Why Did I Write a Book about Mother-Daughter Estrangement?

Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships was inspired by my client work in therapy with women of all different backgrounds, but it was also informed by brief estrangement within my family tree, as well as four generations of estrangement in the family I’m married into. It’s a book that looks at a pattern I was seeing in the women I was serving as a therapist, specifically the energy estrangement was taking up in their lives and the possible stages they could experience as the result of a relationship rupture with their mom. I first wrote about the stages I was seeing—named the Estrangement Energy Cycle—in 2020. We were in the thick of the pandemic, and I think I was holding onto something that made sense at a time where nothing in the greater world made sense. I released a blog on the cycle that colleagues responded favorably to, affirming that they were seeing what I was seeing in their therapeutic work as well. That was when I knew I had a future book to write on the subject.

Fast forward to 2022, I’d self-published three books in three years on subjects that felt important to me and relevant to the populations I was serving. I had just become a mother to my own daughter and was on maternity leave when a request to review a book proposal came through, with an open invitation to pitch book ideas to the publisher. So my entrepreneurial brain said, why not? I was eight weeks postpartum when I submitted my book proposal, and my daughter was four months old when I started researching and writing this book. 

It’s not lost on me that I was writing a book about mother-daughter estrangement while fostering healthy attachment with my own infant daughter. Upon learning about my book deal with a publisher, my mom asked me outright if there was anything I needed to tell her. That conversation still makes me chuckle since I know she was just making sure that things between us were okay and it showed she was interested in this topic too. I’d had a couple tumultuous teenage years with my mom that I reflected upon while writing this book, which only strengthened my gratitude for our close relationship in my adult years as I watch her deep and unconditional love for my baby girl as her first grandchild. My mom had been estranged from her dad for a period of time as a young adult when her parents divorced after his infidelity. I know that my grandma’s devastation about the divorce influenced my mom’s decision to stop speaking to him. My grandma was so hurt and angry that I recall her speaking poorly of my grandfather to my sister and I as early as five years old, encouraging us to call him a derogatory nickname in her household as a sign of allegiance to her. This memory shaped a chapter of the book on the ripple effect on families, where family members feel pressured to declare loyalties to one family member or another as the result of the estrangement. 

Fortunately for my mom, she was able to reconcile with her dad and maintained a healthy, loving relationship with him for the remainder of his life, all while setting boundaries with her mom on how she expressed her hurt and distrust in front of us kids. Boundaries in families were again revisited when watching my in-laws pursue estrangement that resulted in four generations not speaking to one another over the course of several years. Observing the walking-on-eggshells dynamic, the justification for broken ties, and the sadness and hurt that resulted from those estrangements informed multiple chapters of this book, including what community members could say or do to support someone who is estranged. 

As for the writing process of this book, I would read and research estrangement during my daughter’s many naps as an infant, and would write for two hours every night after putting her to bed. Oftentimes the writing came easily, although sometimes I spent my evening reworking a chapter or story to address writer’s block and anchor myself in what content was coming next. A silly memory I have of this time was sitting in my closet on the floor, writing away while trying not to wake the baby, all while remaining several feet away in case she fussed or needed me.

My favorite part of this book was capturing stories of women going through the estrangement energy cycle, inspired by clients I’d served as a therapist for the past decade. Recalling my clients’ hard work was a gift, they had inspired this book’s content from the very beginning and writing about their stories felt like the work had come full circle. Not only was this book capturing the beautiful, vulnerable work clients had done for themselves, it would serve as a beacon of hope for other adult daughters exploring estrangement and reconciliation with their mothers.

Having colleagues to survey and beta reader feedback of the first draft helped flushed out the content even more. My mom has been the first reader and editor of all my books, so her feedback felt very symbolic for this book in particular. It even spurred some additional compassionate conversations about my grandma from the lenses of abuse and trauma, that I felt helped my mom heal from rocky relationship moments in their mother-daughter dynamic too. In writing every night, I finished and submitted my manuscript in four months time! Then came the journey of cover design and awaiting the finished product to put out in the world.

As I reflect on this journey today, I’m feeling so grateful for the process and connections this book has brought into my life as an author, therapist, and mother. Hearing from clinicians and adult daughters as readers of this book has been very fulfilling, and I hope it encourages healing for many readers, including the mothers and daughters within my own family tree.

Four Tips to Heal from Estrangement with Your Adult Daughter

As a mother, you never imagine that your adult child is going to stop talking to you. To experience estrangement from your child is unbelievably painful. And for many parents, they report feeling bewildered and confused as to why estrangement came to be. The good news is that folks are sharing that reconciliation is possible. There are authors who have dedicated books and blogs to helping parents navigate this experience and support their desire of coming back together. Although there’s no exact formula that guarantees reconciliation, there are a few things to consider from what we know now from the adult child’s perspective.

First, what are your reasons for wanting reconciliation with your adult child? Getting curious about your responses to the following questions can shed light on your healing journey from estrangement as a parent.

1. Why do you want to reconcile? 

Being honest with yourself is the first step. Do you want to repair the relationship? Do you want to feel heard and validated in your choices? Are you looking to get even? Do you want a relationship with your grandchildren? There are any number of reasons why a parent wants to reconcile, and being prepared with a response for yourself and your estranged adult child should they ask would be an important first step.

2. What are your expectations of the reconciled relationship? 

As humans, it’s not uncommon to hear folks say they want everything to go back to the way it was, or to start over, both of which would be problematic for the estranger/adult child who made this choice reflecting that something wasn’t right. Going backward or to sameness would be a significant issue for them. What do you want the reconciled relationship to look like? Recognize that the relationship could be better or worse, but most likely just different. 

3. What steps will you agree to for reconciliation? 

As you attempt to reengage your adult child, what offerings or compromises can you accept? Are you open to phone calls to start? Are you willing to have a relationship with your daughter-in-law but not speak to your estranged son? Are you pursuing a relationship with your grandchildren, even if it means you aren’t on speaking terms with their mother? Knowing your own boundaries in the reconciliation process will help both you and your adult child navigate the testing phase of reconciliation. 

4. What can you take responsibility for? 

In other words, have you done your own reflection of what happened? Are you prepared to accept your adult child’s accusations and avoid arguing? Can you clearly name the offending actions prior to estrangement being pursued? Are you clear on the priority being repairing the relationship over determining whose memories of events are right? 

Which leads us to the second aspect of healing from estrangement and improving the possibility of reconciliation with your adult child. In serving hundreds of women over the years in therapy, I’ve heard from many of them that they are seeking the three “A”s: Acknowledgment, Apology, and Action. 

Acknowledgement

Adult children are asking for acknowledgement from their parents that things weren’t always perfect in their childhood. What feels tricky for parents is the fear that if they acknowledge they’ve made mistakes, that it means they are a bad parent. Not true! How can you acknowledge you were human? That you would do things differently now? We can’t change the past, but being present with your adult child now can be the start of the healing journey towards reconciliation.

Apology

Are there pieces worth apologizing for? What could your apology sound like? What tone? It’s understandably difficult to feel neutral in the face of your adult child’s charged emotions about your relationship with them. Some adult children will express anger or rage. Parents, in their own hurt, can respond in defensiveness. How can you remain present and authentic in your apology? Does it help you to soften by remembering that your adult child’s expression of emotion shows that they are hurting?

Action

What steps can you take to work on yourself and the relationship with your adult child? Does it mean going to therapy, working with a coach, or engaging a mentor? Is it about initiating family therapy with your adult child if they are ready to engage in that way with you? For so many parents, doing your own work is important to your own healing, regardless of if reconciliation is possible. 

Imagine that both you and your adult child have gaping wounds on your body. You are both raw, hurt, and bleeding. That’s what estrangement feels like. The process to heal an injury like this takes intention action, insight, and time. You can heal yourself and support your adult child’s healing. They deserve to get to know you as the person you are today.

Navigating Family Estrangement for Men and their Partners

For men, estrangement may bring up feelings of resentment, outrage, or anger versus the traditional emotions of sadness, guilt, and shame in women. This could be in part due to men not feeling the same kind of pressure to win their mother’s approval or be in helpful or caregiving roles to parents the way women are expected to be. The common expectation for men is that they will grow apart from their mothers in seeking partners and creating families of their own. Estrangement can occur for various reasons, including financial strain, relational conflict, mental health, and trauma. It’s important to recognize that men may choose estrangement because of partners or spouses as well. Perhaps the partner or spouse is encouraging a man’s estrangement from his mother in believing the mother-son relationship is unhealthy. A man may pursue estrangement if his family does not approve of his spouse, feeling that he must choose between them. He may justify estrangement for this reason, stating he no longer wants to hear the criticisms or slights he perceives are being made against his spouse or partner by his mother or both parents. 

A final area to emphasize is a gender difference observed by Agllias (2016) in her research on estrangement. Men and women respond differently in how they move toward acceptance of estrangement. Women tend to be more emotive in order to grieve and process the loss associated with estrangement, whereas men are more likely to respond with problem solving and intellectualizing what happened, in order to help them move on from an estranged relationship. There is also a societal expectation that men will “get over” things more quickly than women, which could include relationship rupture. As a support person, be sure to honor their experiences and meet them where they are, just as we would any person going through the process of estrangement. Asking clarifying questions and helping them connect with their emotions can be impactful in helping men heal. 

Helping Your Partner

Recognizing how painful the process of estrangement can be for your loved one, here are some things to consider as the compassionate partner or spouse of a person who has experienced a relationship rupture with their mother. 

1. Know That the Holidays Can Be Heavy
Holidays are challenging for folks for a variety of reasons. This might include family conflict, death, trauma anniversaries, and toxic relationships. When it comes to estrangement, the cultural expectation of holidays being focused on family can feel ostracizing to an estranged person. If your partner is not currently connected to family but is subjected to movies, advertisements, and events catered to holiday family fun, they can experience additional or elevated grief and loss. 

2. Recognize That the Body Remembers
Trauma events have a way of sticking with us, not just in our memory but at a deeper, cellular level as well. As a therapist, I’ve had dozens of clients over the years come into sessions reporting they felt symptoms of depression, dread, anxiety, or loss seem- ingly out of the blue and couldn’t pinpoint why. When I asked them if there was any significance to the season, month, or day, oftentimes they would identify a trauma they hadn’t consciously tracked, but that still had a tremendous impact on them, such as a family member’s death, a car accident, sexual assault, suicide, or natural disaster. They weren’t actively recalling these events, but their body remembered and responded by recreating some of the emotions or sensations associated with the trauma. 

3. Acknowledge Cultural Expectations of Family
In addition to holidays being heavy, a cultural expectation of the importance of family can increase your loved one’s feelings of shame or guilt about their estrangement from their mother. This occurs because of messages about the importance of family such as “family comes first,” or accusations of adult children being self- ish and dishonoring their family by straying from their family’s values or sphere of influence. Additionally, your loved one might interact with a person who reiterates these messages, arguing that they should reconcile with their mother or risk significant regret, such as when their mother dies. Cultures that emphasize family over individuals can bring up self-doubt in your loved one about not trying hard enough to repair the relationship, or can intensify feelings of failure that they weren’t successful in healing the relationship with their mom. It’s important to recognize how every day, normed portrayals of family can be triggering for your loved one in not having that expected dynamic. 

4. Follow Your Partner’s Lead
When walking into a scenario where discussions of family systems or dynamics come up, allow your partner to lead the conversation. Support them in their decision to disclose as much or as little as they need to in order to interact with others in ways that feel safe to them. If they decide to not disclose their estrangement, they have their reasons. If they choose to name their current status as an adult estranged from a parent, that’s their choice too. Showing up in solidarity for whatever response might come next from others will help your loved one feel sup- ported by you, especially if the other person’s response is unsympathetic, argumentative, or unintentionally hurtful. 

5. Ask, “What Do You Need?”
When your partner or loved one finds themselves triggered by people, places, media portrayals, or memories, there is one powerful question you can ask them as their partner. Couples’ therapists would agree with me when I say this question has saved relationships! Try asking your loved one, “what do you need?” Or ask, “what do you need in this moment?” These questions can be especially helpful because they give your partner permission to advocate for what might help them best. Perhaps they want a hug or to be left alone. Maybe they want to brainstorm or are asking for your help to fix things. Oftentimes, they actually just want to vent by expressing their thoughts and emotions in ways that leave them feeling seen by you as someone they trust. 

6. Encourage Chosen Connections
As a partner, it’s not expected that you be the one and only support person to your loved one. It’s not fair to them and it’s not healthy for you. Putting all of our needs on one person is a recipe for disaster because it can result in inequality, resentment, codependency, and burnout. Therefore, it’s recommended that you encourage your partner to develop additional healthy relationships, including some with parental figures if appropriate. Similar to folks who describe their chosen family as people who love and respect them, can your loved one cultivate this kind of relationship with another mother-like or father-like figure? Can they lean on friends, colleagues, mentors, or family members as needed? Chosen connections such as these can have healing qualities for an estranged person. By exploring and building their support network alongside them, your loved one will feel they have options without over-relying on any one person, including you.

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.

Five Reasons Adult Children are Choosing Estrangement from their Parents

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.

The Effects of Estrangement on Adult Children

What if I told you that the experience of estrangement often feels like someone has died? At least initially. It’s not an easy decision for adult children who estrange from their parents (as one example) and experts have discovered that the grief and loss response to estrangement is similar to our anguish or pain response when someone we love dies. Dr. Kylie Agllias (2016) recognizes that “estrangement is a particularly difficult loss to accept because it has no predetermined outcomes or end points.” Within her research, Agllias (2016) describes a grief response to estrangement where a person is mourning someone as if they have died, which can feel painfully accurate when permanent estrangement occurs and reconciliation isn’t an option.

Symptoms of Estrangement

Even with personal agency to end a relationship through their choice to estrange, many adult children can’t predict the significant reactions and emotions that will arise with their decision, resulting in feeling a sense of shock when they are fully immersed in it. They struggle with grief and loss symptoms, some of which include:

● Sadness

● Anger

● Shock

● Helplessness

● Shame

● Guilt

● Loss of identity

● Feelings of blame

● Feelings of failure

● Social avoidance

The estranged adult child may report strain and mistrust in other relationships due to the circumstances of their estrangement. They may report difficulty trusting others or leaning significantly on their partner or other family members to prove that estrangement is not the fate of all their family relationships. An adult child may report symptoms of anxiety or trauma responses, such as:

● Muscle tension

● Headaches

● Hypervigilance

● Sleep disturbance

● Difficulty controlling thoughts

● Avoidance

● Rumination on all that happened prior to estrangement

● Flashbacks

With prolonged symptoms and repeat triggers for grief, the stress of the relationship rupture can result in chronic stress symptoms for some adult children, especially women including:

● Hair loss

● Weight gain

● Inflammation

● Moodiness

● Elevated cortisol levels

● Adrenal fatigue

● Thyroid conditions

● Sleep disruption

● Water retention

● Brain fog

● Headaches

● Fatigue

It’s not hard to imagine how reporting these symptoms to a medical doctor could lead to a diagnosis of anxiety, depression, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, are we missing the mark in not asking about relationships and their contribution to an individual’s symptoms? It could generate a clearer clinical picture to ask a client or patient to describe their current relationships by asking questions like, “How are your relationships right now? Who are you closest to in your family? Who do you rely on for support?” By asking several questions about family dynamics and relationships, professional helpers begin to explore the physical, emotional, and relational impact of estrangement on an adult child’s mental health presentation when seeking support or starting therapy. 

It’s important to emphasize that not all symptoms listed above have to be present, nor do they have to be severe or long-lasting. Some folks will have the symptoms they experience from estrangement lessen over time, similar to other grief and loss experiences where symptom intensity may be reduced with time and space. Some healing happens in a process we’ve named the Estrangement Energy Cycle.

The Estrangement Energy Cycle

The Estrangement Energy Cycle starts with a pattern or cycle of abuse. This may be the culmination of various attachment traumas from childhood that were not acknowledged or addressed by a parent, or it can be a series of events that have happened more recently in the adult child’s life.

After gaining awareness about an abuse cycle, an adult child can move into a stage of questioning. This can reflect their ambivalence about the parent-child relationship, including questioning their own part in it not feeling healthy or good enough. This stage can also represent an adult child wondering if they try harder or communicate more effectively, maybe they can get through to their parent.

If an adult child determines that the cycle of abuse and dynamics within the parent-child relationship are damaging to their health, they may then move into relationship rupture. This is a painful stage where the processing of the abuse and the implications for how it’s shaping the adult child’s life in the present cannot be unseen or ignored any longer. Typically an internal process where they recognize the impact of abuse, they may have epiphanies about poor boundaries and people-pleasing, or identify a connection between their quest for perfection and seeking approval and love from a parent. Relationship rupture can also occur from an additional event of hurt or violation from the parent in question, that pushes the adult child from contemplation to preparation for estrangement in wanting the repeated abuse to end. 

From a painful relationship rupture comes the active choice to become estranged. The choice is a challenging one, resulting in a move toward grief and loss. The grief and loss stage includes finding space for the adult child’s emotions and self-doubt about their relationship with their parent. After extensive grief and loss work, an adult child can move to discovering a new sense of self. How will they define themselves now that estrangement from their parent has occurred? What will other relationships look like with healthy boundaries in place? An adult child may seek new communities of connection and new hobbies or interests in feeling unburdened from the unhealthy relationship or repeated conflict with their parent. 

The deeper work comes with the support of others, whether it be a spiritual congregation, wellness-focused community, or engaging in ongoing mental health therapy. An adult child may recognize that they’ve done all they can on their own to heal from this estrangement, but find they need additional support and guidance to continue the work. The final stage of the Estrangement Energy Cycle is redefining self- worth. Through hard work, reflection, and developing healthy relationships with others, an adult child can begin to regain self-worth separate from their parent. This may be finding the bandwidth to set boundaries with others, challenging people-pleasing urges, and practicing saying no, as just a few examples.

Each adult child’s journey is different in how they heal from estrangement, however we have some ideas from the clients we’ve served in therapy for the last twelve years. Check out 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.

Challenging Ten Assumptions about Estrangement

As the author of a book on mother-daughter relationship rupture speaking to adult daughters and the therapists that serve them, I would be doing women a disservice if I didn’t name and challenge the assumptions others make of estrangement. The community at large, as well as a handful of authors, have taken it upon themselves to be the voice of estranged parents everywhere. These parents, in an effort to understand the causes of their estrangement, report a number of similarities in their children that they feel contribute to why they have chosen to disconnect from their parents, which has led to the following assumptions:

1. Selfishness

The first assumption is that adult children who choose estrangement from their parents are selfish. They are accused of being self-centered, narcissistic, and focused only on themselves. We argue that adult children who choose estrangement from their parents do so for a variety of reasons, none of which are solely selfish in nature. Rather, the choice to estrange comes from an effort to protect themselves, partners, and children from further pain or trauma from their parents. Therefore, this difficult choice may be for the well-being of others in addition to themselves and doesn’t omit them from their own grief and loss response when disconnecting from a parent.

2. Suddenness

Many parents of estranged adult children claim that the estrangement came on suddenly, sometimes without warning. Upon further reflection, parents are usually able to pinpoint signs that their sons and daughters were not happy with the relationship, but perhaps didn’t feel it would result in estrangement. Although it may feel sudden, the process of deciding to estrange from a parent takes significant time and energy for an adult child. Contrary to assumptions that choosing estrangement is easy for adult children, many spend significant mental energy evaluating and re-evaluating their options in not wanting to miss an opportunity to improve the situation.

3. Therapist Recommendation

Another assumption is that therapists are encouraging or championing estrangement for their adult clients. Oftentimes found in the same breath as the word ‘boundaries,’ parents and professionals alike feel that therapists are pushing an agenda for adult children to be estranged from their parents in response to trauma. As a mental health professional myself, I can see where certain clients may seek out advice or interpret a conversation about boundaries as permission to cut off a parent. However, a quality professional will remain neutral and help their client explore the implications of remaining in a relationship cycle that feels healthy or unhealthy, reaffirming that the client is the sole decision maker within their own life.

4. Exaggerated Trauma

Trauma remains a primary theme for exploration of estrangement. Several authors lament on how adult children may exaggerate their experiences of trauma to reinforce their decision to become estranged from their parents. To serve as a means to vilify and justify cutting off a parent. The challenge here is that society fails to recognize that trauma is defined by the person who experiences it. It is not our job to argue about what is and is not, trauma. Instead, trauma work remains an appropriate modality in the therapy space in order to explore healing and goals for adult children seeking change in their lives.

5. Refusal to Reconcile

Parents want to believe that reconciliation is an option, and yet for some, it will not be a choice. Rather than seeing this refusal to reconcile as a ploy for power and control by an adult child over their parent, it’s important to explore the circumstances for when reconciliation isn’t appropriate. For families damaged by repeated physical or sexual abuse, for example, reconciliation can feel like wishful thinking. How do we acknowledge the damage a parent-child relationship can suffer when subjected to repeated physical abuse? What supports reconciliation when a mom aligns with a boyfriend who is sexually assaulting her daughter? Each adult child’s choice to reconcile or not is to be respected because reconciliation remains difficult to near impossible for some individuals.

6. Too Much Toxic

The word ‘toxic' has shown up frequently in media for at least the last decade if not longer. As it became associated with relationship dynamics, this word has been seen alongside the words ‘estrangement’ or ‘family estrangement’ more often. Some folks believe that adult children are using this word to justify their decision to estrange from their parents and to seek sympathy from others by painting themselves as victims. This viewpoint only serves to discount the actual harm victims of abuse have suffered. Toxic as a word, has encouraged folks to cleanse themselves of toxins, including unhealthy relationships. What if describing a relationship as toxic is a means of simplifying something immensely confusing and painful? Toxic may serve as a label for an experience that we don’t have the emotional energy or desire to explain to someone else because of the stigma, judgment, or emotions it stirs up when talking about it. 

7. False Memories

A common disclosure found in interviews and surveys of estranged parents is that they have been accused by their adult children of neglect, abuse, or of being a bad parent. Additionally, parents can claim that their adult children possess false memories of abusive or unsafe situations that did not occur per the parent’s recollection, leaving parents baffled and confused. Trauma has a way of being stored in people’s memories in different ways with different things being the focus, which can mean one person’s recollection can look completely different than another’s. It’s a similar phenomenon to why eye-witness testimony doesn’t hold up well in court. You can interview three witnesses and get three completely different recollections of the events that took place. Parents are left feeling angry that their children are subscribing to false memories in order to validate their decision to separate or abandon a parent when in actuality, an adult child’s reports of mistreatment, however inaccurate to the parent, deserve curiosity and compassion if there is to be any hope of repairing the relationship.

8. Mental Health Problems

Another common culprit in the blame-game of estrangement is mental health. The seeking of mental health diagnoses or labels placed on either the adult child or parent can be problematic and stigmatizing. In several books supporting estranged parents, authors argue that adult children may have undiagnosed mental health issues such as Bipolar Disorder that cause them to seek estrangement from their parents. Which, as a mental health professional, feels like dangerous ground because of how simplified it sounds. It’s possible that some adult children have mental health challenges or diagnoses that make them more likely to pursue estrangement. Equally possible, however, are times where a parent’s mental health could be a factor in why estrangement is pursued when their children grow up. Perhaps it’s severe depression, PTSD, or a personality disorder that prevents a parent from attaching or showing up consistently for their child. By no means is mental health the only factor to consider in the research on estrangement, and if we are going to look at mental health within the family, it’s best to look at the mental health of both adult children and their parents in our quest for answers on the growing rates of parent-adult child estrangement.

9. Control Over Grandchildren

An increasing concern for estranged parents is access to their grandchildren when their adult child chooses to estrange from them. One assumption we saw reinforced in several books on the subject was that adult children use grandchildren and withholding contact from those grandchildren as punishment for parents' poor choices. Although this is a possibility for some adult children who are angry about the mistreatment they’ve felt they’ve received from their parents, the clients I’ve served over the years are more likely to limit contact between grandparents and their grandchildren when they are worried that the abuse or neglect they experienced in their own childhood could be repeated with their kids. In an effort to protect their children or to break an unhealthy relationship cycle, they may prevent contact between grandparents and grandchildren.

10. Pettiness

Our last in the list of assumptions about estrangement is the accusation of adult children being petty in their refusal to reconcile or re-engage in a relationship with their parent(s). The underlying theme of most media representation that sides with parents conveys a concern that adult children are refusing out of spite. To punish their parents. To hold power over them. As you might guess, this remains another narrow view of the complexities that contribute to family estrangement. It may very well feel this way to a parent who is confused or hurt by their adult child’s actions. However, it can also serve as an opportunity to get curious about their adult child’s viewpoint on holding rigid or strong boundaries. What would their adult child say when asked what they need to repair the relationship? 

Assumptions of estrangement are widespread. This could be because of the emotional charge it leaves in both adult children and their parents, as well as the limited research to date that could shed light on why estrangement is being pursued more often in response to family conflict. By challenging these assumptions, we can find ourselves successfully providing a compassionate, judgment-free space for ourselves and others experiencing estrangement in their families. We invite adult daughters to check out 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 available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com. 

What is the Estrangement Energy Cycle for Adult Daughters Estranged from their Mothers?

Would it surprise you to know that 1 in 12 people is estranged from at least one family member (Agllias, 2016)? With estrangement on the rise, further exploration is needed to best understand the complexities that contribute to making estrangement possible in families. As a mental health professional, I first wrote about estrangement and adult daughters in 2020, asking my therapist colleagues if they too were seeing a pattern in women who were contemplating estrangement from a parent in their clinical work. From that blog, I felt called to take a deeper dive into the cycle of events adult daughters may experience when considering mother-daughter estrangement, a cycle I came to call Estrangement Energy.

There are various stages a daughter may work through by herself or within therapy as she explores her relationship with her mother. Let’s take Gina* as one example. Gina sought out therapy for processing her divorce, expressing interest in grief and loss work as well as reporting feelings of depression and failure when attempting to meet her children’s needs. As Gina moved towards deeper work on her relationships, she began to question why she allowed multiple people in her life to exert power and control over her. She discovered that the start of this relational pattern resided with her mother.

Cycle of Abuse

Gina engaged in a personal narrative that helped her to recognize her mother’s behaviors as physically and verbally abusive. She had learned to cope with her mother’s volatile mood swings by reading her body language, voice, and mannerisms to best determine if she should engage her mom or go hide in her room until the emotional storm blew over. 

Questioning

Having made the connection between an unpredictable and oftentimes unsafe childhood and her honed skill of reading others’ moods, Gina uncovered suppressed feelings of anger and outrage at her mother’s behavior. She began to question her current relationship with her mother and the long term effects it was having on her mental health.

Relationship Rupture

Gina wanted to talk to her mother further about her childhood and the impact on her life, yet every time she attempted to share her memories and feelings about events, her mother told Gina she was exaggerating and remembered things wrong.

Estrangement

Feeling devastated and minimized, Gina determined that she needed some distance from her mother. She started by reducing the amount of time she spent with her, claiming her work and her daughters kept her busy, which were partly true.

Grief and Loss

As the contact between Gina and her mother dwindled, Gina felt a mix of sadness and relief. On one hand, she felt she had more time and energy to give to people in her life who valued and appreciated her. But on the other hand, Gina was grieving the loss of the mother she wanted and needed—one who could respect her and love her unconditionally.

Discovering Sense of Self

Amidst her grief, Gina found herself seeking new experiences that left her feeling vibrant and alive.

Deeper Work

As Gina began to discover herself and her identity without mom, she found she still struggled with the idea of dating and intimate partner relationships. Her latest therapeutic goal was to address underlying fears of intimacy and connectedness, which resulted in uncovering negative core beliefs of being unworthy, unlovable, and not enough.

Redefining Self-Worth

Gina’s therapeutic journey left her feeling stronger and more present that she had in the past. She celebrated having stability at work and solid relationships with her friends. Gina took her role as a mother seriously, wanting something completely different for her daughters than what she’d had with her own mother.

Each client’s story is unique, and yet Gina’s story is one inspired by multiple clients seeking therapy at a critical point in their relationships with their mothers. Estrangement is a challenging and emotional choice that oftentimes leads to an adult daughter seeking therapy for additional support. Whether her goal is reconciliation with mother or full estrangement, having a solid understanding of the estrangement process and stages, as well as tools that can support her on her journey supports each woman in doing this deep and oftentimes difficult work.

For more on mother-daughter estrangement and the Estrangement Energy Cycle, check out 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 available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com. 

Seven Books to Specialize in Mother-Daughter Relationships

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

As someone who’s written about the mother-daughter relationship and possibilities for estrangement, I’ve been asked by fellow mental health professionals about the books I’d recommend for those who want to specialize in working with adult daughters, mothers, or both mothers and daughters. Here are seven books that may be helpful in seeking this specialty:

1.     Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

This book applies to both mothers and fathers and explores parent-child relationship dynamics where parents are distant, self-involved, or rejecting. It is geared towards adult children seeking answers on why their parents weren’t involved in childhood, including how to heal from attachment trauma.

2.     Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters

Filled with tools and journal prompts to support boundaries, detachment from mother, and self-discovery, this book has been well-received by adult daughters seeking independence from mom.

3.     The Mother-Daughter Puzzle

A book focused on generational trauma and expectations passed from mothers to daughters, the mother-daughter history taking exercise is a powerful mapping of patterns and feminine disempowerment to support change.

4.     Discovering the Inner Mother

With terms of mother-wound and re-mothering showing up more often in pop psychology, this book explores the history of patriarchy and disempowerment of women as contributing factors to mother wounds.

5.     It Didn’t Start with You

An eye-opener for folks, including therapists focused on trauma work! Exploring family trauma and generational trauma, this book provides clarity on healing from systemic and family systems perspectives.

6.     The Good Daughter Syndrome

Published in March 2023, this book talks about four traps adult daughters can find themselves in with their (narcissistic, borderline, or difficult) mothers and provides tools to help daughters detach in healthy ways. With an emphasis on the adult daughter not expecting mom to change, it focuses on reframes and behavioral shifts daughters can embrace to live healthier lives.

7.     Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships

This is my book, published in June 2023. Referencing all of the sources listed above, this book focuses on the factors that contribute to estrangement between mothers and daughters, with a focus on the adult daughter’s experience. From lenses of attachment, abuse, neglect, and trauma, it introduces stages an adult daughter may experience as part of the Estrangement Energy Cycle and tools clinicians can introduce to support their process.

Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, there is plenty to review when wanting to help mothers, daughters, or the mother-daughter relationship. I welcome your sharing of other books you’ve found helpful along the way and hope you’ll stay in touch!