Going No Contact; You may never see your college-bound child again

Parents Forum
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I am sorry so may people seem shocked to discover that estrangement between parent and child can happen. It is much more common than many people seem to understand.

None of us know what has happened in the OP and adult child’s relationship. That is the main reason I believe that this thread has very limited value to a public forum, while at the same time I agree with the OP that sharing their personal story is unnecessary and probably counter-productive long term to both the OP and his adult child.

I am attaching a link to a Dear Therapist column from The Atlantic. In some ways, it can explain the genesis of estrangement that doesn’t begin from a place of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual abuse, etc. Those are the ‘easy’ reasons to understand estrangement but I believe to understand estrangement, you need to go beyond “well we did our best, why doesn’t our child want anything to do with us” and not fall into the easy trap of assuming the child you love and raised supposedly serious problem free all of a sudden become a raging narcissist who is just trying to hurt and control their parent or fell under control of a cult or stronger personality.

I am also attaching a link to a different website that introduces a different perspective onto the estrangement forums found on the web

Again, the pain the OP is feeling comes through so clearly and I hope he and his wife are getting the therapy they need to work through this situation. Estrangement is painful for all parties involved and is very often the absolutely last resort of those choosing it.

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http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/guidelines

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I’m glad I took the time to read this post. I am in my mid 40s and have an older sister closer to 50. About ten years ago, she went NC with my parents. My family (me, husband, two children) are very close my to parents, so it resulted in our relationship with her mostly ending as well (no major blow up, just an organic distancing).

She had moved to California (we are east coast) a few years after college, and through the next ten years (age 26-36 ish) she had varying degrees of “issues” with rotating members of our family (both immediate and extended). She would share with me about the variety of therapists, counselors, life coaches, etc. she was seeing, and each time she seemed to have a new person to blame for her unhappiness, often labeling each new “transgressor” as a narcissist. One time a counselor suggested something to the effect of having an attachment issue, and recommended against getting the pet she was wanting, as she could end up displacing feelings towards humans onto the pet. Her response was to get the pet the next day and never see that therapist again. Perhaps not coincidence, she has never had (to our knowledge) a romantic relationship in the past 15 years, and her friendships seem to wane after about 5.

Two years ago, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. When the end was nearing, one of our aunts (supposedly one who my sister “liked” and still communicated with, or so we all thought) called to let her know about my Dad. This aunt had always tried to understand my sister and remain as neutral as possible. Well, my sister yelled at my aunt on the phone and told her to never contact her again. That changed my aunts opinion of the situation quickly.

As the sibling of the adult child that went NC I probably have a unique perspective. I saw signs of my sisters psychology from a young age, and knew her level of care and empathy was perhaps different than others. I won’t go into the circumstances individually, but there were many. I don’t think my parents wanted to see it or knew how to react, and tried to label it sibling rivalry. I had friends with siblings though, and they did NOT behave similarly.

Do i believe my parents were perfect? Absolutely not. Were there ways they could have communicated differently? Of course. Sometimes I think their real fault was in spoiling her too much emotionally and financially (despite being very middle class, they sent us to the colleges of our choice debt free, sent us to Europe in high school, etc.).

As a parent myself, I hope my own children (who are now 18 and 15) will have the emotional intelligence and forgiveness in their hearts to see past my faults and accept me as an imperfect human. This has been a learning experience for them as well.

I apologize for the long post, but I know this can be a shameful, embarrassing, heart wrenching experience for families, and wanted to share our own for any possible comfort or help it could give the original poster of the thread. I am not a psychologist, but I do believe in patterns of behavior being very telling about individuals. My sister is very alone. From what we’ve been told by a mutual contact, she has few (if any) close friends, no significant other, and now no family. So in the end, I’m actually more sad for her than anyone else involved.

The only advice I would give (and my mom has been working towards) is to love those that love you back…go where you are celebrated, not tolerated. In my moms case this may be easier as she had another child, son in law, and two grandchildren to try to focus upon to celebrate, but I know it tortures her daily.

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So sorry you are going through this. I would be careful not to fully dismiss your child’s actions as simply due to indoctrination or a GNC group. Hopefully, this is just a phase and you will be able to work through this.

A know a woman who had one of her two sons cut off all contact, including with her grandchild. I don’t know the details, but her other child and his family are very close to her and her husband. Not sure how this happened, but was not due to actual abuse, alcoholism etc.

I know you don’t want to give details, but any investigation as to if this reflects a mental health concern for your DD? Not unusual to become apparent at college age.

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That was a great post. Families can be trying.

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I’m sorry you are going through this difficult situation. A few thoughts. Families are tricky. Some kids are not mature enough to go away to college. They need to recreate the structure, consistency and safety/comfort of a family for themselves while at the same time flying solo for the first time. Some kids are not able to do that and come home. They try again later. It sounds like your kid did a complete substitution. Does your family argue at all? I come from a culture where arguing is a daily part of life. To others it seems very unhealthy but I’ve come to realize that airing one’s grievances in a timely manner seems rather healthy. A ten minute argument usually is followed by a cool down period of a few hours where each party internalizes the point of view of the other and then life continues anew. It’s a loud and messy way to be in a family but there are usually not many surprises.

Thank you for sharing your story. I feel for you.

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I have to agree with much of the article posted. There is a big trend in advice forums to cut contact with basically anybody that disagrees with you. Someone who disagrees (especially a parent or sibling) is labelled a narcissist not worthy of your time.

The thought that the parent HAD to have done something egregious to deserve NC is not always true. It can absolutely come out of the blue and good luck finding out what the problem is when the “hurt party” won’t even talk to you. There is no avenue to make things right. And that hurts very much. It almost feels like your child died–your life has been negated by them. And the guilt of wondering “what did I do?” is painful.
Going NC should be a last resort but these days it is recommended as first line of defense no matter the circumstances.

As a parent all I can say is keep the door open. Take deep breaths. You’re angry and hurt and I can’t blame you. But try to still the anger. Something is going on and right now all you can do is standby and wait. Send a letter, text, card occassionally just to say you’re still here when and if she wants to reconnect. She’s an adult and while you worry about her there’s not much you can do for her now. She’s going to live her own life.
Sometimes it is truly a phase (that may last a few years) but resolve itself in time.

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Behind a pay wall.

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I can highly recommend getting a subscription to The Atlantic - I’m a big believer in paying for news services.

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Yes, I agree there seems to be a trend toward this line of thinking generally. In my humble opinion, it runs parallel to our society’s fixation on a cancel culture mindset. We do not work to understand those with whom we disagree, we burn them at the stake and call them demonic (pardon the hyperbole). I don’t know what the solution is, other than to work daily to model for my own children and the students in my classroom a different path.

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No, we are not religious, and also, there was no inter-generational difference in politics. Additionally, there were many shared interests, like music, adventure travel, skiing; and we thought that the college admission process, however stressful (driving out of states for SAT/ACT, twice, etc.), brought the family much closer.

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There was a question about religion and I think it is fair to the general discussion of going NC even if does not pertain to OP’s situation.

There are numerous cases of very strict religious sects that kids have left although their parents are still in them. The only way it seems at times is to go NC. In fact some sects FLDS, Amish (many different sects so I won’t say all because IDK), Scientology (although more a profit making cult than any religion) will excommunicate members if they leave and forbid communication with them even if family.

Cults use cutting off family and going NC as a means to keep control of their members. It leaves family members wondering what happened and no recourse. It makes the cult the only source of information.

Same thing happens in domestic abuse situations. The abuser will force (or ease his victim) into cutting family ties leaving themselves as the only source of information.

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This. 100%

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Good point! I also feel like we expect people to be perfect or we think we can control everyone around us…

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