Thanks to all who have shared on this thread. I too am an estranged mother from an adult son. I used to be the one saying to other estranged parents that they must have done something wrong to deserve it. No child would ever willingly want to cut off good, caring, loving parents. Then, it happened to me and I was in shock and disbelief because I am always the one OTHER people turned to for help with their children. I am a therapist, after all, and I know about interpersonal relationships - right? I spent my whole life teaching others "how to do it correctly and in a healthy way"! How shocking and shameful it was when this happened to me! Not me!! How and why could this happen?!? The past five years have been grueling to say the least. I do understand the suicide attempts by some and the difficulty moving forward with life. I read everything I can find from children who have cut off parents to try to figure out what I can do to fix it. I read the comments by those on this thread that tell us what we have done wrong. So, I have apologized repeatedly for anything and everything I have done to make my child hurt. I have repeatedly reached out to him as have multiple family members and his best friend and other friends to try to heal the rift. Every time I reach out, there is some new reason he and his wife are hurt. Some of the things they accuse me of are not true. I know they are not true because they are about how I feel - that I don't really care about them or that I don't really love them or I behaved in a certain way because I wanted to disrespect them. I can honestly say that all I want from them or anyone is to have a nice time and to love each other. They misinterpret everything I do. I still apologize but only I know how I really feel and what my true intentions were. They can't tell me that. Still, I apologize. Finally, my husband and adult daughter and other son told me to stop apologizing. They said it was making it worse and not better. They saw my pain and desperation and helplessness and it was destroying them. So, they told me to stop because they could not take the pain. So, I stopped. With regard to what CJH Design wrote about gravitating toward pleasure and away from pain, I will say this. My parents have not been easy to deal with. They are controlling and focus only on themselves. I am expected to do everything for them and they still complain. No matter how much I do, it has never been good enough and they always expect more. I have tried and tried to make them happy and I have become a major people pleaser and caregiver in my life, sacrificing everything for the wellbeing of others and especially my family. My father is older and my mother has died. I take care of him every day and it is very difficult because of how critical he is. It is not pleasant to be around him most days but I still do it. I don't do it because it is pleasurable. I do it because I love him and that is what love is. It is unselfish and it is giving, even when it is not easy or pleasant. I also remember how many times I did this for my children when they were difficult to deal with and it was not at all pleasant to care for them, give up dreams that I had, deal with the pain of their behaviors, and work full time to support them. I could have left them and gone out for more pleasurable times when I was young like some parents do instead of hanging in there, parenting when it was very difficult and certainly not fun to deal with temper tantrums, snot, sickness, and endless needs. Not fun at all. Parenting is the most difficult job on the planet and it takes a dedication to stick with it and not run from it toward a life of fun and pleasure. I believe that being unselfish and giving to others is an important value and I try to do it in my life. I also have empathy and compassion for my father because of what he has been through in his life, which I won't go into because it would take all day. I would never dream of cutting him off. My heart hurts too much when I think about the pain it would cause him. I could never do that to him, no matter how he treats me. He does not have to be pleasant all the time for me to be around him, care for him, and stay with him. I think that is what love is really. Another example: In my work I go into jails to help people in trouble with the law. I hate being locked in when I go to jails because I have a phobia. I get paid very little and the courts are not nice to me. It is definitely not pleasant. I don't do it for the pleasure or money. I do it because I want to try to help and because I believe that doing things that are right is not always easy. People do things for pleasure but I have found that meaning and purpose can come out of things we do that require a willingness to set our own desires aside for someone else or for a greater good. This is what I have learned from my estrangement from my son: Karma: I recognize there is a lesson in this for me. What am I being taught by the universe? I have struggled with this long and hard and I think I have learned that I needed too much from my son. I think I relied on him to make me happy because of the difficult relationship with my parents. I need to let him have his own life and make his own decisions. I need to move on and figure out what I need myself and not rely on him so much. I also think I learned that I have been too critical and judgmental of others in my life. I need to try to be more understanding, compassionate, and less focused on who is right and who is wrong. Money: I gave my son everything he ever needed. I paid for his degree, paid for him to travel all over the world, and paid for several cars, and for anything else he needed ever. He now has a good job and is making far more than I ever did. I had to work several jobs to give him what he needed. He does not need my money now but the rift did seem to be about money as far as I can tell. Here is what I have decided I need to do to find meaning in life: I am going to use the money I earn and have to give to others in the world who don't have anything. I am going to travel with organizations that help others and use my money to help them. I am going to give of myself also, because that is more important than just giving money. I am going to try to improve the things for other people around the world who have far less than any of us. That is going to give me meaning and purpose and is something that I always wanted to do when I was raising my children. My daughter has indicated that she wants to do this with me and she shares in the vision. It gives me so much joy and pride to have her with me on this journey. I hope that some day my son will come back and have a relationship with me and with his family. His sister and brother are very angry with him and he does have a spouse that encouraged the cut-off from us. I hope that we can heal eventually but I am not sure if he even values his family at this point. What I have learned is that it is his decision and I must let him figure out his own life and not expect him to be there for me. I can accept this now and I am starting to have some peace so I must be on the right track. Life is a struggle and we all need to work to figure out what we are supposed to learn about ourselves. What you all have written in this thread has helped me a lot to continue figure things out myself.

Wow! I thought my son was bad but still ... I can relate on some level to these comments and stories. I always say no one can break your heart like your own child. It's a different kind of heartbreak that slices through to your soul. My son is a good young man but man oh man is he stubborn. Stubborn to the point it's heartbreaking. Just got off the phone with him asking what are his plans for the future. His response was, "You know, I am not going to talk to you because you just disrespected and insulted me." I'm thinking, "How on earth is asking what your future plans are disrespecting and insulting?" He just doesn't want to plan a future, no goal, no college, nothing. Next he'll go on silence for a while. Mind you, he was married a little over a year ago, New Year's Eve 2013. After I told him he's too young at 25. Young in terms of not planning a future. He went and married anyways to prove me wrong. Well, I was right, now he's going through a divorce. His wife is divorcing for the same reason I am questioning him ... no ambition. But he can't see the ocean because of the waves. My son is an only child who has had the best life. Better than all his cousins by a long shot but he can't see this either. He complains and blames. For what?! I have no idea. I made his life so comfortable. Yes, it is narcissism. He feels he doesn't have to do anything. Both his father and I, who never married are products of education. We both pursued college degrees and entered the workforce. His father was never really a part of his life but he sent monetary support. Me, I was the sole breadwinner with a nice career that I grew tired of and now back in college to make a career change. So I have no idea how to motivate him and at times feel I am at fault. Thank you oilpainter for your words, " Their actions are THEIRS not yours, and it does not mean you have no value." I was struggling a bit after the phone call till I read your words. Maybe it's me and my expectations. Well, I'm going to heed the words I've lived with all my life that have served me well - If you don't know what to do then pray. And I'm going to speak with a therapist. I need some counseling. One child, two children, three children ... it doesn't matter. I have one and it's just as hard.

Jan, You are a kind and compassionate woman. Thank you for caring about all of us. In laws can destroy relationships. Although my marriage was destroyed by many factors, the learning experience has enabled me to help my daughter save her marriage from her jealous mother in law. She wanted to keep getting my support and not supporting me in return, so I am now pretty much estranged from her and her sister. They model after my irresponsible, lying, abusive X. The estrangement drags me down, but I try to keep on going despite it. I can only change/improve myself and my life. They are free of to live their own lives. I have 2 grandsons who live out of state and my daughter has not denied me a relationship of sorts with them. This is not what I expected at all, as I devoted my all to raise them. I am very sorry for your heartache, but adult children seem to go their own way and they do not need us anymore. Some want us, like your daughter wants you, but sons seem to either be devoted to their Mothers, while others cling to their wives. My Mother was loved by all and she handled the son/daughter in laws by accepting invitations when invited, not asking them for anything, being respectful and nice to all and letting them live their own lives as they saw fit. I am not my Mother, nor a doormat, so I have a much tougher time with relationships because I express my views and try to protect myself from abuse; I have a few close friends and relatives, but not many. Please let us know how you are doing and if you find a way to mend the rift.

This thread has been dead for a while (with the recent exception) so I don't anticipate that anyone will read this. Until tonight, I hadn't considered looking online to find solace in this issue but here it is. I've been estranged from my parents for almost four months now by choice. I'm 36 years old, married, two kids. My parents didn't beat me (unless you called getting "whippings" with a belt until you were 12 a beating) in the typical sense. My dad was a silent alcoholic - no verbal or physical abuse, he just never talked, ever. Besides the fact that we had diametrically opposed views on life - he is a Republic, a racist, a military man, you get the point. My mom was the closest person to me and vice versa. But as I grew older, our relationship became toxic. I had to be her therapist and listen, for years, about how terrible my dad was, how crappy her life was, all the mistakes she made, all the regrets she had. Since I was a teenager, I've heard nonstop how they didn't want me to go to college (or pay for it, that's fine, I did it myself) because they thought I would look down on them and have suffered every year since I was 18 with one of their massive freak-outs. Every year for 15 years. Then when I was 28, I had sent my mom a dozen roses for her birthday. She called me and started screaming at me saying how inconsiderate I was, sending her a gift at the last minute, that she threw them in the trash. It was devastating to me. It seemed like they just wanted to beat the self worth from me the stronger I got. From that point forward (we didn't speak for a couple months) I decided I could no longer be my mom's therapist. It was making me an emotional wreck. I met my now husband at that time and, looking back, they were always resistant to him. Comments how i had my own life and was too busy for them. Especially after we got married. They didn't want to pay for the wedding because my husband had such a large family they didn't think it was fair. Fine. But it was always like this - them picking fights with everyone (if not myself). Then much more stuff. The details. The everyday details. The nagging, the comments, the insults. They didn't invite my husband and I over for Thanksgiving so I went to their house crying wanting to know why they didn't want to spend the holidays with us. She stood there stone cold. Then what finally ended it for me was when she called me at working screaming at me saying so many terrible things about me (basically complaining about watching my girls a couple times a week for daycare) that I told her she would never have to watch them again and hung up. That was four months ago. When you read it, you think, this seems stupid. It all was. But it was incidious. It was like a slow death. How they hurt me every day. When she started saying things about my first child (entering her terrible two's and exiting that sweet baby stage), red flags went up. I knew that she would be next on her attack list. I had suffered through it, my husband, his mother, our cousins, her sisters. They had managed to drive everyone away. I was the last one as the only child. In many respects, I don't care about myself, I care about my children. That's why I ended it. I told them that I wasn't going to continue playing these games. They demanded an apology. I demanded family counseling. They refused. So I'm done. In hurtful relationships, we all have our role. It's short sided to think you've done nothing wrong. You obviously did if someone left you. They've scarred me. I feel broken and I need to find a way to become whole for the sake of my girls. They don't deserve this angry rotten mess I am now. I've probably just successfully turned into my mother. I'd rather kill myself than put my children through what I've gone through.