A common theme I see online is bewilderment by parents who find themselves estranged from their adult children. They report feeling confused, hurt, or angry by their adult child’s choice, and indicate they aren’t sure why the estrangement happened. Although each adult child’s circumstances are uniquely their own, here are five reasons adult children might make the difficult and oftentimes emotional choice to estrange from their parent(s).
1. Attachment Trauma
Attachment trauma is a common theme I’ve witnessed in my work with various adult women in therapy who are considering estrangement from a parent. I’ve sat across from women who’ve expressed how they wanted to believe that they deserved to be loved unconditionally by their mothers. They desperately wanted the support, love, and protection of their mothers when they were young, and continued to question why they weren’t “good enough” to earn love and safety when they needed it most. As we can imagine, this can contribute to the Type 2 Helpers of the Enneagram, with women seeking to be the most helpful or thoughtful of others to earn the love, affection, or admiration they’ve missed in childhood. Gibson (2015) describes this type of person seeking love and affection in adulthood through people-pleasing as an Internalizer. Internalizers put the needs of others before their own and seek validation from outside sources. This can be especially damaging when paired with emotionally detached mothers or mothers who are the perpetrators of abuse.
2. Trauma
How about traumas of other kinds? It’s important to emphasize how trauma is defined by the person who experienced it, meaning it is not our job (or a parent’s job) to classify what is and is not trauma. When experiencing a traumatic event in childhood, does the adult child feel they were supported and protected by their parent? Was the parent present and reassuring in ways that helped a child discover resilience after the fact? What if the trauma happened at the hands of their parent? What if trauma was the result of a parent’s struggle with mental health challenges or addiction? What if they were the perpetrator of abuse?
3. Abuse
Significant or repeated abuse may increase the likelihood of estrangement in adulthood. Dr. Kylie Agllias, author of Family Estrangement: A matter of perspective (2016) identified how abuse situations can contribute to a child’s feelings of instability within the home, including lack of safety and messages that indicate devaluing their role within the family system. There are five types of abuse to remain aware of when exploring the factors of estrangement:
physical abuse
sexual abuse
verbal abuse
emotional abuse
financial abuse.
Physical abuse includes acts of violence or discipline that cause physical harm, such as hitting, kicking, pinching, pushing, slapping, grabbing, punching, or throwing objects at another person. There is a real possibility of leaving a mark from these acts, in addition to delivering messages of low value and self-worth for the recipient.
Sexual abuse involves unwanted sexual contact, oftentimes with perpetrators using force, manipulation, or threats against individuals who do not or cannot give consent.
Verbal abuse describes weaponized words that are repetitive, cruel, and critical in nature. This can include insults, ridicule, humiliation, and put-downs that are meant to hurt or create negative beliefs and experiences for the targeted individual. Emotional abuse comes in a variety of forms, making it the most difficult to hold perpetrators accountable for because of discrepancies in how it can be measured.
Emotional abuse embodies a series of words or behaviors that are meant to coerce, manipulate, or exercise power and control over another person. This could include gaslighting, minimizing, and scapegoating.
Financial abuse has been added to the list of abuse types because of the equally emotional and physical toll it can take on the victim. Financial abuse describes the withholding of finances, limiting the victim’s ability to access funds, concealing money or assets, or demanding paychecks be turned over to the perpetrator due to their desire to maintain control over money and thus the person. This effectively traps the person in a cycle of power and control and may reflect an adult child’s experience over an early childhood experience due to the nature of this behavior.
4. Neglect
Whether physical or emotional, neglect can contribute to avoidant attachment in childhood and an increased possibility of estrangement in adulthood. Physical neglect describes a parent who is absent from the home, such as one who abuses substances, a parent who pursues a new partner while leaving their kids at home by themselves, a parent who is incapacitated by chronic pain or frequent migraines, or a parent who had to work multiple jobs to put food on the table, as several examples.
Emotional neglect can describe a parent who is suffering from serious mental illness such as chronic depression or crippling anxiety that prevents them from being present and attuned to their children’s needs. It can also represent a parent who is emotionally detached from their children, such as a mother who suffers from postpartum depression or a parent whose own trauma prevents healthy attachment due to them operating out of survival mode or having unmet needs of their own. The lack of meaningful connection can contribute to an adult child describing a childhood that was lonely, uncertain, and painful, making estrangement that much more possible due to them reporting detachment and distance from their parent(s) for years prior to enforcing estrangement.
5. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
In recognizing the mental and physical impact of abuse and neglect, it’s also important to acknowledge the long-term effects of trauma on children. The adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) study shed light on the significance of trauma and adversity within a family system, including its impact on children who developed greater risks for physical and mental health concerns as they aged. Conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a relationship was identified between events that challenged a child’s sense of safety, stability, and bonding from birth to seventeen years of age, and the eventual development of chronic health conditions and increased mental illness that followed them into adulthood.
Examples of events that would be categorized as an ACE include (Croswaite, 2021)
experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect;
witnessing violence in the home or community;
having a family member attempt or die by suicide;
substance misuse;
mental health problems; and
instability due to parental separation or household members
being in jail or prison.
While the number of adults reporting that they’ve experienced one or more ACEs in their childhood is growing, it’s important to remain mindful of the possible connection between negative childhood experiences and eventual estrangement.
These five reasons capture the complexity and resulting relationship ruptures we know of between adult children and their parents. We encourage you to take a deeper dive into the thoughts, feelings, and decisions of nine women who pondered the difficult decision to cut ties with their mothers in our book Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships: Guiding the Adult Daughter’s Healing Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle and access all our therapeutic tools for adult daughters available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com.