4 Key Ways That Estrangement Hurts Grandparents

Parental alienation is when one parent manipulates a child in order to poison their relationship with the other parent. The resulting alienation between the child and the “target parent," however, often leads to estrangement from grandparents on the alientated side as well. In other words, parental alienation can reverberate across generations, as grandparents, too, suffer a serious loss.

What is it like for grandparents who are estranged from their grandchildren as a result of their adult child’s alienation? This question was the focus of a study conducted by researchers Hila Avieli and Illa Levy of Ariel University in Israel. The investigators interviewed 13 grandparents between the ages of 63 and 83. The participants had been estranged from their grandchildren for at least a year, and were the in-laws of the parent who instigated the alienation. These alienated grandparents also had positive relationships with their adult child (i.e., the alienated/target parent).

Participants were asked about their relationship with their grandchildren, and the wisdom they could share about being an alienated grandparent. The interviews were then analyzed for themes, which are outlined below.

Theme 1: The race against time. The participants experienced time in three incongruous ways. The first was the children’s time frame. It was fast-paced, reflecting that each day that goes by chips away at their grandchild’s memory of the grandparent. The second was the legal system’s time frame, which was slow and lacking in compassion for grandparents’ concerns about time passing. The third was the end-of-life time frames, speaking to the grandparents’ mortality and time left to share with their grandchildren. It also underlined grandparents’ profound fear of not seeing their grandchildren again before they pass away.

One participant expressed:

I hope to live long enough to see them again. I'm getting older, and my end is not that far away, but I hold on to the hope that it will happen in my lifetime, that I will see their faces. (Grandfather, 80)

Theme 2: Disregard for grandparents’ victim status. All of the participants highlighted the omission of grandparents — and their grief — from the larger parental alienation community. The participants referred to three major forms of exclusion: 1) from the parental alienation struggle; 2) the minimization of their suffering; 3) “grandparent silencing” from the larger parental alienation dialogue. For instance, some grandparents wanted to help fight the alienating parent using legal means, but were limited because they didn’t have “victim status.”

A grandparent shared:

I'm not that upset with the kid's mother. I'm more upset with the welfare authorities and the police, the way they all play into her hands and leave the kids as pawns in her hands, victims of her dirty tricks without thinking of the consequences for those poor kids. I feel all alone in this battle. My son is up to his ears in this fight. Sometimes he gets exhausted. My other son has two small kids and a career. I get it. I am the grandfather, I'm retired, I've got time, I'm healthy, I can push things, make things happen, and they won't let me. (Grandfather, 65)

Theme 3: Health and functioning implications of alienation from grandchildren. The majority of grandparents reported that the alienation from their grandchildren impacted their health, functioning, mood, and emotional well-being. Participants shared stories about the myriad tolls their grief and loss took on them.

One participant recounted:

I retired because I couldn't work anymore. … I love my work; my work is, wow, it used to be the center of my life, my heart's desire … But after everything that's happened, I'm not the same person, and my energies drained away. I can't put my finger on an exact time or place. … I lost my grandkids 4 years ago, and there is a lot I don't do anymore: I used to jog; now it's too hard for me. I used to wake up early every morning; now I can barely pull myself out of bed at noon. I'm just so weary from this ongoing battle. … So, going to school every day and working with children seems just out of my reach at this point. (Grandmother, 63)

The participants described the loss and mourning of their grandchild to alienation as a death of a dual nature, in which both the child felt dead and the grandparent experienced an “inner death,” as the hope of seeing their grandchild slipped away.

Theme 4: Reflections on being a grandparent suffering from parental alienation and insights at this stage of life. This theme encompassed grandparents’ reflections on being alienated from their grandchildren. An overarching change as a result of the estrangement was a shattered belief in a just world, which maintains that good things happen to good people and the converse: In other words, people get what they deserve. This belief helps to foster a sense of security, and not having it can make a person feel vulnerable. It is common for victims to stop believing in a just world after a traumatic event, and Avieli and Levi note that this change speaks to grandparents’ devastation.

Consider the disillusionment of one participant:

I used to be a person who believed in people. I used to believe that if I'm kind to others and do the right thing, it will come back to me, and people will do right by me as well. This was always my message to my children: Be honorable, don't forget your values. But now, it's like I woke up and saw the world in a different light. We hired, my daughter hired a lawyer whom we liked. He tried to run a clean trail. Too clean, I guess. Without badmouthing her ex, respecting both sides. But this was obviously a mistake because we lost the kids, and she was accused of terrible things, horrible lies. … Now we took another lawyer, a real snake. He is going to cheat and lie, and it's probably the right thing to do. Personally, he disgusts me, but he may get us the kids back. (Grandmother, 72)

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