Gransnet forums

Estrangement

Support for estranged parents

(7 Posts)
estrangedparent Tue 15-Sept-26 10:57:00

I have been estranged from my adult children for almost 3 years, following a difficult divorce. I understand the pain this causes, which has driven me close to suicide.

Recently, I started up a discussion forum for people like me. I did so, simply because there is so little support out there. It's 100% free and there is no gated content. I don't want your money, I simply want to create a friendly community that offers self-support to the millions of people going through this.

If that is of interest to you, you can find us at:

www.estrangedparents.org.uk/welcome

Smileless2012 Tue 15-Sept-26 11:07:37

Is this restricted to estranged parents or do you have contributions from those who are the ones who estranged?

estrangedparent Tue 15-Sept-26 12:17:47

We take registrations on faith and assume that most of them are from parents who are estranged from their adult children. That's certainly our target audience but we don't intend to exclude anyone as long as they are respectful, so that could include the adult children themselves or people with a professional interest in estrangement.

Please feel free to take a look. It has just been launched so there isn't much activity yet, but it's clear that this is a huge, largely hidden problem and I hope people in my situation will discover it and find it useful.

Allsorts Wed 16-Sept-26 06:59:51

A good idea, it is so common now. No wonder such a lot of adult children are choosing to be childless as we walk a tightrope now, say the wrong thing and you are out.

Whiff Wed 16-Sept-26 10:40:40

I wish you luck with your group. But I am sticking to GN especially the support thread it has longevity and made friends there.

Just beware you will get trolls ,and be attacked from anyone who feels like it. We have enough trouble on GN as posters love attacking estrangement threads. And here swearing isn't tolerated. Unfortunately your site may not beable to stop it . Unless you view every post before you allow it to be published.

Its hard being estranged especially if you don't know the reason why. I know what my son said in his email was load of rubbish. And many on estrangement threads here have been attacked , myself included but at least we can report and get posts deleted and recently I got a poster banned.

Hope you have safe guards like that in place and not just rely on people being nice.

Elodie Thu 17-Sept-26 17:50:58

Hi again I have popped back on and seen messages from my last post, but I don’t understand how to use this forum very well. I wondered if anybody could tell me how to make notifications happen when there are replies to my messages on the forum here specifically the support thread?

I have been finding life quite difficult lately. I am a disabled lady who is fairly isolated from my family. I haven’t heard from my eldest children for a while. Don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve being cut off by them. Specifically, my eldest daughter. I think if I could come to terms with what it is, she’s upset about me with I would understand more and find Peace, but lately I’ve been not being able to sleep and I feel completely anxious all of the time.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. ☺️

Smileless2012 Fri 18-Sept-26 10:55:47

Hi Elodie.

This thread is advertising a forum offering support for estranged parents which I think you may have confused with the long running 'Support for those whose lives have been affected by estrangement' thread.

As far as I'm aware, you can't get notifications when you receive replies to your messages. You need to keep an eye on the thread where you've posted.

Not having contact with your own children is heart breaking and when you don't even know why, it's even more difficult to deal with.

We've been estranged from our youngest son and only GC for more than 13.5 years and for me, peace came when I accepted that this was never going to change.

It's difficult to give advice without a little more information for example how long has this been going on? Are you attempting to initiate contact and having your attempts ignored or met with hostility?

If you feel able to give more information I suggest you do so on the support thread but if you would prefer to do so privately, please feel free to send me a private message which you can do by clicking on 'Private message' which appears alongside every posters name when they've posted flowers.