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The Detachment Wall: How to Let Go of Your Adult Children

By Christine Field May 05, 2023 Family

Some of us moms have a problem with our attachment to our children, to the point where the bond can become unhealthy.

Can we love our children but not let their choices or behavior make us crazy? Is some detachment actually a good idea?

Is Detachment a Wall?

The idea of detaching from a person can seem terrifying. But is there a way to practice healthy detachment?

Another way of thinking about it is this – when we live detached, we are not placing a wall between us and others. Instead, we are examining our own expectations and dependencies.

With those in perspective, we are freer to love another person because the focus is shifted to them and is not solely on us.

With our adult children, though we love them unconditionally, we try to satisfy unmet needs in us:

  • Our need to be needed.
  • Our desire to nurture someone.
  • Our desire to see that our work and love produces an effect – a child who loves us back.

What we often do is keep a picture in our minds of our child and how they will fulfill these needs and desires for us. What happens when that child rejects us? In my case, and for many other moms, we completely freak out!

What Went Wrong

When we are ‘good mothers,’ we begin to define ourselves by our mothering. While this can be positive and can encourage us to fulfill our role responsibly, by totally adopting that definition we can forget all the other aspects of ‘me.’

When we are our role, when that role is challenging, or when that role is over, what is left of ‘us’?

In dealing with estranged children, we still tend to look within ourselves. We ask ourselves what we did wrong. We obsess over every interaction and question whether we could have responded differently.

Read HOW TO DIVORCE YOUR ADULT CHILDREN AND RESTORE YOUR SANITY.

Also read HOW TO DEAL WITH HAVING AN ESTRANGED ADULT CHILD.

This Monday-morning quarterbacking neglects some basic facts about humans:

You Can’t Control Other People

We surely have influence over our children, but we do not mold them like clay. When they don’t turn out the way we planned, we neglect this fundamental truth.

The Power of Letting Go: How to drop everything that’s holding you back

The Power of Letting Go: How to drop everything that’s holding you back on Amazon

You Can’t Rely on Your Children for Your Happiness

We may have looked ahead to our golden years and seen ourselves surrounded by loving grandchildren. This neglects another fundamental truth: People change. If we rely on other people for our happiness, we may be disappointed.

My source of joy and happiness is an inside job, not dependent on the actions of others.

Find Your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive on Amazon

Find Your Joy: A Powerful Self-Care Journal to Help You Thrive on Amazon

Your Emptiness Is Yours to Fill Up

Your adult children don’t exist solely to fill the void of your unmet needs. Do you need the love and admiration of children and grandchildren to be happy? Perhaps meeting your own needs by loving yourself sufficiently will bring more peace and satisfaction.

Complete People Can Love Completely

I remember well the first time my young daughter gushed about a new boyfriend, saying, “He completes me!” We had many long talks deep into the night discussing how love can be real and true only when two people who are complete within themselves come together.

True love rejects the notion that the other exists solely to please you. True love is therefore not threatened when the other displeases you, because the love is not dependent on the other fulfilling your needs.

Having the other person conform to our desires so we will love them is manipulation, not love. Focusing on “what’s in it for me” is a death knell for true love.

Yet, as mothers, we sometimes forget that in our relating to our adult children. When we can view them with some detachment, when our reactions to them are no longer based on expectations or being dependent on them, we are then able to love them fully and freely.

Do not look at your adult child as completing you, giving you a fulfilled life, or meeting your needs. When you set those aside, you begin to understand love.

What to Do Now?

If you are a hurting mama, laid low in the dust by the estrangement of an adult child, what should you do now?

  • Examine your feelings and thoughts. What does it feel like when attachment hurts? What thoughts are you thinking at the time? Can you begin to think differently?
  • Be with others and love them, but don’t look to them as your source of happiness.
  • Learn to be alone, not lonely. Loving ourselves enough that we can be our best companions is healthy.
  • Quit blaming yourself for the state of the relationship. You didn’t and couldn’t control the outcome. Why beat yourself up?

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

Here are a few more ideas to help you heal and let go.

  • Journal – Writing or sketching your feelings and thoughts puts you in the moment and helps to get you out of your thoughts. Buy yourself a pretty journal and write in it whenever you feel overwhelmed, sad, or lonely.
  • Find other mothers in the same boat – Join Facebook groups and share your stories with other women who are going through the same thing. Lift each other up and remember not to fall into the trap of wallowing and continuous negativity. 
  • Seek counseling or therapy – Look into talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. Online websites like Better Help and Talk Space offer versatile and affordable access to therapists and counselors.
  • Read empowering books such as:

Self-Love Workbook for Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are by Megan Logan on Amazon.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödron on Amazon

Keep Moving by Maggie Smith on Amazon

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz on Amazon

Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky on Amazon.

When we are not attached to any outcome in our relationships, then we can be free and happy. When the state of our internal life is more important than our external circumstances – there lies peace.

Read PARENTING ADULT CHILDREN CAN BE AGONY.

Also, MY ADULT CHILDREN CUT ME OUT OF THEIR LIFE.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you still find it hard to let go of your adult children? Or, do you still worry about them and take care of them more than you think you should? Please join the conversation below.

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Jenny

I would like to celebrate special days like Birthdays with my 2 adult children but they don’t seem interested. Is it possible to get them interested or just ‘let go’ of the desire?

debbie tawes

apparently, you have never experienced a grown child that won’t work, sleeps all day & parties all night! won’t answer his parents calls to even see how he is doing & his father is on chemo & he promises he will do better! really? as his mother i say fire him from our business& let him get a job elsewhere! i love him but so sick of the drama! my only concern is he will loose his home & then have nothing! he has destroyed his vechicle! he doesn’t care about anything! i love him but i am so over all this drama!

Kath

I won’t go into all I’m feeling these months or more, but I am grateful to have found a group to share with and hear from. Sometimes that’s all I need.

Elizabeth

I have 2 adult children(daughter 20 and a son 18) from a previous marriage. My current husband and I are planning on moving 2,700 miles across the country in October 2023 (from CA to PA) for financial reasons. Lately I have been feeling like my daughter is becoming estranged from me. We have always been close. My son on the other hand, I don’t see much. He lives close by with his dad. My relationship with him been somewhat estranged for a few years now. I rarely see him. When I do see him, it’s friendly and cordial, but honestly feels awkward. Lately my daughter has been very distant and somewhat angry. I’m at a loss of what I can do. She shuts down. I am feeling anxious and maybe guilty, like I’m abandoning both of them. It’s really tearing me up inside.

Kathy

I am a mom of two thirty something sons. The oldest is self reliant and it seems easy to detach without much worry and effort. On the other hand, the younger has always struggled from birth with learning disabilities, trouble understanding basic social norms, following rules, addictions and increasingly more detached from reality at times. He has asked that I work on my detachment efforts even as he is unable to navigate the systems, agencies and legal processes he has become involved with. Nothing would make me happier than to find my substitute for the obvious need he has for someone to be his advocate and administrative assistant (I call him my paperwork nightmare). I do not want him to end up in jail because he has not received the support he continues to need. He has been involved in continuous therapeutic support for all of his adult life so there is continuity in that aspect. He does not seek out other support when it comes to SSDI or legal matters so I usually end up being the go to as I always have been. I worry about who will step in if/when something happens to me. I am seeking ideas/solutions as there seem to be no good substitutes for the support I provide. Most agencies support is limited with no continuity and sometimes lack of professional experience of the staff they employ. I wish there was somewhat adequate support for adults who are in such situations. I have found many parents in the same situation as I from attending/facilitating support groups. I would love to hear positive feedback from this group so I may be able to move forward in my attempts to detach. TIA

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The Author

Christine Field is an author, attorney, speaker, listener and life coach. She has four grown kids, mostly adopted, mostly homeschooled. She provides MomSolved© resources and reassurances to moms facing common and uncommon family life challenges. Christine helps moms rediscover their mojo for wholehearted living after parenting. Visit her website here http://www.realmomlife.com

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