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How to Divorce Your Adult Children and Restore Your Sanity

By Kim Brassor May 07, 2023 Family

I am known for exposing the “elephant in the living room.” Those things everybody knows but nobody is talking about. Not every mother-daughter relationship reads like a Hallmark card, and our culture makes that a shameful secret to bear.

Dr. Christiane Northrup suggested that the bonding hormones that flood a mother’s blood stream at childbirth stay with women for about 28 years.

It is no accident, then, that the first round of truly adult separation (not teenage rebellion) begins to rear its head somewhere around 30 for women and the menopause years for their mothers. For the first time, the veil begins to lift and we see each other for the women we have become.

When It Comes to Your Adult Children, What is Normal?

Some estimate that 96% of American Families are dysfunctional in some way – making it the norm. But “normal” is not necessarily healthy, and it certainly falls short of the abundant life we’ve been promised.

Women are held responsible for the relational health of the world – at work, at home, family health and wellbeing, the sexuality, the promiscuity, the cause, the cure and the results. When a true perpetrator arises in a family, the mother protects ala Mama Bear. If she doesn’t die trying, she can later become a target.

Mom is apparently the one who knew (or should have known) what was happening at every moment of every day to their children – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. After all, moms have eyes in the backs of their heads and are equipped with the unusual ability to read minds, right?

See also: Letting Go And The Art Of Parenting Adult Children

What Is Healthy When It Comes to Adult Children?

M. Scott Peck wrote, “Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.” The pinch point for grandmothers is that any loss of relationship with our adult children means strained relations – if not severed ties – with the grandchildren who now light up our lives.

I am a mother of three and grandmother to 11. I stayed with their father for more than 20 years believing that somehow I could make him feel loved enough to change.

Over time, each of my children has drawn close to me for healing, and pulled away for the same reason. I am, after all, the one they hold responsible for the shifting emotional sand in their psyche.

Ten years ago, I remarried a man whose children were also grown. We imagined that would alleviate the adjustments of step-families. In some ways, not having children in the home made it easier to forge our identity as a married couple.

Although we shared values, we didn’t share history with each others’ children. We each brought our traditions and expectations to bear. When I recently chose to divorce this man who had played “grandpa” to my children’s children, old wounds surfaced.

Had I known that to leave him meant I would lose my only local family, I probably would have stayed for the sake of the grandchildren. It’s that old programming baby boomer women still struggle with.

If something isn’t working, you try harder. Marital problems? Pray more, love more, give more, be patient, and wait it out. Suck it up, stuff it down, be quiet and don’t make waves.

What Is Real?

I have identified four distinct stages in the journey to wholeness.

Desperate

Our lives become (or continue to be) a carefully constructed illusion based on how it looks, what people will think, and what we imagine will get us the love and security we so desperately crave.

This is why grandmothers continue to “make peace at all costs” rather than saying what they see, need and want. Some have called it the disease to please.

Distant

Pretending that everything is okay when in our hearts we know that is not true can only go so far. We go along to get along. We smile in public and cry in private. We live a lie, and it eats at our souls every day.

Women think if we ignore it, maybe it will go away or time will heal all wounds. The thing is, time doesn’t heal buried pain. It has to be unearthed and acknowledged before it will pass away. Pain that gets buried alive poisons the rest of our lives.

Divorce

Divorce is a harsh word when applied to our mother-child relationships, isn’t it? But it happens whether we acknowledge it or not. Divorce occurs when all communication has broken down and attempts at reconciliation fail.

It is the most painful dark night of the soul. With divorce comes all the drama of severed relationships, he-said she-said finger pointing, and drama triangles where people talk about each other, but never directly to one another so healing could occur. We might as well lawyer up and some do. It’s called Grandparent Rights.

See also: The Detachment Wall: How To Let Go Of Your Adult Children

Done

Last is the place of acceptance. There is no anger, no angst, no more bargaining. It is where we accept what life is handing out right now and the fighting is done.

You have decided what you do and do not want, what you will and will not stand for, and are making decisions to move forward with or without the resolution you may have hoped for. You are free to stay or go because you have become dedicated to reality at all costs.

Read HOW TO DEAL WITH HAVING AN ESTRANGED ADULT CHILD.

What’s Next for You and Your Adult Children?

Do I wish I had capacity back then to do some things differently? Definitely. Do I regret what I allowed my children to endure because of the choices I made? Mm-hmm.

Is there anything I can do now to go back and change it? Not a damn thing. Does it serve anyone for me to live in remorse and regret? Nope. Not now, not ever. Never.

Nobody had a perfect childhood – at least nobody in my generational gene pool. We all did the best we could with what we had to work with at the time. That is as true today as it was generations ago.

The biggest healer for women in daughter divorces is to break the shame by breaking the silence. Let’s talk about what’s real and how to help live dreams without drama in our later years.

Read WHEN PEOPLE ASK ABOUT MY ESTRANGED CHILDREN… WHAT CAN I SAY?

Also read 60 AND ESTRANGED FROM AN ADULT CHILD? HOW NOT TO DEAL WITH IT.

This article has generated several important conversations. Many mothers/grandmothers are going through similar realities each with their unique set of situations. Talking and being vulnerable with one another is part of the healing process – as we can tell by reading your chats. Knowing that you are not alone helps in accepting the outcome of your distanced relationship with your adult children. 

Many have mentioned that therapy has helped them through this difficult time in their lives. Online therapy sessions are now readily available and affordable. Websites like Better Help, Talk Space, and Online Therapy have therapists and mental health professionals available to listen and guide you.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Where do you find yourself in the process of letting your adult children go? Where are you on the journey to finding yourself in your sixties? Please share your thoughts below!

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Tara Werho

I can relate to so much of this. I have a son and daughter in law who (I almost think) would prefer I just leave them alone. However they have two children ages 5 and 3. And I love these children so and they love me. My question is this. How do I take a major back seat yet maintain a relationship with the grandchildren? Do I ask for weekly calls/videos?

Cydy

I feel like divorcing my family most days. I’m 63, a mother of 3 married adult children, 7 grandchildren, and think of myself as someone who just stinks at relationships. My husband of 43 years is a good man but highly volatile and overly protective of me. He has an energy about him that borders on aggression when he gets involved in heated topics or problems. I have been dealing with a co-dependent relationship with my oldest son and now we really don’t talk at all. My middle son has had little family involvement for about 20 years and by now it is kind of the norm. My daughter married and divorced the same man twice. Her husband is extremely odd and her relationship with him appears fragile much of the time. We recently moved three doors down from them. My sons are furious with us over this. Basically, the story just continues like this: people not talking to one another for one reason or another, some refuse to see others when I’m present, some refuse to see others period and probably all don’t really like their father. The family is hanging by a thread. I’m tired of trying to knit it back together and spent the last couple of years in very good therapy focusing on my needs. But I can tell you like I hear on this thread, I have more days than not where I wish I never had children and wish I never married. I don’t really care that much about the grandchildren. Everyone is so separated anyways that I never see my son’s children. They’re cute and all but I see them as a responsibility I don’t wish to have.
The bottom line here, I feel like there is nothing really binding me to this family, and want to start over on my own. A quiet little house, my own table set for one, walks in the park when I want, watching what I want, etc., etc. They do little to excite me and I want out. I have read many of these posts and feel like this site offers a safe place for people like us. Misfits from the narrative that we’re all supposed to love our life as we get older. Well, we don’t. Many of us are scared to be on our own, to fly solo, to tell our kids to take a hike, to send a birthday card without a check. I want to stop being afraid. I want to live for me now. I can see many of you do also. Signed – Cyndy aka tired of family

Kim Brassor

I might suggest speaking with a Family Law attorney. I’m sorry for your loss.
—Kim

Dorothy

Thankyou Kim I need peace in my life instead of feeling I’m being bullied I’ve thought this through and feel comfortable with this solution xx

Leah Green

How can I make it LEGAL that my adult children & ADULT grandchildren have no legal rights to my welfare or assets? It’s been 18 years since the abuse and abandonment they put on me occured. No contact all these years. They say untrue sickening things about me on the internet. I want ALL ties legally null.

Diane

At 60 – next month, I am happily divorced ftom my ex with 1 of 2 sons still living with me.
I’m in a good relationship (only 1 yr.) We want to live together but he seems overly concerned about my son who lives with me (he’s 27 this year, has ASD, Aspergers). He hasn’t met my younger son becuz he is 800 mile’s away at University, and we are estranged – enough said.
As much as I consider my son…he really likes my bf/new partner – they get along v well, I am more inclined to consider what we want. I’ve raised my sons. I’m still providing a home to one – my youngest is welcome too – any time….as is my bf’s 20 yr old daughter should we live together.
That said, I think this is pur time, and that we do not need our children’s permission to be happy??? It doesn’t mean I don’t love my son(s) or that I am choosing my bf over them…and they will always have my undivided love & attention when they need it.
But….this is my life, my chance at happiness. A part of me says they need to accept, adjust, and be happy for us….that we need to consider us, our needs & wants… more than our children’s. I think we need only inform our adult children of our decisions – not seek nor need their approval.
My one son & his only daughter both seem happy for us – we all get along well. His daughter likes me, my son likes him. I think that’s a pretty good start.
I can’t wrap my head around the need to ask our kids if they are OK with “our” choices.
Am I being selfish????

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The Author

Kim Brassor is a human resource professional and executive coach who provides education, inspiration and encouragement to people with life damaging habits, and those who love them. She is 60-something and shining a light for other women to live their dreams without drama.

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