How to Divorce Your Adult Children and Restore Your Sanity
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!
Tags Adult Children
Just have to say this:
So many stories in here of women recounting multiple failed relationships, estrangements from most/all family members, some kind of problem or another with ALL their adult children and then when grandchildren become adults – there are problems with the grandkids.
Someone a long time ago told me: if you have a problem with one person, that’s a problem with one person. If you have a problem with everyone you meet, and you have the same problems over and over with different people at different times of your life? YOU are the problem. You’re causing the problems you keep encountering. Because the only commonality across all those different situations is you.
Something to think about, maybe. If you have a problematic relationship with one child, that’s one thing. If you haven’t been able to maintain good, consistent relationships over time with anyone? And no one has ever loved you enough, treated you well, appreciated you sufficiently? Look up “borderline personality disorder” and see if the criteria fit. And if it does, help is available.
I am not a computer person. I really look at articles like this when I am really down. I struggle every day. All my life I have had my parents (only child), then husband then kids. until now. empty house and life. I recently moved to a new city that I do not know anyone in an attempt to start new. it has only made me more lonely. I found myself allowing my kids to treat me badly just to be around them. I recently took them to Key West for Thanksgiving. The two young men, one 27, one 19 in the military. They were awful to me!!!!!! rude, cutting me down, (I have Lupus and RA) I take medication, they said “I was just trying to get high” I rolled with it. until the last day when they rented two bikes and left me at the beach. I cried all the way back to the condo 2 hour walk. I found out that my youngest paid for uber out of my checking account without my knowledge or permission. I was
devastated. Of course they act like you are soooo old you do not remember giving them your cc info. But one thing I am NOT is foolish about $$$$.
I decided to ask them NOT to contact me for a while (I am thinking a year) I keep being treated awful (my x was mentally and physically abusive) they treat me the same, take advantage of me, and I keep going back for more.
I prayed that God would give me strength everyday to focus on ME. It has been 4 days.
My eldest daughter has acted entitled since she was ten and my late husband did all he could to make her feel special. This seemed to evolve into some sort of Electra complex. He died eight years ago, while we were in the midst of settling a terrible divorce. At the time she was made executor of his estate. Since he hadn’t made the arrangement to pay me what he owed me, she had the duty of doing so. She took from me about 50% of what I was owed. As the family was through enough, I decided not to pursue this legally. Fast forward, our relationship has been strained but at times we had moved forward only to find myself several steps back, again, in the place I had been. Currently, I am divorcing a narcissist that is trying to take my house. The whole thing has been terrible. Tonight I reached out to her when I found out that he had, again, lied to me about something important. She refused to take my call, told me (via text) that I had violated a boundary, that I was using her to get my emotional needs met, and that I was a “burden of instability and the thought of suicide”. I have never threatened to commit suicide and call her no more than once every other week. This is the first time I tried to talk to her about anything specific about the divorce or anything emotional in over year and a half. I told her that I am not emotionally unstable and resent the implication. That we all have emotions and emotional needs. There is nothing unusual or extreme about mine. I didn’t mention it but I feel she uses times when I am extremely vulnerable to be cold to me and that the comments about emotional instability and suicide were gaslighting.
Thank you for your thoughts. BTW, I am 63 and she is 39.
At last! Some guidance and recognition! I am the mother of two adult (35 and 36yo) daughters. I was diagnosed with cancer last year, went through all the ops, radiation and treatment alone. One daughter lives in Australia, the other in Edinburgh a 5 hour train journey away. Usually I am the peacemaker between these two. The daughter from Australia used my cancer to have her ex husband agree to her and her fiance to come to Edinburgh with their children for Christmas last year. It was a vile Christmas! I was still silently dealing with the affects of my c treatment but was ghosted, torn to shreds by both of them. I have 6 granddaughters and helped to bring up the Edinburgh 3. I gave my daughters everything including any spare money I had. I have been comprehensively rejected and there is no contact. I have tried but without putting pressure on them, to keep in contact. I have one 14yo granddaughter who keeps in contact sporadically. Its heart-breaking the callousness my daughters treat me. Admittedly they do have frequent friendships break, so its not just me. But I do so miss my granddaughters. I don’t like the thought my daughters used my cancer to their advantage.
Linda, that sounds awful. But you’ve been really brave to fight cancer and ingratitude too. Rejectedparents dot net and especially the book Done With The Crying have helped me with my abrasive, selfish, demanding 42-year-old daughter. I’ve got a whole new attitude and realized—-my life will be FINE with or without her in it, and I’m enjoying every day now (despite some serious health issues too). I drew firm boundaries and am sticking to them (The Bank of Mom is closed and if you are mean to me on the phone I will let you know and end the call instead of putting up with it and making excuses for you.) Now is our time to live well. Good luck!
I just found your site and I am so glad!
Thank you for your insight and community, it is great to see other people going through similar experiences.
Myself and so many of my friends and family are experiencing difficult relationships with our grown children.
There’s real confusion on how our kids can be so entitled, angry, and quick to cut off contact over minor things.
Hear me out…I have a theory…I am looking for any study on this…
I believe since the 80’s, we have had our kids in formal daycare for long hours daily and then they were latchkey kids…these generations have bonded with their PEERS and not their parents.
This is why….social media is where they LIVE. And why they can cut off contact so easily.
I am a 64-year-old single mom with 5 grown children ages 30 to 42, (and 2 grandchildren ages 12 & 17), and I must admit, almost all are having a very hard time launching.
No motivation, no realistic job goals, blame boomers for everything, blame society for everything, take no responsibility. Excuses, excuses, blame, blame.
After working long, and hard hours to be generous throughout their childhoods, and continuing to be generous to them as adults and their significant others and my grandchildren for YEARS, I’ve watched them grow into stingy, ungiving adults who rarely give gifts and when they do, they spend the absolute least they can. I finally have had enough. They are not even remotely considerate of me or other family members.
When I put down financial boundaries this year, to stop giving them copious amounts of money or to start paying their own cell phone bills….they were mad. And our relationship suffered.
I have decided to love them, wish them well, and go and live my life. I don’t have to arrange every family holiday gathering, pay for every dinner out or event, or provide supplemental income for them when they constantly change jobs because “I didn’t like the way the supervisor managed me.” I don’t have to be the only one giving gifts on Christmas or birthdays. Time to grow up. It’s long overdue, my bad.
I do not have the answer to any of this, but I found your video very helpful, thanks again!
-Concerned and Heartbroken Mom
All that sounds completely reasonable to me. After a very difficult year with my drama-queen 42 year old daughter who needs constant approval and attention, I have gotten therapy (on line with a group called BetterHelp—very reasonable! I asked for an older therapist because the first one was basically a child). I learned that what you are talking about—I’m no longer going to be the only one organizing everything, paying for everything, and reaching out and going the extra mile(s) —that seems like a healthy boundary. After all, all, my other adult friends and I have balanced and equal relationships, and I would never put up with treatment like this from anyone else in my life. She is now an adult, and it’s time for her to act like one—but as the therapist pointed out, I can only control what •I• do—-and so it is time for me to treat her like any other adult in my life. This has been so freeing! Your “love them, wish them well, and live my life” sounds ideal to me. All your decisions sound like sensible ways to protect yourself and be fair in the relationship. I’m going to be trying, too. I will still miss the sweet and funny child she used to be but that person is not there any more. I can only deal with the person she actually is, and it’s not someone I want to spend much time with, sadly. Good luck.