Going No Contact: Why Adult Children Are Choosing Their Mental Health Over Family
Welcome back to PsyberSpace. I'm your host, Leslie Poston. And today, we're tackling a topic that's especially relevant right now, family members that have gone no contact or have become estranged. You've probably heard this discussed in the news and on your favorite shows lately. It's become such a trending topic in the last few months that we are even seeing segments about it from Oprah and articles about it in the New York Times.
Leslie Poston:It's not a new concept, though. Kids have been going no contact with their parents for as long as kids have had parents. Parents have taken to calling it parental alienation. Meanwhile, adult children are saying that they've told their parents what they need over and over again, and their parents just don't listen. Maybe this sounds like something you're going through on either side of the issue.
Leslie Poston:So with the holidays upon us, it's the perfect time to dig into what the actual research tells us about family estrangement. And here's something that might surprise you. One in four Americans that's roughly 67,000,000 people are estranged from family members. This definitely doesn't match the holiday marketing that shows us everyone surrounded by images of warm family gatherings, does it? So let's talk about what's really going on here.
Leslie Poston:We'll start with some stats to put it into perspective. Research within the Cornell Reconciliation Project found that twenty seven percent of adults are estranged from a family member. When we break it down further, other research studies show that twenty six percent of fathers are estranged from an adult child, and eleven percent of mothers have little to no contact. And it's not just parent child relationships. Siblings, grandparents, and extended family members are all affected by this as well.
Leslie Poston:One thing that struck me when I was reading through the research on this is that sixty eight percent of people across all types of estrangement felt that the estrangement carries significant stigma. Two thirds of people dealing with this feel some kind of shame about it. They feel judged. They feel like they can't talk about it openly. The research also found that almost all respondents from both sides of the estrangement issue identified the holiday season as the most challenging time of year.
Leslie Poston:This finding's not so shocking. Like we mentioned, everywhere you turn, there's commercials showing multigenerational families gathered around tables, there are holiday movies about families reconciling, and social media posts of everyone's picture perfect celebrations. When your reality is estrangement, that cultural narrative of perfect family holidays makes the absence even more painful. The perspective gap is where the research gets really interesting. It explains the whole parental alienation trope versus the adult kids who've gone no contact who say, I told you why a million times.
Leslie Poston:That's the divide we see play out in the news articles and discussions online and offline often. Let's look first at what adult children are actually saying about why they went no contact. In a study of eight ninety eight families, adult children most frequently cited their parents' toxic behavior, damaging choices, or feeling unsupported and unaccepted as reasons for their estrangement. And this wasn't about being dramatic or entitled. These were reports of genuine harm.
Leslie Poston:Adult children who left family systems report more pronounced experiences of trauma and various forms of emotional abuse, which the research found had been normalized as acceptable toxic behavior in prior generations. Think about that for a second. What we're seeing is adult children saying that thing that you thought was normal parenting is actually abusive, and I'm not doing it anymore. The research breaks down the reasons adult children went no contact even further. Motivations for estrangement included physical abuse, addiction, illegal activity, poor parenting, as well as limited communication, wildly differing values, boundary conflicts, and a lack of emotional intimacy.
Leslie Poston:None of these are trivial complaints. We're talking about things like parents who sent their kids to conversion therapy maybe one of those abusive TTI camps, parents who can't accept their child's LGBTQIA identity, or who refuse to acknowledge their child's neurodivergence as valid. Speaking of queer identities, the research is clear that LGBT adults are more likely to experience estrangement from parents than heterosexual children, especially from fathers who are more likely to have homophobic reactions. This isn't your kids being sensitive. This is parents rejecting their own children and who they fundamentally are.
Leslie Poston:When asked what they wanted from their parents, adult children said they wished their parents were more positive, unconditionally loving, warm, or emotionally close. None of those are a big ask. Those should all be part of basic parenting skills. And here's another place it gets interesting. When we look at what parents say about the same estrangements, we're seeing something completely different.
Leslie Poston:Seventy nine percent of parents attributed estrangement to the behavior, issues, or traits of the child. Seventy two percent blamed a difficult in law or a difficult partner, and sixty seven percent cited disagreements about beliefs or values. So the adult child is saying, you abused me, You don't accept who I am. You violate my boundaries. And the parent is saying, this is your spouse's fault.
Leslie Poston:You're just entitled, or you're not respecting my different belief or opinion. See the problem? Here's another interesting stat. In studies of estranged mothers, almost eighty percent felt that a third party was to blame for the estrangement, but only 18% believed the estrangement was in part their fault. In general, parents report being unsure of the reason for estrangement significantly more than adult children.
Leslie Poston:Your adult children know exactly why they stopped talking to you. Often parents won't accept the reasons they've been given. Research confirms that estranged relationships are often characterized by these differences in perspective taking. Now to be fair, the research does acknowledge that occasionally, estrangement happens because the adult child had serious issues that impacted the family. Maybe they went through a severe drug addiction or other dangerous problems where a parent was justified in creating distance.
Leslie Poston:But those instances are far less common than people seem to think. Let's talk about this parental alienation term that's been trending. There's even a hashtag about it online now. The science here is really important. Parental alienation syndrome was introduced by a child psychiatrist named Richard Gardner in the eighties.
Leslie Poston:It hasn't been accepted as scientifically valid by medical or legal communities, however, and it lacks adequate scientific support. It's not recognized as an official diagnosis, and courts have largely rejected it. Critics of the concept note that alienating behaviors are common in high conflict family situations like divorce proceedings, but actual estrangement of a child from a parent remains relatively rare. So what Gartner was calling a syndrome was really just describing a conflict that happens sometimes in messy divorces, for example, when children are still young. It's not some kind of brainwashing.
Leslie Poston:This concept can also get problematic, and I think it's important to talk about why. Gartner's original formulation labeled mothers almost exclusively as the alienating parents, And it's been criticized for allowing abusers to claim that allegations of their abuse were reflective of brainwashing rather than the actual abuse suffered by their children and sometimes the other parent. Think about what that means in practice. A child said, dad hurt me, and dad said, no. Mom brainwashed the kid to say that.
Leslie Poston:This is parental alienation syndrome. That concept became a weapon to dismiss legitimate claims of harm. So why is this discourse around going no contact happening more now? Or at least, why are we talking about it more now? Research points us to some significant cultural shifts.
Leslie Poston:Over the last half century, there has been a cultural focus on self actualization and emotional health that has made it clear that decisions about severing relationships aren't merely personal choices. They're also acts of psychological self preservation. In other words, we've moved on as a culture from you have to put up with family no matter what to it's okay to protect your physical and mental health from people who harm you, even if they're family. Adult children are acknowledging how forms of emotional abuse were normalized in prior generations, and they have motivation to avoid reproducing those norms to break what people call intergenerational trauma. They're simply saying this behavior stops with me.
Leslie Poston:These parent adult child relationships now require emotional intelligence, self awareness, and communication skills that weren't expected of earlier generations. If a parent was raised in a children should be seen and not heard household, for example, being asked to engage in deep emotional communication and validation of their adult child's feelings is going to require a completely new skill set. The current tensions aren't really about therapy culture run amok, as some critics claim they're about what happens when accountability becomes a foreign concept for families. For decades, family dynamics operated on respect your elders, don't question authority, keep the family business private. And those weren't necessarily bad principles, but they created environments where harm could happen without ever being addressed.
Leslie Poston:We've talked a lot about the problem. Are there any solutions? What does the research tell us actually might help? First, some good news. Not all estrangements last forever.
Leslie Poston:Research shows us that eighty one percent of adult children do eventually reconcile with estranged mothers, and sixty nine percent do eventually reconcile with estranged fathers. So if you're a parent in this situation, there might be some hope if you're willing to put in some work on yourself. That said, estrangement duration varies widely, from less than six months to more than thirty years, so we're not talking about a quick fix here. Research using longitudinal data following families over time found that movement in and out of estrangement reflected nuanced changes in contact and closeness over time rather than abrupt changes. So you may have a varying degree of parental and adult child no contact throughout the lifetime of your relationship.
Leslie Poston:It's not usually a single dramatic moment. It's gradual shifts, testing the waters and seeing if things can be different. So what do adult children actually need? Research has found that what many adult children need isn't a perfect apology or even major changes. Most of them just want basic acknowledgment that their experience was real and that their feelings make sense to their parent.
Leslie Poston:That's it. Not a reflexive, but I did my best, or oh, you're remembering it wrong, or well, other people had it worse. Just a simple I hear you, and I understand I hurt you, followed by stopping the behavior. For parents who are willing to do that work, there can be real healing. The research includes stories of parents who listened, who took responsibility, who made changes and sought help dealing with their own trauma, and then who rebuilt relationships with their adult children that became closer than before.
Leslie Poston:Decades of research find that forgiveness, whether or not it leads to full reconciliation, can lower stress, improve physical health, and strengthen emotional resilience, but sometimes it can be used as a weapon. So be cautious with forgiveness without behavioral change. And even if the reconciliation doesn't happen, working through the anger and grief on your own can still benefit both parties. Let's bring it back to where we started. Why are the holidays particularly brutal when you're dealing with estrangement?
Leslie Poston:The answer is often grief. We did an episode about grief a while back. It might be a good time of year to revisit that to understand how and what you're grieving. Research found that while people self report positive feelings associated with severing ties, like relief or freedom, there's mixed impact on overall well-being. You can be glad you're not dealing with that toxic dynamic and still be grieving what you wished your family could have been.
Leslie Poston:For those of you who are estranged, the holidays create this complex web of memories, expectations, emotions ranging from that grief and sadness to relief, depending on your circumstance. This affects both adult children and parents. Parents talk about the empty chair at their tables, the stockings that they don't hang, and the calls they don't make, and adult children talk about explaining to coworkers why they're not going home for the holidays or dealing with well meaning distant relatives who ask consistently about the estranged person. So here's what I would love for you to take away from all of this research we talked about in this episode. Estrangement is rarely a simple story of villain and victim.
Leslie Poston:Repair, when it's possible, asks something of everyone involved. But, and this one's important, research is also pretty clear that adult children are usually leaving for reasons that are valid and serious. They're not being manipulated or overreacting because therapy made them too sensitive. They're responding to real harm, often harm that accumulated over years or decades. So if you're a parent dealing with an estrangement, research suggests that the best thing you can do is stop looking for external explanations and start listening to what your children are telling you about their experience even if you remember it differently, even if you didn't mean it that way, and even if you think they're being too sensitive.
Leslie Poston:Try just listening. And if you're an adult child who's estranged, know that data backs you up and you're not alone. One in four people are going through some version of this, and your well-being matters. And it's okay to protect yourself even during the holidays. And for everyone dealing with this right now as Christmas approaches and Hanukkah continues, be gentle with yourself, whether you're the one who left or the one who was left, because this is hard.
Leslie Poston:The holidays will pass, and maybe with time and willingness on both sides, there's a path forward. Thanks for listening to PsyberSpace. I'm your host, Leslie Poston, signing off. If this resonated with you, please do share it with someone who might need to hear it. And remember, understanding the psychology behind our relationships is the first step toward healthier connection, whatever form those connections take.
Leslie Poston:Stay curious, and we'll be back with you in the new year.
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