Becoming estranged from a parent isn’t something that anyone hopes for. Most children don’t look up to the night sky and wish upon a star for a fragmented family. Nobody dreams that they will shut out a sibling or lose contact with a father, but, for many, that’s where the path of life has led us. According to Stand Alone, a now-defunct charity that did robust research into the subject, one in five families is affected by estrangement – a large figure by any proportion, and a topic that’s had more airtime in recent years.
Prince Harry has said that his father, King Charles, who has cancer, does not speak to him(Photo: BBC)People won’t be openly hostile, but I’ll sometimes feel a quiet judgement that I should have tried harder, or tolerated more; that I’ve somehow failed as a family member and should have weathered the storm. It’s an opinion that’s shifting, and perhaps not as pervasive as it used to be, but one that still lingers in society, dismissing people as “snowflakes” for removing themselves from untenable situations.
Hearing her speak poorly of me is something I’ve been used to since I was a child. Every now and again, as I got older, I’d stop talking to her for periods of time – sometimes months, sometimes a year – and that would usually reset the relationship. She’d be more careful with her words – but, inevitably, something trivial would set her off and the cycle would start again.
When I asked psychotherapist Amy Bojanowski-Bubb about estrangements, she highlighted that “sometimes the most compassionate choice for yourself is to step away.” Which was, for me, exactly what my decision came down to. I blocked her number without any desire to communicate my reasons why. But, when she started trying to communicate with me via my husband, I knew that I owed it to everyone to clarify the situation, and sent her an email explaining how I felt.
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On the one hand, I feel like it’s unfair of me to stand in the way of a familial relationship, preventing the formation of a bond that I so enjoyed as a child. But, on the other hand, I don’t see any benefit in my children spending time with someone who ostensibly loathes me and has caused me so much pain over the years. Ultimately, however, it’s out of my hands – physical distance has dictated the impossibility of casual meet-ups. Even if I wanted to, it’s illegal to send a couple of toddlers on a flight to America without supervision.
When we stopped talking, it was as though a shadowy presence was evicted from my headspace, kicked out by the authorities and forced to find another brain to squat in. It was something that I didn’t even know was there until it was gone; so inextricably linked with my thoughts and emotions – always making me second-guess myself and question my own motives. Now, in its absence, there’s nothing. A wonderful, liberating, glorious nothing that leaves me alone and allows me to live my life in peace.
Unless my mother changes, or I have a radical shift in perspective, I don’t think that there’s a chance we’ll find our way back to each other. Which is ok, in a kind of not-ok way. It’s not ideal that I don’t speak to my mother, and I’m left with an empty chair at birthday parties and gatherings where the woman who brought me into the world should be. Estrangement, for me, means a perpetual hum in the background – an endless yearning never far away, wishing that she were a different mother, or I were a different daughter. An unsatisfied desire for things to have turned out another way while accepting that things haven’t.
But, despite this, I never feel regret about what I’ve chosen to do or where I am now, in a quieter place, a little enclave of respite and healing. Perhaps it’s a different kind of happy ending from the romcoms and fairytales, but, for me, it’s a form of one nonetheless.
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