#family-estrangement

#family-estrangement

This framing of something as psychologically wounding as going no contact is not only unhelpful but deeply insulting, and the fact is that it is mainly influencers, not mental health or psychology experts, who are responsible for framing it this way. Certainly, it gets them clicks, likes, listens, and downloads, but it doesn't do much for those of us who have had to make the painful decision to go no contact.

You know what families always say about estranged relatives? "They changed." "They got selfish." "They think they're better than us now." But after years of watching this pattern play out, reading psychology texts on family dynamics, and yes, living through my own complicated family relationships, I've noticed something different. The people who end up distancing themselves from their families often share remarkably similar experiences and traits that have nothing to do with what their families believe.

What concerned me most was the lack of acknowledgment of how this trend overlaps with the rise in coercive control. One of the first warning signs of an abusive partner is encouraging someone to isolate from family and friends. How confusing must it be for people to see that behaviour supported in online messaging. Isolation is a major red flag for domestic abuse, and we should be helping young people to recognise that.

The video posted Monday on TikTok showed Cruz, his girlfriend Jackie Apostel, older brother Romeo and Romeo's girlfriend Kim Turnbull seeming to mock the family drama by mouthing along to the instrumental opening of "On The Block," a 2021 song by Lil Maru. The caption on the video read simply, "Imagine hating and we're just here like." Cruz's video wasn't loading on TikTok at publication time, but you can see what was going on via an X share from user @LucyLuMerrygold.

This grief feels similar to what they would experience if their family member died, but in some cases, it feels even worse. Family estrangement has reached epidemic proportions. A 2022 survey found 29 percent of Americans are currently cut off from a parent, child, sibling, or grandparent, and a 2025 survey found 38 percent have experienced estrangement from a close family member at some point. These aren't just statistics. They're the tragic consequences of families ripped apart.

I'm no judge but there seems to be a lot of hearsay happening here. The neighbor who gave you the warning was vague in a way that perhaps suggests discretion, but in reality, only muddies the waters. Either say something helpful (and objectively true) or say nothing at all; a blanket warning hews too close to gossip for my taste. If you want to be friends with this other neighbor, trust your judgment and proceed with caution, just as you would with anyone else.

At the time, my gut feeling was that he felt awkward inviting me and his aunt when his parents weren't included. In the past, I have sent Ethan a check on his birthday and at Christmas and helped him financially with vehicle repairs. Although I was not invited, I sent a congratulatory card for the wedding, with a significant check enclosed. He cashed the check but did not acknowledge receipt of the card.

My son married a lovely woman, Noelle, two years ago. They live a couple of hours away and have a 1-year-old son, my third grandchild. Noelle's parents live 10 miles from my home.

As the fiduciary of my parents' estate, I followed their trust directives as written, with no exceptions. My son received a nice check, but not as large as he had expected. He was upset and blamed me for taking his money. Then he declared that we would never see our grandsons again unless he received what his grandmother had promised. He refused to understand the concept of a trustee's fiduciary duty and has ghosted us,

Don't worry yourself too much about this. Your kids will spend a limited amount of time at the same wedding festivities as your sister, and you will be there to supervise their interactions. Give her an opportunity to meet them and if she does or says anything inappropriate, keep them distanced from her for the remainder of the celebration. If she charms your kids and they ask about spending more time with her,

Our father's body lay on a plinth the color of gunmetal. He was covered by a simple white sheet up to his collarbone, above which his shaved head was supported by a stone headrest. Looking at him, it was as if his body had shrunk in tandem with his dissembling life. I shivered. The visitation room in Omega Funeral Home was as cold as a meat locker, while outside the rainy season had turned Lagos into a sauna.

The well-documented rise in adult-child-parent estrangement creates stressors for grandparents, too (such as loss, identity change, social isolation, and complicated loyalties). It raises the practical importance of grandparent communities as protective resources (for emotional support, practical help, advocacy, and skills for boundary work). I was recently speaking to a friend who is also a new grandparent, and we discussed the joys of being grandfathers, as well as how rewarding it feels to help our adult children navigate this challenging time in their lives.

It's Christmastime, which means peace on Earth and goodwill toward others. But do ALL others deserve such generosity? What if one of those other people is your adult daughter? And what if your daughter, the cruel wretch, decided not to invite you to her wedding? Well, if you're 59-year-old Laura Wellington, you do what any right-thinking American would: You create multiple social media accounts with the handle "Doormat Mom" that are dedicated to publicly dragging your child into the gutter with you:

My parents built their lives around their children and grandchildren, personally and financially. Mom was their free full-time daycare until graduation. My parents also paid for my brother's house in cash. Family is Mom's reason for living. But recently my brother brutally cut her out of his life. We don't know if he's mad that she moved in with us four years ago, even though he was not offering.

"Can we go again?" asks Jay Kelly (George Clooney), a movie star shooting a scene in which the tough guy he's playing dies of a gunshot wound on the soundstage reproduction of a rain-slicked alleyway. "I think I can do it better." These lines from the opening scene of Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly will become the film's wistful recurring theme.

My father agreed initially, then said he was too busy (he's retired) and refused to go. He then cut me off and announced to the family that he was disowning me. My sister believes his story that I cut him off. Since she was never treated poorly, she doesn't believe that I was. How can I continue my relationship with her, while she remains close with him?

Richard Dreyfuss and Kevin Spacey are both Oscar winners who were once popular movie stars and hailed as two of the most talented actors in Hollywood. But over the years they have proven themselves to be problematic men whose life choices have arguably hurt their careers and left them struggling financially. Now comes a strange, sad story about how the actors' 2009 professional collaboration figured into Spacey's MeToo-era downfall and led to Dreyfuss becoming estranged from his three adult children.

He was listening to the Limbaugh shit on the radio and working with people who displayed the characteristics of MAGA. After Trump was elected in 2016, he really started to get weird. He would come home spouting bullshit, and he was always contrary, confrontational, and negative. It was weird. I loved him a little less each day. We had been married for 38 years when we finally divorced, and he wasn't the same person anymore. I couldn't stand to be intimate with him anymore.

I am a queer man of color in my mid-20s. I grew up in a mostly white, conservative, rural town. It was hellish growing up there, dealing with constant microaggressions, racism, and homophobia. Even though I was not out of the closet at the time, I was constantly clocked as being gay and ridiculed as a result. Despite this, I had some incredibly close friends who were a godsend during that time.

Urbana, Ohio, is a small city of 11,000, where nearly three out of four voters went for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The journalist Beth Macy, who in her previous books chronicled the widening fissures in American society by examining the opioid crisis and the aftereffects of globalization, grew up there. In Paper Girl, she returns to Urbana-a place beset by economic decline, dwindling public resources, failing schools, and the disappearance of local journalism.

Recently, I have had many conversations with many clients and friends discussing what happened to their family connection. As a family therapist and parent, I've spent decades helping people navigate the challenges of family life. I notice adult children and their families are drifting apart, as strong ties once counted on now seem to be coming undone. I hear it every week in my therapy sessions.