Family estrangement can mean no contact, low contact, or deciding you can no longer have the same relationship with a parent, sibling, or other family member. Sometimes that decision comes after years of trying to make things work. Sometimes you’re still figuring out whether distance is what you need.
One of the hardest parts can be that you and your family may not agree on why it happened. Research on family estrangement has found differences between the reasons estranged mothers give and the reasons adult children have described in other studies. You may be grieving the relationship while also dealing with relatives who remember things differently, question your decision, or pressure you to reconnect.
I work with people at every stage of estrangement, whether you’re considering it, navigating life after cutting ties, or trying to make sense of the guilt, grief, and family pressure that can come with it.
When your family doesn’t see it the way you do
I want to be direct about this because it is the reason people leave therapy over this issue.
If you come here trying to decide, I am not neutral in the way a coin is neutral. I will take your account seriously, and I will not treat a decision to protect yourself as a symptom. I will also not tell you to go no contact. That is not my decision to make and I have seen it go both ways.
What I will do is help you work out what you actually want, what it will cost either way, and how to hold whichever line you choose when the family tests it. And they will test it.
I am not going to push you toward reconciliation
I shared insights on the complex emotions that can arise when family expectations change. Read it here.
Featured in Good Housekeeping
- Whether to go no contact, low contact, or set terms and stay in touch.
- Grief, which is the part nobody warns you about. You can grieve someone who is still alive and still texting.
- Holidays, weddings, funerals, and the family members who use them as leverage.
- What to tell people who ask, and how much you owe them.
- Whether reconciliation is possible later, and what would have to be true for it to work
What we usually work on
