Empty Nest, Full Heart, Lost Connections

Our fall from grace was swift and came without warning.

I am in therapy. My husband is not. Many men and women often deal with life’s troubles differently. Therapy has helped me to understand and cope with my son’s estrangement. I have been in therapy for well over twelve years — long before my son decided to cut us out of his life and to take his wife and children with him. I have gone to therapy off and on for decades, but once I found a therapist that I clicked with, I have gone on a regular basis.

As I have said in previous posts, I grew up in an abusive family. Therapy has helped me to understand my upbringing and to heal from the traumas of physical, verbal and emotional abuse. I was molested by my youngest brother when I was ten years old, a trauma that has stayed with me. To be clear, I have overcome these traumas and healed, but as everyone knows, the scars stay with a person for life. Therapy helps one heal from past trauma and helps process the traumas of every day life.

Estrangement of a child is like grieving a death, except the child you loved and raised is still alive. Closure is hard to come by when the person you grieve refuses reconciliation.. Therapy can be a great tool in healing from estrangement. Therapy is a place where one can be open, honest and real. It’s been a helpful place for me to find out that I am not some monster who deserves to be cut out of my son’s life. I don’t deserve to have my grandchildren kept from me. This is not to say that I am some sort of saint. I was a good mother even though I was far from perfect.

My son, his wife and children lived with us for almost 4 months prior to the estrangement. After they moved out and things went dark, I felt like we had been used. We were good enough to live with when they needed a free place to stay. They had no trouble washing their clothes, using our water and soap for the task. They had no issues using our electricity or eating our food. If we were good enough to live with, what happened? How could we have raised a son who could be such an ungrateful wretch?

As imperfect as we are as human beings, they had no trouble moving into our space. We changed our entire lives around to accommodate them. Happily so. It was a joy and a blessing to have our grandchildren with us. The pictures I have from this time bring great consolation to my heart. The pictures back up what my memories tell me is true! Life was good. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. We helped them move into their new home, we watched the kids so that they could unpack. Life seemed normal until they abruptly fell silent.

I fully admit that this chapter of our lives is a stumbling block for me. How could ANYONE do this to another human being? Let alone a son to his parents!? It is heartless and cruel to use people for your own gain. My brain tells me that it would have been easier if they had not asked us to help them in the past and later moved in with us. Being used adds a level of indignity to the entire estrangement situation. Obviously we loved them enough to help them, but I wonder if there would have been a different outcome if we had told them no.

It feels raw. I struggle to understand how I could have played any role in raising a human being who could grow up to treat others in such a way. He did NOT learn this behavior from his father or me. I have learned that we cannot control another person’s behavior. We are not responsible for their choices just because we are their parent. I also question how his wife could go along with such cruelty. Up until this estrangement, we had a good relationship with our daughter in law.

A few years ago, after they moved out, we asked to see the grandchildren a few times. We woke up to a deluge of text messages instructing us on how we should behave and how our misbehavior was the reason our son was severing ties. Our daughter in law joined in lecturing us on how we needed to change our lives if we wanted to have a relationship with our son. We were flabbergasted and confused. We had no idea that there were any issues between us.

That text exchange was the swift ending to our relationship. No willingness to talk on the phone or sit down for a chat. They were judge and jury of this mock trial. We never received full explanations as to why they were going no contact. The most we were told was that we were annoying and my social media habits disturbed them. One day, I will delve into this whole social media accusation.

It was all so bizarre, our fall from grace. Two devoutly religious children severing ties with their imperfect, but not abusive, parents is a mystery. Parents who were good enough when they needed help, needed a babysitter, a place to live …….. but too imperfect to continue a relationship with once we were no longer useful to them.   💔

~Evelyn