Divorcing Adult Children: Can You Do It Legally?
No parent wants to have a strenuous relationship with their child. Ideally, families strive for healthy connections, maintaining communication and closeness as children grow into adults and begin their own path in life. However, this is not always a reality, and every parent-child relationship unfolds differently. Relationships between parents and their adult children can sometimes become strained and unhealthy, leading to difficult decisions that are made by either parents or adult children.
In certain situations, parents may feel compelled to distance themselves from their adult children, or even break contact completely, leaving them to wonder if it’s even possible to “divorce” adult children. This difficult choice is often accompanied by a mix of emotions, as it is typically the last thing parents want to do but feel they must.
Is It Possible to Divorce Adult Children?
Legally speaking, it’s not possible to divorce adult children, as divorce refers to ending and effectively dissolving a marriage. However, the term is often used to describe the act of disowning or excluding children from a parent’s life. This may mean preventing the child from having any inheritance or rights to an estate after the parent’s death.
While parents are legally obligated to care for and support their minor children, this obligation ends when the child turns 18. After children reach the age of majority, parents are not required to provide financial support or maintain any specific relationship with their adult children, even though many do, regardless of whether it is healthy or not.
If a relationship becomes strained or if a situation leads to a complete breakdown of contact, parents might choose to “divorce” their adult children, otherwise known as disown their children, by taking various actions, including cutting off all contact. These actions symbolize a final severance of the parental relationship with their children, reflecting the depth of the estrangement.
Is Disowning a Legal Process?
Choosing to disown an adult child by cutting off communication or stopping financial assistance is not typically a formal legal process. However, if you wish to make sure that they do not inherit anything from your estate after your passing, you may need to look at the legal process of disinheriting them. A divorce lawyer can assist parents with this by drafting a will with specific language that clearly states your intentions to not provide any rights to the disowned child.
How to Disinherit an Adult Child
Since children are generally considered to be heirs to their parents’ assets, including finances, debts, and estates, disinheriting a child requires precise and unquestionable wording in a will. A divorce lawyer can help you include the necessary provisions in your will to exclude the child, and if desired, their descendants as well.
To strengthen your decision to effectively disinherit an adult child when parents choose to divorce adult children, it is recommended to:
- Document your reasons for disinheriting your adult child, including any scenarios or communication that caused the decision to be made.
- Make sure to document your mental clarity at the time of signing.
- Avoid citing reasons that may no longer be relevant.
- Consider leaving a small bequest to avoid claims of being forgotten.
- Include a no-contest clause to prevent any future legal challenges to the will.
How Do I Go No Contact with My Adult Child?
When parents decide to “divorce” or effectively disown their adult children, they often also wish to have no contact with them as well. There are two primary ways to accomplish this; however, if you wish to legally prevent them from contacting you, it typically requires abuse to be proven, whether it is in the form of mental or physical abuse or threats of abuse.
For those who are not facing threats of physical or mental abuse but wish to divorce their adult children and go no contact, an informal approach may be sufficient. If you are living with the child you want to disown, you can move to a new residence without them and choose not to provide them with your address.
In order to go no contact, you can sever the relationship by ceasing all contact, which will include refusing to accept written or electronic communications. It is also advisable to notify the child in writing that you are severing the connection and no longer wish to have any contact with them. Sending this notification via certified mail can provide proof of your intentions to no longer be in contact with your adult child.
In situations where there is harassment or abuse present, including threats of harm, a more formal legal approach is necessary to go no contact. You can legally terminate the relationship and go no contact by notifying the relative in writing of your decision to sever family ties and by also seeking a restraining order to limit their access to you.
Additionally, you may also be able to obtain a Notice of No Trespass from a city or county official, which will effectively restrain them from being able to step on your property. If violated, the adult child could face criminal charges. If you need any help doing either of these things, a divorce lawyer can help. Legal actions like these help to protect your safety and reinforce your decision to go no contact with your child, as well as prevent any further abuse or harm.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What would make you want to divorce your adult children? Would you disinherit them?
Tags Estrangement
mental abuse
A lot of people think it is unconscionable to consider completely cutting off a child. I can tell you as someone who has done it that it is painful and a very difficult decision. In my case it was for my own safety, sanity and survival. I find people tend to judge those of us who have made this choice, but unless they have walked in our shoes they should back off.
Agreed!
2of our adult children (49 & 55. ) have estranged from us telling us we were abusive patents
we have gone through a gamut of emotions and I have had therapy
initially I wanted to disinherit them but have decided that would give them more ammunition for further verbal abuse even after we are dead
it is hard letting go but can be done as we have lives still to be lived and as my therapist said, we did our best and we are not to blame for their problems
You’re lucky you had a good therapist! Many therapists automatically blame the parents on no evidence.
There is nothing on God’s earth that would make me divorce my children. It’s shocking to contemplate!
I agree there’s nothing that would even make me disinherit my babies. God gave me those children and I asked him for those children so whatever I can’t believe this is even a topic. It’s weird.
I hope you never have to take these words back. It is a horrible decision for a parent.
You are blessed that you have never had to make this choice.
I’m with you, Lynne!
If you have never been in the situation you really should simply be happy for a wonderful relationship with your child, but not make other (not so fortunate) parents feel bad about theirs
Even when you adult children are abusive?
You’re a very lucky woman, Lynne. Be grateful.
But, your story is not everyone’s.
It shouldn’t take much imagination for people whose children are very dear to them—as all of us feel! mine are too!—to think about how it would feel if those precious children were to grow up, and instead of the normal family gatherings and happy grandchildren you had worked hard for for decades and assumed would happen, they turn on you, become abusive, steal from you, lie to you, disrespect you utterly, or do any number of other aggressive and assaultive actions against their parents.
Imagine how that feels: you cherished the children dearly and gave up everything else to give them a happy, healthy, stable, fun home life, a good education, and everything. One of them is fine. Then for no justifiable reason whatsoever, one of them turns on you, like, as Shakespeare said, “the sting of the serpent’s tooth”.
So the topic is not “weird” or unimaginable at all, if you have any empathy for others; try to imagine how you would feel. And then how you would feel if others began to blame YOU, the victim, for this assault on everything you held dear and threw yourself enthusiastically into as a parent for so many years. Please try to imagine and have a shred of empathy.
Well I guess you wouldn’t mind being abused, called names I wouldn’t repeat here, and threatened!
I have 3 , 2 are wonderful , one is a rotten egg. It’s genetics!
This is incredibly helpful! Thank you so much for this clear, specific information that includes what is and is not legally feasible. It’s sad that these situations exist, but it’s important to be able to act properly to be safe and free of problems from difficult adult children (and there’s such a range, from simply unpleasant all the way to very dangerous). Much appreciated.