Support and friendship for those whose lives have been affected by estrangement.

Yes, I’d like to say thankyou to the members on here who have been going through this for many more years than I have, and yet are still happy to help give support to people like myself for whom it has just happened. But it is still very sad for me to hear that your pain is still very real. I wish you all some peace.

Hi back again . . Reading all the money you gave your children to help them only for them to turn on you later on saddens me .

The only money I gave me children that was mine . When I was widowed at 45 the government gave me £2,000 towards funeral costs. But because we knew my husband wouldn't live 5 years we had already put the money aside for it . So gave the children £1,000 each they didn't want it but I insisted and showed them the money for the funeral in a separate account which my husband called the death fund. My husband had a weird sense of humour but it's that humour and love that got him through the slow death he lived through until he was terminal and his pain and losing himself to the cancer which he liked to a blackness eating at him from the inside .

Even though my son estranged me. I am very proud of the fact both my children and their partners worked hard and saved paid for their own weddings and brought their own homes will no help from me .

I did buy my daughter the dress she married in but it was a beautiful dress from Hobbs she didn't want a wedding dress but a dress she could wear again ,brought her shoes and because she didn't want flowers but a clutch bag so I brought that. My son in law brought a suit from John Lewis so he could wear it afterwards for work.

My son priced hiring a wedding suit £100. My daughter in law found a place that sold ex rental wedding suits . My son found a 3 piece suit in perfect condition for £80 which I paid for and brought him a shirt ,tie and shoes. I spent same money on both children . Neither wanted me to be I insisted they where both worried about me spending money on them . My daughter in law found a store that sold end of line wedding dresses and she did buy a beautiful one three quarter length and just had small bouquet of flowers .

Did buy then a wedding gift my daughter and son in law wanted towels in cream and some in blue and my son and daughter in law wanted a good quality mixer on a stand . Got both lots of presents in Marks and Spencer sale for the towels and John Lewis had sale on KitchenAid mixer plus an extra bowel . Total spend on wedding presents £200 each couple .

For all what my son and daughter in law have put me through I am still proud what they have is through their own hard work . She had no help from her parents .

I know my son in law's parents only brought them wedding presents . As my daughter and son in law refused any financial help from them with they're wedding or buying their home .

Both my children told me to spend my money on what I needed . They where capable to get good jobs . Both couples had worked since they were 16 . My daughter and daughter in law always saved and both loved bargains.

My daughter tells me she doesn't want any inheritance. When I said I wanted just a cremation she said no mom I want a funeral so I said I would pay for me now. She said no it's my responsibility when you die. Spend money on yourself and I do but still get my bargains . But a life time being careful with money won't change me .

Since coming out of hospital January last year can't do some of the cleaning low down or high up. So this week my cleaner started work . She will come every week for 90 mins . Went with a company that way if she can't come a replacement will. As I have said because of my disability my life runs on planning ahead and routine it's how I cope . So this is the best option for me . My cleaner did said how lovely my home is . And showed her main areas I wanted cleaned so this week my shower room got a thorough clean all the tikes and my shower cubicle and the rest of the shower room was gleaming when she finished . Next week it's the kitchen to have thorough clean places I can't reach . Then the other 3 rooms week after then it will just be a good clean each week all through.

Well that's me done for now . So glad to see old names and helped given to anyone new . This support group continues on helping and it's more like a group of friends who care about eachother. 💞

Yes V and D seem strong together, and as you say, have their other children.
Sending love to any on here feeling triggered by recent events. I’m finding it hard. Just when you think you’re coping so much gets dredged up again.

V and D have one another; they have other children, family and friends and we all know how vitally important they all are when you're going through such heart break.

He's a nasty piece of work.

I just think the cruelty of making it so public is beyond belief. No one knows what happened but the desire to inflict as much harm on his mother and her reputation as possible - to try to destroy her career and life - says a great deal about his character. She will already be totally heartbroken. I hope she has good people around her to help her through this.

If it does resonate with any of our EAC Debbie I wonder in what way. Does the telling of lies about the parents they've estranged resonate I wonder .

Try not to become despondent. There will always be something that brings it all back because it never goes away but each time you get through them, you'll be that little bit stronger .

Yes Smileless, at least our estrangements weren't made public. How awful. Whatever we might think about his parents, or indeed Brooklyn himself, only we can understand how painful this all is.
Sadly though, for me, listening to it all is not helping me to try to accept and move on in my own situation. It just keeps bringing it all back. I wonder what our estAC are thinking as it must resonate with them too?

Morning everyone.

Another celebrity couple's relationship with an AC bites the dust and we see lies from Brooklyn in a vain attempt to discredit his parents, in particular his mother, to try to justify his behaviour.

All too familiar for so many of us but at least we've been spared the public humiliation.

At this point in time and where we are with the estrangement, we will split what’s left equally between all our children…..but while we’re alive we are giving monetary gifts to our non estranged kids to help with housing etc. We’re happily treating them while we can (hoping to live 7 years more to avoid tax). As our EC has cut off contact we have no details of how to get in touch and have no guilt about this. Not yet at the point where we’d leave them out of the will, but that may change….estrangement takes us all on a journey and none of us can predict how we’ll think or feel at any given stage.

Weren't we all so trusting and full of good intentions! I'm so sorry. We have all learnt a lot since then, unfortunately. I'd never heard of estrangement. Oh well, never mind, l suppose, let's just get on with life and try to put it out of our minds, that's all we can do. I'm just hoping my executors have no bother from them after I'm dead.

It makes me laugh too Hilltop. They're so entitled aren't they and it's so glaringly obvious that it's all about them, what they want and how they behave and yet we've all wasted so much time and effort, dissecting their childhoods and how we parented, wondering what we did wrong.

When we said it would be better for all concerned for the money to be repaid, we received a solicitors letter stating the terms and conditions of the investment, that it was only to be repaid if the house was sold!!!

So be it, but that means that they'll probably never be able to move during our life time because what would have to be paid back, would be a significant sum and could be a substantial percentage of what a deposit on another property would be.

Me too; re the money. I gave them quite a bit before they married and paid for their wedding, don't remember getting a thank you for either.

Morning all

Debbbie It's a good idea of yours, to write a letter to your estD but not send, it gets it out of your mind and down on paper, that you can read back and try to process.

After months of not sleeping & waking at 3am, I too took 'Night Kalms' which really helped me fall asleep & not to wake at 3am. Took for many years but finally managed to stop, I sleep well now, but this is 13yrs on from first being CO.

There seems to be a pattern here. I also helped my estD to buy her first home with her boyfriend. I was a single parent at the time on a low income and I took a big risk to borrow money for them. They've conveniently forgotten I did that for them.

I had to laugh, Smileless, sorry.
We gave them the money very early on in their relationship, they were both recently divorced. I noticed she never mentioned it or said thanks but l didn't bother about it. I had written the cheque out to him, posted it, can't remember if l put both names on the envelope, probably just his.
When estrangement happened years later, l was told that I'd "only given it to him" Didn't she know we knew she would be living in the house too! Was l supposed to have made the cheque out to both of them, l don't think that can be done?
One of the many mistakes l apparently made.

Oh the similarities Hilltop. We along with my brother, invested money into our ES's first property to provide the deposit. We did this through solicitors and it's recorded with Land Registry.

When they got engaged, we all transferred our investment so it could be used as a deposit for the house they wanted to buy together. Solicitors were used again.

When he estranged us he said the only reason we'd invested the money was to control them . We suggested that as they felt that was the reason it maybe better for all concerned if they paid the money back.

13 years later we're still waiting.

I like what your solicitor told you Smileless, thank you. l shall add that. We had given them money including deposit for their house (which apparently l had not done correctly--so l was told years later when estrangement happened, cheque had been cashed though)

Good evening everyone.

It's been really lovely to read your long posts Whiff especially as you continue to manage the health issues you have.

Dreams can be a comfort Debbie, especially when they're full of the memories we have before everything changed. They remind us not only of the child we used to have and the good times, but also that we were and are good parents.

You never need to apologise for anything you share here with us, this thread is for the good and the bad times Debbie .

I'm glad you had a good night's sleep Allsorts, it makes such a difference to our physical and mental well being. I do have bad nights from time to time but on the whole, Mr. S. and I are very fortunate to have 7 to 8 hours a night.

Our solicitor told us that all we needed to stipulate in our wills is that our ES was well provided for by us during our lifetime which of course he was, until he estranged us. We haven't even mentioned the fact that we're estranged as not referring to it makes it irrelevant in terms of our wills.

Thank you for the replies, l have done previous Wills and written letters with them. But perhaps my letter needs to set more out and be stronger, l don't know.
The solicitor said that leaving the EC something doesn't make any difference to whether the Will can be contested, and people sometimes think it does.
I like reading your messages Whiff, l hope the appointment you have coming up will help you a lot

You are an amazing lady Whiff, in spite of your disability you have purpose and strength,
Take care of yourself, i hope your coming appointments are helpful to you.💐

Hilltop good memory . I cut my son out of my will in September 2020. Had to get a letter from my GP stating my neurological condition wasn't a mental illness and I was of sound mind .. Cost me £40.

My solicitor wanted me to write a letter explaining why I changed my will and left everything to my daughter. But in the event she died before me her sons would inherit my estate.

My husband and I believed children inherited from parents not grandparents. Left nothing to my 3 other grandsons but I don't even know the name or exact date of birth of their youngest son

My solicitor wanted me to write about our life with the children my husband's cancer , his death what we did as a family afterwards . My life once the children left home ,looking after my parents and mother in law. My health and my life . Like I said I had no life after my husband died I existed. My relationship with my daughter in law who I treated as my own as her parents left the country taking her siblings with them .

My relationship once I moved here and my life and health . My replies to my son's lies and assumptions.
A weekend I never want to relive . I wrote 13 pages of A4 paper . Had a copy of my son's email in hard copy and his letter. My solicitor cried when she read my letter.

It will never see the light of day unless my son contest my will. As anyone can contest anyone's will up to 2 years after they die. Then it will be read out in court plus,his email and letter.

At the same time I took out both powers of attorney my daughter and son in law are my attorneys. But it was cheaper to do it all together.

My will stands and won't change .

When my son was a child and he was naughty then there where consequences. This is the consequences of his estrangement.
He wasn't rewarded for bad behaviour as a child it's no different now and an adult.

It wasn't an easy decision to make but glad I did it .

Going through a solicitor was expense but it makes it water tight . But my son will never know when I die as it will never be posted anywhere. And none of the family would tell him as he cut all our side of the family out of their life .

Once I make a decision I stick to it . It's how my life has always worked . I plan ahead and live by routine. It's how my life has worked since I was at junior school. It's how I worked out how to cope with my disability.

Whiff, what a lovely loyal daughter in law you were in looking after your MIL to the end. My Mum and I had our disputes, as she did with my siblings, but we were all there for her after Dad died and to the end (which was many years of care needed). Despite everything she had said or done to us, we respected her as our Mum and could never have done anything as cruel as estranging her. Though we might have had a couple of weeks of not speaking 😂 This makes it so much harder to understand what I have done to my estD to make her do this to me.

Hilltop. I have written so many versions of a letter. At the moment I have not changed my will and she still gets the same as her sister. But if I don't hear from her in the next year, I may change my will. The letter I am writing explains the hurt she has caused as I think she has no idea of how much pain she has caused. But I have also added nice words about my happy memories of our lives before. The bit I can't decide on is whether to end the letter being kind and keep her in my will and end it on a loving tone, or be more punishing. That seems cruel and I will not steep to her level. I think I will sit on it for a while (and hope nothing happens to me!).

Please, if you have a letter with your Will to explain why you have left your EC very little or nothing in your Will, how much detail have you put as to why you are estranged?
Do l remember Whiff saying she had written a few pages ?

Debbie you are not being negative. You are saying how you feel. It saddens me that you needed anti depressants which glad found didn't suit you . Please be very taking Sleep aid . It could damage your health.

It's a sad fact what our estranged children drive some people to.

You are not to blame your daughter made her choice . I know it's hard to accept but for your mental and physical health you have to let go of hope .

It's easy for our children to throw us away and blame us for everything . I could have done that with my in laws . We had verbal abuse everytime we where with them before we married . But my husband love his parents. If they kicked off after we married we walked out but where back the next Sunday .

After my husband died his mother denied she had a son or 2 grandchildren. She outlived my husband by 11 years . I hated that woman for 40 years but I was brought up with a strong sense of family . So I looked after her visited her every week ,protected her from treatments she didn't want and even spend the last 2 days of her life for 15 hours each day by her bed . Only just got home on the second day when they phoned to say she had died. I was down as het next if kin emergency contact. Her brother showed up once she was dead.

I could have estranged her but she was still my mother in law,nan to our kids and my husband's mom .

I couldn't abandon her anymore than I would have done to my own parents . We all have a moral code we live by .

I know my son must have had that email ready to send last time I saw him . I also know he didn't write it on his own my daughter in law had a hand in it. The spelling was correct , paragraph and punctuation. My son wouldn't have known what punctuation was if it bite him on the arse.

But the letter was him . His hand writing ,spelling mistakes and no punctuation.

As soon as I put my house on the market March 2018 my daughter in law started a hate compaign against me on Reddit. Long story how I found out .

Both children had wanted to live closer to them for years . But couldn't move until I had no one dependant on me anymore. Mom died in 2017.

Our children and some cases grandchildren as well make their choices . They don't suffer but dwell in the fact they know that we will.

I gave up hope after 3 years wish I had done it sooner . I am at the stage that I don't want to see my son . He is a stranger but I am not the mom he knew so a stranger to him . I will always love him but the 32 year old son I knew not the one that will be 39 this year .

He will never know when I die as there in no need for him to know .

Estrangement is hard but acceptable is harder. But with acceptable you can be happy as holding on to something you can't have is futile .

My husband dieing hurts me everyday and my grief for him worse. But because of his love I face each day and live my life to the full.

I will not let my son and daughter in law stop me living my life for me . In a way that is my revenge. I don't hate them . Had enough of that for 40 years . Don't wish them any harm . But hope karma bites them on the butt when my 3 grandson's are older and have partners . Who will see especially what a piece of work my daughter in law is.

I know if the trolls read this then they will attack me . But I don't engage I just report them .