The Emotional Complexity of Family Estrangement

Anyone who’s arrived at the decision to become estranged from a family member or loved one has entered a world of distinctly mixed emotions, a kind of emotional paradox. The relief of making the decision and stepping away from painful patterns is pronounced at first, but the true complexity of estrangement soon emerges. For example, choosing estrangement can be freeing as you pull back from deeply hurtful dynamics... but it also can carry a profound sense of loss, disorientation, or emptiness that lives right next to the relief.

Estrangement can leave one wondering where they belong—and who they belong to. Estrangement can cut lifelong roots, leaving one feeling adrift; it can also be a deeply healthy, well-considered choice for the sake of one’s well-being.

There’s usually no way to make the contradictory emotional experiences resolve into just one emotional truth—but if we enlarge our sense of self, we can hold opposite emotional truths as authentic and sincere.

Let’s look at some examples of these "contradictory" emotional reactions:

You can truly love someone and still need to step away from them.

There’s a common construct in our culture that if we love someone, we’ll tolerate most things with compassion and understanding. We’ll cut them some slack, overlook their behaviors, focus on their better nature; we might even believe it’s our duty to stay in connection with them. That’s great if it works, but what if you need to withdraw from them for the sake of your own well-being? What if deeply honoring yourself means not being so tolerant of patterns that are hurtful?

Akito loved his father deeply but was tired of being demeaned and criticized for not being the son his father had hoped for. After spending many years coping with his father’s judgments and trying to rise above them, Akito realized he just couldn’t keep withstanding those attacks for the sake of maintaining some sort of relationship with his father. As much as he loved his dad, there was no love coming back to Akito in return.

Estrangement can be freeing and devastating.

“I never, ever wanted to make this choice,” said Charlotte while discussing her choice to pull back from one of her brothers who was lost in addiction and illegal activities. Charlotte and her brother had been wonderfully close growing up, but over the past few years, he only reached out when he needed money.

Recognizing she was enabling her brother’s addiction, Charlotte set a boundary: no contact unless he was working on sobriety. She felt relieved of the perpetual pressure and drama, and she felt heartbroken to lose the relationship.

Happy times can hold a tinge of sadness or loss.

Holidays, family gatherings, and intimate milestones (births, deaths, graduations, weddings, etc.) can amplify the emotional cost of being estranged.

Jules tired of being the butt of jokes and the scapegoat in his large, raucous family. Being the youngest, he was the frequent target of put-downs and blame. When Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around, Jules scrambled to make plans with close friends—otherwise, the lack of family connection overwhelmed him with sadness.

Michaela decided not to ask her mother to her wedding. She knew her narcissistically focused mother would find endless ways to make herself the center of attention, and Michaela just wasn’t willing to sacrifice her special day to her Mom’s dynamics. On her wedding day, she was able to savor the joy... and noticed an underlying feeling of loss from time to time.

You can end a relationship with a family member or loved one and carry a kind of "internal" connection with them.

Tara chose to disconnect from her father because of the ways he treated her, but she let herself miss the larger emotional experience of having “a dad.” She missed having someone to turn to for guidance and someone who took a sincere interest in her. Tara worked hard to create that kind of relationship with someone in her life and, over the years, she honestly missed having it with her dad. She said, “I stepped away from him, but I didn’t stop loving him.”

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Again, it’s simply important to understand that these conflicting feelings are a natural consequence of making a huge choice like estrangement. One of my mentors used to talk about how making any huge choice would entail both positive and negative fallout—the bigness of the choice would often be reflected in the mixed feelings or consequences. We sometimes think if we make the “right” choice, we’ll feel good—but with estrangement, it’s more complex.

What can you do?

1. Find ways to remind yourself why you made the choice in the first place, giving yourself an anchor to withstand the waves of emotional complexity.
2. Normalize having conflicted feelings and see if you can work on embracing both. Experiencing some negative fallout doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice (or that you need to chase after a solely positive alternative).
3. Keep imagining getting bigger in your sense of self, your definition of self. Become someone who more deftly tolerates complexity and even "opposite" feelings. It takes a lot of emotional maturity to embrace that kind of complexity—work on developing and holding bigger concepts.

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