CAROLYN HAX

ADVICE WITH ATTITUDE & A GROUNDED SET OF VALUES

Again I see a story in your column about parent-child estrangement.

Dear Carolyn:

It’s really sad. My husband and I are in this situation with our daughter. Haven’t seen our three grandchildren in almost two years and they live 10 minutes from us. Going through therapists until one gives her the answers she wants to hear is awful. Cut your parents off.

And ironically, we still don’t know what the issues are. We had one therapy session together and she refused to go back to that therapist because she felt the therapist sided with me, her mother. So now she goes to a therapist on her own who obviously sides with my daughter, and she adamantly refuses to have us join her to work out whatever issues to move forward. Very sad.

There are always two sides to a story and believe it or not, there are loving parents who have done nothing wrong but are dealing with an adult child who is dealing with something else. But we the parents have become the scapegoats. That’s the easy way out. Very sad.

So I wonder, do you get letters from the other side of the story, or is it always the right decision to just cut off parents? Because not every decision is a right decision.

— Devastated Parents

I do get letters from the “other side,” yes, of course.

I don’t run them as often because there’s little advice for me to give at that point. As you know and spelled out here, when someone decides to cut you off, you can’t make them see you. When someone won’t tell you why, you can’t make them explain. When someone refuses to listen, you can’t make your case.

The only advice left to offer someone facing a brick wall is toward acceptance and moving on — better suited to ongoing therapeutic support.

Another reason I spend more time advising those who estrange, vs. those who have been estranged? Because it’s impossible for me to know who is an abuse victim, and who is “going through therapists until one gives her the answers she wants to hear.”

Or which people “still don’t know what the issues are,” and which ones have had ample notice but stubbornly refuse to believe they’re anything but blameless victims.

Or which people married someone who helped them get healthy and set boundaries with a dysfunctional family, and which ones married someone controlling and abusive who is now isolating them from their loving and supportive family.

The reality of each of these couldn’t be more different from the other, obviously — but the perceptions, with nothing more to go on than written, parent-said/child-said accounts, can be identical. This is true on both sides but the estrangee typically has less to report firsthand.

So I don’t want to publish letters like yours with “I’m so sorry”-type answers that are unsatisfying at best, or at worst grotesquely wrong.

Instead I address those who are considering estrangement:

Have you articulated your concerns and preferences, with “I” statements and evidence?

Have you tried setting and enforcing smaller boundaries, and making them progressively taller as needed? Have you subjected your own choices to the same scrutiny you have others’? With the help of a disinterested third party (therapist, friend, other)?

Estrangement isn’t always right, or always wrong. It is usually painful and therefore an option of last resort.

It is also, by its nature, opaque.