What Makes Adult Children Cut Ties With Their Parents?

When couples 50 and older end their marriage, known as gray divorce, it can stress or break parent-child attachment bonds.

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Stephanie, 33, and Lorraine, her 58-year-old mother, sat diagonally across from each other on the love seats in my office. They said they had communicated infrequently, only via text, for the past eight months, and wanted help healing their estranged relationship. Stephanie and her fiancé, Joshua, were getting married in five months. The two had the following exchange.

Lorraine: Stephanie, thank you for being willing to come here to help us with our relationship. We have always had a good, close relationship. Your and Joshua's wedding plans have created situations that are extremely painful for me.

Stephanie: I'm glad we are here and hope we're successful. The wedding plans have made it harder for me to keep quiet about what I've been feeling for a long time. I hate that since you and Dad separated, you have continued to talk negatively about Dad. We need help.

Their conversation continued, vacillating between intense, angry words and words that caught in their throats as tears fell down their cheeks.

Lorraine: I'm so hurt that you said you did not want me to bring Joe, my significant other, to your rehearsal dinner and wedding. I can't believe you would do this to me.

Stephanie: Mom, I've explained this to you before. Our wedding is about Joshua and me. It's a once-in-a-lifetime event. Joe is a stranger to us, and we don't want him there.

Lorraine: But I was hoping you could meet him and get to know him.

Stephanie: We will get to know him down the road. With my job and wedding planning, I don't have enough energy or capacity to make time, nor do I have the desire to meet him right now. Why can't you understand that? Why can't you see that our wedding is about us, not you?

Lorraine: I'm your mother. After you were born, I left my profession to be a stay-at-home mom. I raised you. How can you treat me this way? I know your father and Joshua have told you what to think. I also believe that your anxiety, since you were a little girl, is causing this.

Stephanie: This is why I have pulled away from you. You do not hear me!

At this point, I suggested sharing the results of recent research about why adult children cut ties with their parents. They said they would like to hear it. I handed them a copy of the study's findings, and I read it aloud.

In an Ohio State University Department of Psychology study of 1,035 mothers:

• 52 percent were estranged from a daughter, and 45 percent were estranged from a son.
• Most of the mothers were divorced.
• 79.1 percent believed that an ex-husband or their son or daughter-in-law had turned their children against them.
• 62.4 percent said their children’s mental health, including anxiety, depression, addiction, or alcoholism, played a role.
• 18 percent of mothers said they were at fault for the estrangement. Schoppe-Sullivan, lead author of the study, said that it might be possible that only a minority of adult children would take any blame either.

Schoppe-Sullivan also noted that, regardless of who is to blame, the biggest challenge in helping families reconcile may be navigating the differing perspectives on what went wrong in their relationship. Some of those differing perspectives may have arisen because of broader societal changes.

For example, there are generational differences in what parents and children view as appropriate parenting behavior. Perspectives on what is considered abusive, harmful, neglectful, or traumatizing behavior have shifted over the past three decades. Behavior previously regarded as normal may be viewed as abusive or neglectful today.

While this study focused only on mothers’ views, the results, when combined with other research, suggest that mothers and their children don’t generally agree on the reasons for their rift.

Other research shows that adult children are much more likely to explain their estrangements as stemming from emotional abuse, conflicting expectations about roles, and personality clashes, to name a few.

Each generation sees things differently now, and we have to help them bridge that gap if they want to repair that relationship. Estrangement may be especially difficult for mothers because even the views on the nature of child-parent relationships have changed.

"Many of these mothers were of a generation that thought family relationships were non-voluntary and permanent,” Schoppe-Sullivan said in an interview about the study. “But younger people may feel that if you’re harming my well-being, I don’t have to have a relationship with you, even if you’re my mother."

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Carol: I know this is a lot to absorb right now, which is why I gave you the handout. What comments or questions do you have about this study's findings?

Stephanie and Lorraine agreed it was a lot to absorb, and they had nothing more to say.

Carol: Would each of you be willing to say whether you feel understood or not understood by the other?

Without hesitation, Lorraine and Stephanie replied, "Not understood."

Carol: That's why I want to share with you the neuroscience research about feeling understood and not feeling understood. Neuroscience research suggests that feeling understood enhances both personal and social connection and social well-being. Feeling understood activates neural regions of the brain associated with reward and social connection. Not feeling understood activates neural regions of the brain associated with negative emotions, like sadness, fear, and isolation.

I explained that in our next session, I would help them learn to listen to understand. They both said they looked forward to that.

“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” —David W. Augsburger

Patient names and details changed to preserve confidentiality.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

Copyright 2026 Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D.