main thing. No GC involved and we still have a great relationship with our DS which was unaffected by his wife when they were together.

Maintaining your relationship with your son and GC is the most important thing and it's good that you are able to do so.

Yours is an interesting speculative post, Namsnanny, which also gives much food for thought. There certainly seems to be a fair amount of intimidating "militant activism" swishing around in some quarters and we hear a lot these days about human rights, mainly from rather screechy/shouty people who seem to be fervent promoters of the rights of a particular group who are perceived to be oppressed and more deserving rather than being in favour of universal human rights. Narratives about human rights carry much more weight these days than those to do with the responsibilities which we have towards each other. What about the uber-censoriousness of the fashionable "no-platform" brigade and the coddling of "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" in our universities? What indeed about the fact that academics and others who express "controversial views" - i.e. views which are at odds with current PC dogmas - are increasingly likely to be targetted with hate speech prior to being sacked or subjected to some other form of indignity and (hysterical) overreaction? So, freedom of speech is loudly trumpeted but only if the speech is of the approved sort. I suppose that going NC sits well with a swathe of the younger generation who are keen to silence those with differing ideas.

Namsnanny I certainly agree that there seems to be a growing negativity towards the older generation in society ..anti "Baby Boomer" ...all fed by press articles taking a "them and us" line between the generations!

I've certainly seen posts accusing the baby boomers of greedily taking everything and leaving nothing for this generation. And there's anger at eg, babyboomers getting free university education and now it is expensive - but many more baby boomers didn't get a university education at all, and I doubt any of us wanted our children to have to pay for theirs.
Similar with house prices. Houses are so expensive now, but when we were buying ours the mortgage interest was eye-watering with inflation running at 15% and our parents weren't in a position to leave us anything or help us out financially where we have tried to help where possible.

hugshelp

If they asked us to tell them more about our own past struggles and difficult experiences, the comparatively restricted choices and freedoms and the pressures under which we lived in our youth and how we tried to give our own children a better quality of life in some respects than we had known ourselves when around the same age, if they made time to listen thoughtfully to what we said, would they still think that the grass was greener for us?

I think that it was only when I became middle-aged that I was more reflective about some of the difficulties that my parents had experienced - which probably affected their parenting - and felt greater appreciation of some things which they did, or tried to do, on behalf of their children.

Yes, I absolutely consider my parents struggles in life, and by doing so as often as I have it's changed the way I assessed the dynamic of my family's relationship/s many times over -

I could write a book, but instead share the stories with my children, as my mother did with me, and dad too sometimes -

My mum wouldn't have considered distancing herself from her parents - But I was a different animal and did distance my mother for two years when I was in my 20s -

Bottom line, mum could have done things differently and I could have too -

Now I do things differently - But my mum is still mum, and can't be bothered with being different - And I no longer want her to -- even tho the child in me feels otherwise -

The woman is 99, due to be 100 next month -

At the moment we are 4 generations strong, living proof that it takes longer than 3 generations to heal -- so consider the 3 generation claim debunked!

Each generation has it's own struggles it had to contend with, we had ours and our AC will have theirs but going non contact is a total over reaction if it's done because you
think your parents should have done things differently.

Just because some things were done differently in the past doesn't necessarily mean they were wrong. There are trends in parenting that come and go.

I remember my gran being shocked when we started introducing solids to our DS. She thought he was far too young and should have still been only on milk. That doesn't mean she was a bad mother. I remember her saying to me that she wondered if babies cried more in her day because they were hungry.

cherries you asked if our AC "made time to listen thoughtfully to what we said, would they still still think that the grass was greener for us?". Those of us who are estranged from our AC know that the answer is 'yes', they would because it's all about them; what they want, what they need and what they believe they're entitled too.

Our estranging AC don't want to talk, that's why we're estranged. In the absence of abuse, when they were raised with love and care to the best of our abilities, it is not what we did or didn't do as parents that's resulted in non contact.

If that really is the reason why our son went no contact then he should beware. He will do his very best I'm sure as our GC's father but one day they may look back at their own loving and caring childhood and decide it wasn't good enough, and he may find himself cut out of their lives, as we've been cut out of his.

Dilly This is what I fear for my beloved GD, that as the stepchild/grand she will not be treated as her brother, the real/bio child/gran. Also if my EstD was brainwashed into cutting out her mother & sister that loved & adored her & her children, can he also, as it seems with your mother Dilly, can he also brainwash her against her child, my precious GD[?]

Starlady as I have said I didn't realise I was showing favouritism till it was pointed out to me, I loved my GS and always made a big fuss of him, so aside from acting in a false manner, which I would find hard to do and also it would mean being false to my GS, which I wouldn't want to do!

My DD, with the two months more she was allowed in her sister & N&N lives, after hearing me be accused, made sure she made a fuss of Jack first, but said she felt false in doing this. My GS never lived with me & my DD said she felt his dad didn't want us to be close with Jack, which he proved by cutting us both out.

If she is ready to begin to disclose and discuss her reasons, views and feelings with me when I visit later in the year, provided that she is respectful, I will listen and try to consider what she says as calmly as is possible for me at that time. We will see what transpires

Cherries. Reading your story...and especially the above....was like going back five years. It was my story too.

Some of the lovely people on here are aware of my experiences with my sons wife. If you are interested, it is well documented but I can't find it within me to regurgitate it all. Suffice to say when I was where you are now, I too wanted answers as to why I was gradually being phased out of my granddaughters life. Fortunately I first asked my questions of my son, who was honest enough to admit that he was as bewildered as I was. Only much later did I learn of the abuse he was subjected to whenever he attempted to assert himself as a father. From things his brother said, I realised that all was not well, although I could never have imagined what my son was really suffering.....all of which has been verified in a court of law. I decided that I would step back in the hope that their marriage would survive. Consequently I haven't seen my granddaughter since she was eight months old....she is now five.

The marriage did not survive, but I am content knowing that it was not because of anything I did...at least not deliberately, although my son apparently never stopped trying for his daughter to know me.....despite facing physical abuse.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, to anyone who still has contact with their grandchildren, albeit limited or strained, is to accept this. To oppose it, no matter how gently or sincerely, could result in losing what little contact you have. By doing so you may also lose your son/daughter too, as so many others have done. Believe me you can't win.

This of course is my experience, what I chose to do. You may feel differently. However, as a counsellor myself of many years, I truly believe that enforcing personal views and suggesting therapy only increases the risk of no contact. Therapy is a wonderful tool for those who approach it with the right attitude. However, you can't help someone who doesn't believe they need help. With certain types of people the only way to win is to refuse to play their game.

Hello IrishRose, it's lovely to see your post; it's been a while. How is your DS? Is he able to see his D? I do hope so, he's been through so much, as have you.

Yogagirl you were an intrinsic part of your D's and GD's lives, they lived with you and you were a major part of your GD's life from the moment she was born. We've come to know one another over the years here on GN and I honestly believe it was the strength of your bond with your GD that was mis interpreted as favouritism.

It was difficult for you to get as close to your GS because of your s.i.l. and his family. I can't help but think how convenient it was for them to be able accuse you of favouritism, when they would have known how much you loved your GS but had that already deep and understandable bond with your GD.

IrishRose76

Thank you very much for your words of advice. I am taking them on board and will try to give d-i-l little encouragement to play any more games with me. Presumably the way to go is to be outwardly pleasant and compliant as far as possible while inwardly cautious. At least, for the time being at any rate, she is allowing me to come and see my GC. Perhaps she will mellow and warm towards me gradually in the future, perhaps not. I've written that I thought that we had a reasonably good relationship beforehand but now I think that I was deceiving myself as she has always been very cool, distant, fussy and a tad entitled.

I am very sorry to learn of the heartbreaking situation regarding estrangement from your beloved gd.

I haven't been on here for some time, but it is great to see that you are doing what you always do best, giving support to others. So sad to see so many new members, it does seem that estrangement/alienation is on the increase, not just in the UK but across the world.

Thank you Irishrose76 and Cherries, I am following in your footsteps and value your sound advice. Whilst I think my SiL needs counselling, no one, not I, my DD or his family would dream of suggesting it. He doesn't think there's any fault on his part, it's all mine.

I've never been one to bear grudges and neither is my DD, but after believing he was over it last summer and then it coming back in a savage verbal attack in October/November my guard is up. He can't let go of things. He bears grudges and not only against me. DD tells me he said recently that she's amazing as anyone else would have, 'kicked me to the kerb a long time ago.' Therein lies my case.

I suggested someone had "something" brewing from early on in the relationship - As that "something" progressed I suggested what might help - I used a "passing glance" approach at first, like "Oh, look at that colorful bird" and then switched the subject - As it progressed it was discussed gently, from a supportive position, not suggestive, because by that point " something " was being acknowledged -

It matters how the subject gets brought up - It matters that as a parent one instills confidence in their AC that they are capable of navigating the issue maturely - It fosters trust going forward -

I didn't distance my mum because she did things differently, I distanced her because she wanted me to - She did what she did raising us -

I was doing the same thing, doing what I chose to do -- just not what she wanted me to do-

I don't feel she did anything wrong - She made a decision- I made mine -

Our relationship was never the same after that - But it was no worse - Nor was it any better - She simply flipped a switch - And the discussions that we could have had never happened - She refused accountability - And that was that -