You might know that stepping away from a family relationship was something you needed to do.
You may have thought about it for a long time.
You may have tried talking, explaining, compromising or setting boundaries before reaching the point of no contact or low contact.
And yet you still feel guilty.
You might find yourself thinking:
“What if I’ve got it wrong?”
“What if I was too harsh?”
“What if I should have tried harder?”
Knowing that something wasn’t working for you doesn’t necessarily make the emotional consequences disappear.
Knowing something isn’t right doesn’t switch off your emotions
You can know that a relationship was affecting you negatively and still care deeply about the person.
You can know that a boundary was necessary and still feel guilty for setting it.
You can feel relief when contact stops and then feel ashamed for feeling relieved.
This is one of the difficult things about estrangement.
Our emotions don’t always follow the conclusions we’ve reached logically.
And guilt can make you question decisions you may have spent a long time trying to make.
What if I made mistakes?
You may also have things you regret.
Perhaps there are things you said that you wish you had handled differently.
Maybe you weren’t always the person you wanted to be within the relationship.
That doesn’t automatically mean you are responsible for everything that happened.
Relationships are rarely made up of one person’s actions alone.
It can be useful to ask:
“What was my part in this?”
rather than:
“Was everything my fault?”
Taking responsibility for your part is different from taking responsibility for the entire relationship.
When guilt becomes something bigger
There is also a difference between guilt and shame.
Guilt can sound like:
“I did something I wish I had handled differently.”
Shame can sound more like:
“There is something wrong with me.”
When guilt turns into shame, you may stop looking at what happened and start judging who you are.
You might tell yourself that you’re selfish, cruel, difficult or a bad daughter, son, parent or sibling.
But having boundaries doesn’t automatically make you a bad person.
And choosing distance doesn’t mean you don’t care.
You don’t have to choose between caring and protecting yourself.
One of the most important things to remember is that caring about someone and having contact with them are not necessarily the same thing.
You can love someone and still need distance.
You can understand that someone has their own pain and still recognise the impact their behaviour has had on you.
You can have compassion for another person without abandoning your own boundaries.
What is the guilt telling you?
Instead of immediately asking:
“How do I get rid of this guilt?”
it may be worth asking:
“What is this guilt trying to tell me?”
Is there something you genuinely want to take responsibility for?
Are you worried about what other people think?
Are you struggling with the idea that choosing yourself might hurt someone else?
Or have you learned somewhere along the way that putting your own needs first means you’re being selfish?
Guilt doesn’t always mean you’ve done something wrong.
Sometimes it tells you that something matters to you.
The work is learning to understand what it is telling you, rather than automatically letting it make the decision for you.
Hello, I’m Sarah Swain, an accredited therapist and coach working online across London, South East, Kent and the whole of the UK. I’ve worked as a therapist across the NHS, charities and Employee Assistance Programmes for over 15 years. I am trained in integrative therapy, coaching and EMDR and I support adults navigating estrangement.
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