Calling all adult children

Smileless2012

If it were to have a similar OP to this one, I don't think it would make any difference unfortunately Oreo.

I unfortunately have to agree. If you are an estranged AC who wants to reconcile this forum is better than the forums only for ECs. Those are good if you are sure you want to estrange and they will offer you important and helpful support. If you are like me and waffling between estrangement and reconciliation there is no place for you in EC forums.

NotSpaghetti

Oh Beescrete
Can we find a common purpose where we offer honest and genuine advice to each other without resorting to cruelty?

I DO hope so.
I think those of us on the "outside" truly wish you all well.

I know I've "grown" a lot as a parent.
I am not estranged (and pray never will be) but parenting is hard and we never get everything right. I know I have got some parenting wrong in the past and now my children are adults I am aware of this more acutely.
I think parents and adult children can't possibly enjoy estrangement and when it happens it's a survival mechanism.

Surely if estranged parents or children have advice - especially re prevention (without endangering anyone) - we should all be listening.

I don't think anyone enjoys estrangement, it's pain all around.

Madgran77

User *Raising a child that ends up as a gambling drug addict and burdening the other with elderly care isn't as great of a point you
think *

Hmm just a touch simplistic!

This is a disgusting statement. Addiction touches every level of society. You manage to insult those who have struggled with addiction and their parents all in one post.

User138562

I think both parties in estrangement have things they could have done better. There's a communication breakdown and no one is without "fault" except in cases of abuse.

I raise my eyebrows at anyone who thinks they did nothing wrong when communication breaks down this badly.

I estranged my mother in 2021 and since then I've been working on my mental health. I've identified ways that I could have maintained our relationship. I just didn't have the emotional maturity, and neither did she.

Now I know how to set and maintain boundaries so I could coexist with her without allowing myself to be yanked around emotionally. If I knew in 2021 what I know now, I wouldn't have cut her off completely.

I'm not saying I regret it though, because that emotional growth was never going to happen unless I broke away.

I don't blame her like I used to. I think she did her best. I just had to do the right thing for myself and I didn't know any other way back then.

But now I've done something about my emotional maturity and she hasn't. I'm not looking to reintroduce that stress back into my life when I know she hasn't changed at all. I'm better off and it wish that weren't the case.

This is the situation I think I am in. I have done the work to be better but my mother has not changed. It's hard but I decided it was best for me to continue contact so I wasn't saddled with guilt. That's a tricky equation and for some estrangement is the better choice.

Smileless2012

For me it's important to stand up to those who deliberately come onto these threads to disrupt at best, and at worse to make false and cruel allegations about others just because they are EP's.

You call it rising to the bait stillawipp but I call it doing the right thing because silence can be viewed as condoning what's happened on this thread, even if condoning it is not what is intended.

It was more unpleasant than drama sweetpotatopie so just as well you did miss it but if you hadn't, I think you would have concluded as others have that the deleted posts were overloaded with anger and bitterness directed at people the posters don't even know.

Sometimes there IS a bad guy that's true and when there is, the anger and bitterness that's felt should be about that bad guy and not turning as has happened once again here, all parents who find themselves estranged into the bad guys.

I agree, if I creat a thread and see any bullying, cruelty, or projecting onto ECs or EPs I will always call it out

imaround

FWIW, I stopped waiting here as an EAC a few years back due to the passive aggressive comments that always came from EP. (In general, not naming names). An example of the he biggest one is, "if you are estranged, why haven't you healed". (Generally, not a quote) Thank goodness I have healed after my abusive mother passed away, but it took me 3 years after her death.

EP and EAC can not really coexist here IMO, not for long. Or anywhere else on the Internet.

My opinion only of course, as an EAC who posted here for a long time then finally left.

I also think I won't fully healed until she passes and that feels like a horrible thing to say but it's the truth.

EP AP typos that I can't correct but you get the point

To ACs I would encourage you with kindness to remember that these EPs are not our APs. Most of the ECs here come from outright abusive families. ECs here also come from families of parental addiction. Consider that, addicted and severely abusive parents are unlikely to come to a forum to complain about how their children won't talk to them. The EPs here are more likely to be a very selected group where estrangement happened because of interpersonal conflict, divorce or child custody issues. I'm not saying the EPs here are always right just that they are a selected group that doesn't match up with they typical EP in the real world.

I have been laid out with the flu and there are so many thoughtful comments I want to respond to. First I want to address my fellow ACs, who I believe were feeling unrepresented in this conversation and posted things out of frustration that were against the rules and deleted. I have felt so dismissed, so belittled and unheard. I would never judge you for choosing total estrangement as I did that for three years. We are in a position no child should ever be in, no child should need to cut off their parents for our own wellbeing.

lovethepuppies

Whichever side of the estrangement someone is posting from, it's important to remember there is someone hurting. Somewhere, a relationship has come unstuck. Helping someone find a way forward should be approached with compassion, even if challenging something that is said.

This is beautiful.
Thank you for posting from a place of compassion. 🌺

NoMoreNarcan --- "Most people, including myself, see parents that aren't in contact with their children as a huge, glaring, red flag...."

DiamondLily --- "Not always. My two stepsons estranged DH.... Despite agreeing my late DH had been a great Dad, one estranged because we wouldn’t fund his alcohol/gambling addictions. 🤷‍♀️
The other one estranged because he considered elderly parents become an increasing burden, and didn’t want to be there.🤷‍♀️
So, no rocks on heads, no evil parent, no spouse to blame, nothing to blame but addiction and selfishness."

I love this exchange so much that I wanted to capture it for posterity.

As for the original intent of OP, to try to be compassionate and support each other, whether we are EP, EAC, or neither of these, that seems only possible for a small subset of those who post here. This topic is a hot one, and it causes many to give knee-jerk reactions. For me, I ignore the "knee-jerks" (pun intended) and focus on the compassionate ones. That's a life lesson, btw, don't you think? (Rhetorical. No reply requested.)
Hugs to those who give & need compassion!

There's no easy solution or guaranteed one for that matter. whichever way you end up estranged and unable to have a discussion, it's heartbreaking. In the end you have to accept what is. If its from your own child you have to realise they have a right to live life their way, You make a new life for yourself, not the one planned. I know I must accept it.
Feel for those children who were never loved and had bad parents, they with luck can make a good life for themselves because they more than anyone know what was missing and ensure it doesn't happen with their own.

So true. The common denominator here is pain.

Absolutely lovethepuppies.

Whichever side of the estrangement someone is posting from, it's important to remember there is someone hurting. Somewhere, a relationship has come unstuck. Helping someone find a way forward should be approached with compassion, even if challenging something that is said.

Thank you.

I’m so sorry

I agree with that, stillawipp. Personally, I've got enough misery over this as it is. I really try not to go borrowing more from people I don't even know.

No, I didn’t see it, but would probably just have ignored it anyway & not risen to it.
Anyway, I’ll let you carry on….

Of course sweetpotatopie it's also possible that an EP really didn't do anything wrong enough to call for such a strong response; we didn't.

Did you see the deleted posts stillawipp, the link to that awful diatribe on Reddit about EP's here on GN?

Speaking out against posts of that nature isn't about furthering a cause, it's about refusing to stay silent and allow posts of that nature to go unchallenged, and I would do exactly the same thing if EAC had been on the receiving end.

You've hit the nail on the head sweetpotatopie and that is precisely why the first thread was started by an EP 14 years ago and what this estrangement forum is for.

It's supposed to be somewhere for people to tell their personal estrangement story, to find support and at times that support may be in the form of constructive criticism, but should never be by way of being ganged up on just because they're an EP or an EAC.

😘

Wow, that's honest. I wish there was a "like" button on this forum.

Well, for a time I did insist I was blameless, and it was probably because I felt a bit ashamed to be in that position and needed to validate it. I wanted everyone to be ‘on my side’ and tell me that I was a good person and it wasn’t my fault, rather than look at myself and my behaviour. That was too difficult and painful. It’s always easier to blame others rather than admit your own faults, isn’t it? In the end, the pain of not having my son in my life far outweighed the need for me to be right, and so I decided to change tack and look at myself instead.

Much like how a married person is sometimes stunned when their partner leaves them and they didn't even remotely see it coming.