#family-estrangement

#family-estrangement

Don't worry yourself too much about this. Your kids will spend a limited amount of time at the same wedding festivities as your sister, and you will be there to supervise their interactions. Give her an opportunity to meet them and if she does or says anything inappropriate, keep them distanced from her for the remainder of the celebration. If she charms your kids and they ask about spending more time with her,

Our father's body lay on a plinth the color of gunmetal. He was covered by a simple white sheet up to his collarbone, above which his shaved head was supported by a stone headrest. Looking at him, it was as if his body had shrunk in tandem with his dissembling life. I shivered. The visitation room in Omega Funeral Home was as cold as a meat locker, while outside the rainy season had turned Lagos into a sauna.

The well-documented rise in adult-child-parent estrangement creates stressors for grandparents, too (such as loss, identity change, social isolation, and complicated loyalties). It raises the practical importance of grandparent communities as protective resources (for emotional support, practical help, advocacy, and skills for boundary work). I was recently speaking to a friend who is also a new grandparent, and we discussed the joys of being grandfathers, as well as how rewarding it feels to help our adult children navigate this challenging time in their lives.

It's Christmastime, which means peace on Earth and goodwill toward others. But do ALL others deserve such generosity? What if one of those other people is your adult daughter? And what if your daughter, the cruel wretch, decided not to invite you to her wedding? Well, if you're 59-year-old Laura Wellington, you do what any right-thinking American would: You create multiple social media accounts with the handle "Doormat Mom" that are dedicated to publicly dragging your child into the gutter with you:

My parents built their lives around their children and grandchildren, personally and financially. Mom was their free full-time daycare until graduation. My parents also paid for my brother's house in cash. Family is Mom's reason for living. But recently my brother brutally cut her out of his life. We don't know if he's mad that she moved in with us four years ago, even though he was not offering.

"Can we go again?" asks Jay Kelly (George Clooney), a movie star shooting a scene in which the tough guy he's playing dies of a gunshot wound on the soundstage reproduction of a rain-slicked alleyway. "I think I can do it better." These lines from the opening scene of Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly will become the film's wistful recurring theme.

First, you need to understand that the choice to cut off contact with a loved one is rarely an easy one -and in cases where both parties want connection and reconciliation, it can also be a temporary one. Especially when someone is working with a therapist, the decision is usually made after trying out nearly every other option and approach to ask for a change in the relationship.

My father agreed initially, then said he was too busy (he's retired) and refused to go. He then cut me off and announced to the family that he was disowning me. My sister believes his story that I cut him off. Since she was never treated poorly, she doesn't believe that I was. How can I continue my relationship with her, while she remains close with him?

Richard Dreyfuss and Kevin Spacey are both Oscar winners who were once popular movie stars and hailed as two of the most talented actors in Hollywood. But over the years they have proven themselves to be problematic men whose life choices have arguably hurt their careers and left them struggling financially. Now comes a strange, sad story about how the actors' 2009 professional collaboration figured into Spacey's MeToo-era downfall and led to Dreyfuss becoming estranged from his three adult children.

I am a queer man of color in my mid-20s. I grew up in a mostly white, conservative, rural town. It was hellish growing up there, dealing with constant microaggressions, racism, and homophobia. Even though I was not out of the closet at the time, I was constantly clocked as being gay and ridiculed as a result. Despite this, I had some incredibly close friends who were a godsend during that time.

Urbana, Ohio, is a small city of 11,000, where nearly three out of four voters went for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The journalist Beth Macy, who in her previous books chronicled the widening fissures in American society by examining the opioid crisis and the aftereffects of globalization, grew up there. In Paper Girl, she returns to Urbana-a place beset by economic decline, dwindling public resources, failing schools, and the disappearance of local journalism.

Recently, I have had many conversations with many clients and friends discussing what happened to their family connection. As a family therapist and parent, I've spent decades helping people navigate the challenges of family life. I notice adult children and their families are drifting apart, as strong ties once counted on now seem to be coming undone. I hear it every week in my therapy sessions.

Because of work, we had to move about four hours away. Since then, we have felt increasingly isolated. I tried to call weekly, visit often and send gifts for every holiday. About a year in, I realized we were initiating all the contact and tried a little experiment. We stopped calling them. It took more than eight weeks for anyone to contact us. His mother calls his other siblings who live elsewhere every week, but not us.

I was waiting in line to enter the church for the funeral. I couldn't believe he was even having one... A church funeral? The only times I ever remembered him going were Christmas Eve or Easter, but whatever-I shrugged it off. Why was I having these thoughts at a time like this? Why does it matter when he went to church?

My brother is almost 90, a Repub for years, and a committed Trumpie from the beginning. He knows he is looking at his sunset and will die a Trumpie. He dismisses, rationalizes, or denies every critical fact about Trump. No fact, no failure, nor any reversal of policy by any court causes him pause. He only watches FOX. He has successfully alienated his wife, two very adult children, siblings, relatives, and friends who are not Trumpies.

Daniel Aruebose's mother had been estranged from her family for 10 years - the first time they had ever seen him was when his photo was shown on the news

Signs she's avoiding or preparing to avoid me - I open the door off my dining room, call down, Mom, and she doesn't answer, even though I heard her moving around moments ago. She texts two-letter replies, such as OK and no. She locks the door off the dining room. She takes out her trash before sunrise. She stops feeding the squirrels and birds. She keeps her lights off. She keeps her phone off. She stacks cardboard boxes in the laundry room or garage or on the deck.

"We started to have issues when I began having my own opinions," says Bruce, reflecting on the growing divergence between his and Scott's perspectives during their teenage years.

"I assure my kids that the separation from their grandparent is not their fault. Nor is it their responsibility to fix it."

Many described it as a difficult and sensitive topic—one they might only share with close friends. For the most part, respondents worried about others' negative reactions or judgment.