Category: Estrangement Therapy

Perhaps you’ve been estranged from someone for a while.

You may have wondered whether you should reconnect.

Then you feel certain you don’t want to.

Then you wonder again.

You might think:

“I don’t know what I want.”

And that uncertainty can feel like another problem you need to solve.

But perhaps you don’t have to decide yet.

You don’t have to know

There can be pressure to choose.

Contact or no contact.

Reconciliation or no reconciliation.

Forgive or don’t forgive.

But relationships don’t always give us such clear choices.

You might want contact but not closeness.

You might want to know how someone is doing without wanting them involved in your life.

You might want to reconnect but be frightened of what that would mean.

You might simply not know.

Wanting to know isn’t the same as wanting to reconnect

Curiosity can be mistaken for a desire for reconciliation.

You might wonder what they’re doing.

You might wonder whether they’ve changed.

You might wonder whether they think about you.

None of that necessarily means you want a relationship again.

Sometimes you are simply trying to understand something that has remained unresolved.

What would reconciliation actually mean?

The word can mean very different things.

Would it mean seeing each other regularly?

A conversation?

An occasional message?

Being able to attend the same events?

Having a relationship with boundaries around certain subjects?

Or something completely different?

You don’t have to decide whether you want “reconciliation” in the abstract.

It can help to think about what contact would actually look like.

What would need to be different?

If you did reconnect, what would you need?

Perhaps more respect.

Perhaps different communication.

Perhaps recognition of what happened.

Perhaps stronger boundaries.

Perhaps less contact than before.

Perhaps nothing more than the ability to be in the same room without conflict.

Thinking about what would make contact possible can sometimes tell you more than asking whether you want reconciliation.

You can change your mind

You might decide you don’t want contact now and feel differently later.

You might try contact and decide it isn’t working.

You might reconnect and later need more distance.

Changing your mind doesn’t necessarily mean you got it wrong the first time.

You are responding to what you know and need at different points in your life.

You don’t have to make a permanent decision today

Perhaps the question isn’t:

“Will I ever reconcile?”

It might be:

“What feels right for me at this point in my life?”

You can leave some questions unanswered.

You can take your time.

You can explore the possibility without committing to it.

And you can decide that no decision is needed yet.

Sometimes uncertainty isn’t a problem that needs solving. Sometimes it is simply where you are right now.

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.

Estrangement rarely stays neatly between two people.

Other people can become involved.

A relative might pass on a message.

Someone might ask you to explain what happened.

You might discover that people have heard a version of the story that is very different from yours.

Or you may feel caught between people you care about.

It can leave you wondering:

“Do I have to choose a side?”

Other people have their own relationships

Someone else may remain close to the person you’re estranged from.

They may see things differently from you.

They may have a completely different experience of that person.

That can be difficult, particularly when you want them to understand why you made the choices you did.

But their relationship doesn’t necessarily invalidate yours.

Two people can experience the same person differently.

You don’t have to convince everyone

It can be tempting to explain yourself when you feel misunderstood.

You may want people to know what really happened to you.

You may worry that someone has only heard one side.

But trying to persuade everyone can become exhausting.

You can explain your position.

You can answer questions if you want to.

And you can also decide that you aren’t going to defend your experience to everyone.

What about children?

This can become particularly complicated when children are involved.

You may want them to maintain relationships with people on different sides of an estrangement.

You may also want to protect them from being drawn into adult difficulties.

There may not be one answer that works for every situation.

What matters is considering what is appropriate for the child rather than using them as a way of communicating between adults.

What if people pressure you to reconcile?

You may hear:

“Life is too short.”

“You’ll regret it.”

“They’re still your family.”

“Can’t you just put it behind you?”

People may be speaking from their own beliefs or experiences.

But they aren’t living the relationship.

You can listen without automatically accepting their advice.

Respecting someone’s boundary isn’t always the same as taking their side

If someone else has chosen no contact, you may respect that decision without necessarily seeing the situation exactly as they do.

Equally, if you have chosen distance, other people may continue to have relationships with that person.

Respecting different choices can be complicated.

It doesn’t mean everyone has to agree.

What would make this easier for you?

Perhaps you need other people to stop passing messages.

Perhaps you need to be able to attend an event without discussing the estrangement.

Perhaps you need certain topics to remain private.

Or perhaps you need to accept that some people will never see the situation in the way you do.

You don’t have to choose a side simply because other people want certainty.

Sometimes the healthiest position is to recognise that several relationships can exist at the same time, each with its own history and boundaries.

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.

You may find yourself having the same conversation over and over again.

Not out loud.

In your head.

You replay what was said.

You think about what you said.

You imagine what you could have said differently.

Then another version of the conversation starts.

“Maybe I should have said this.”

“Why didn’t I say that?”

“What did they actually mean?”

“Was that the moment everything changed?”

It can be exhausting.

Your mind may be trying to make sense of what happened

When something doesn’t have a clear ending, we can keep returning to it.

Perhaps you’re trying to find the point where things went wrong.

Perhaps you’re looking for something you missed.

Perhaps you are trying to work out whether you could have prevented what happened.

Replaying the conversation can create the feeling that if you think about it enough, you’ll eventually find the answer.

But sometimes there isn’t an answer hidden inside that conversation.

What if you had said something differently?

It’s natural to wonder.

Perhaps there are things you genuinely would handle differently now.

But hindsight gives us information we didn’t necessarily have at the time.

You were responding to what you knew, felt and understood then.

You may not have had the perspective you have now.

That doesn’t mean you can’t take responsibility for things you regret.

It means you don’t have to judge your past self using everything you know today.

Sometimes replaying becomes a search for certainty

You might be trying to answer questions that don’t have simple answers.

Who was right?

Who was wrong?

Who started it?

What really happened?

Could I have stopped it?

Would things be different if I’d said something else?

The more uncertain the situation, the more tempting it can be to keep analysing it.

But more thinking doesn’t always create more clarity.

Sometimes it simply creates another version of the same question.

What do you actually know?

When you notice yourself replaying a conversation, it can help to separate what you know from what you’re trying to work out.

You may know what was said.

You may know how it made you feel.

You may know what happened afterwards.

But you may not know exactly what the other person was thinking.

You may not know why they reacted as they did.

You may never know.

That uncertainty can be difficult to sit with.

You don’t have to solve every conversation

There may be things you wish you had said.

Things you wish you hadn’t said.

Things you still don’t understand.

You can acknowledge those without continuing to put yourself on trial.

Perhaps the more useful question is:

“What do I want to take from this now?”

Maybe there is something you would do differently.

Maybe you’ve learned something about your boundaries.

Maybe you’ve understood something about yourself.

Or maybe you’ve reached the limit of what you can know.

Sometimes moving forward means accepting that the conversation is over, even if your mind still wants to have one more version of it.

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.

You may have reached a point where you don’t want the relationship back.

You may have accepted that contact isn’t right for you.

And yet, there may still be something you wish you could have from the other person.

Not a relationship.

Not an apology.

Not even reconciliation.

Just for them to understand.

To understand why you made the decision you did.

Why you needed distance.

What the relationship was like from your perspective.

Why what happened affected you in the way it did.

Understanding isn’t the same as reconciliation

Sometimes we assume that if you want someone to understand you, you must secretly want them back in your life.

But those are different things.

You can want someone to understand your experience without wanting to resume the relationship.

You might never want contact again and still wish they knew what you were trying to say.

You might want them to understand that your decision wasn’t made lightly.

Or that it wasn’t about punishment.

Or that you didn’t simply stop caring.

Sometimes we want our experience acknowledged

Being understood can matter because it gives our experience somewhere to go.

You may have spent years questioning yourself.

Perhaps you were told that you were too sensitive or too cold.

Perhaps the other person has a completely different version of what happened.

Perhaps you’ve never been able to have a conversation where both perspectives could exist.

You might find yourself thinking:

“If they could just understand why, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so misunderstood.”

That’s a very human wish.

But there is a difficult part.

You may never get that understanding.

What if they never see it your way?

You can’t always make another person understand your experience.

You can explain it carefully.

You can choose your words.

You can give examples.

You can answer questions.

And they may still disagree.

They may remember things differently.

They may not accept your interpretation.

They may not believe that your reasons were sufficient.

That can be painful.

But their understanding isn’t always something you can make happen.

You can know your own experience without their agreement

Sometimes moving forward involves separating two things:

“I need them to understand.”

and

“I need to understand myself.”

The second is something you have more control over.

You can become clearer about what happened for you.

You can acknowledge where you contributed.

You can recognise what you needed and didn’t receive.

You can understand why you made the choices you made.

And you can decide what you want now.

None of that requires the other person to agree.

What if you do still want to be understood?

Perhaps there is a conversation that could happen.

Perhaps there isn’t.

You might decide that saying what you need to say matters, even if you don’t know how the other person will respond.

Or you might decide that you’ve spent enough time trying to explain yourself.

There isn’t a universal answer.

The question might be:

“If they never understand my version of what happened, what do I need for myself?”

That can be a difficult question.

But sometimes it is a more useful one than waiting for someone else to give you something they may not be able to give.

You don’t have to choose between being understood and moving forward

You can wish someone understood you.

You can be disappointed that they don’t.

And you can still decide how you want your life to look.

You don’t have to stop caring about whether they understand.

You may simply reach a point where their understanding is no longer the thing that determines whether you can move forward.

Sometimes you don’t need the relationship back.

You just wanted your experience to be seen.

And sometimes, part of moving forward is finding a way to see and understand it for yourself.

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.

Estrangement can be difficult enough without feeling as though you have to explain it to everyone else.

A friend asks what happened.

A relative wants to know why you aren’t speaking.

Someone at work asks about your family.

You might find yourself trying to decide how much to say, what to leave out and whether the person asking actually needs to know.

Sometimes, it can feel as though you are expected to provide a full explanation for something that is deeply personal.

You don’t owe everyone the whole story

You may have a detailed understanding of what happened.

Or you may still be trying to work it out yourself.

Either way, you don’t have to tell everyone.

You might give a simple explanation.

You might say that the relationship is complicated.

You might choose not to discuss it at all.

There isn’t a requirement to provide enough information for someone else to decide whether your decision makes sense.

Why do we feel the need to explain?

Sometimes we want people to understand.

Perhaps you’re worried they’ll judge you.

Maybe you’re concerned that they’ll think you’re being unreasonable.

Or perhaps you have spent so long questioning yourself that you want someone else to confirm that your decision was justified.

Explaining can feel like a way of proving that your decision makes sense.

But the more you explain, the more you may find yourself defending it.

Other people may never have the full picture

People outside the relationship see a different version of it.

They may know the person you’re estranged from.

They may have experienced them differently.

They may have heard another version of what happened.

They may also have their own ideas about what families should be like.

That doesn’t mean their perspective is wrong.

It simply isn’t the whole story.

And neither is yours necessarily the whole story.

You are describing your experience of a relationship.

You can choose what you share

You might tell a close friend more than you tell a colleague.

You might talk openly with your partner but not with wider relatives.

You might decide that some details belong only in therapy.

You can change your mind about what you want to share.

You don’t have to make the same explanation to everyone.

What if someone doesn’t understand?

They may not.

Someone might think you should reconcile.

Someone else might think you should cut contact completely.

Someone might say, “But they’re still your parent.”

Another person might ask, “Have you tried forgiving them?”

You may find yourself wanting to explain even more.

But the other person’s understanding isn’t something you can control.

You can explain your position without needing them to agree with it.

You are allowed to have privacy

There is a difference between hiding something and choosing privacy.

You can know your own reasons without presenting them for public discussion.

You can be uncertain.

You can have mixed feelings.

You can recognise your own part in what happened.

And you can still decide that other people don’t need access to all of it.

Perhaps the question isn’t:

“How do I make everyone understand?”

It might be:

“Who do I actually want to share this with, and what feels right for me to share?”

You don’t have to justify your relationship choices to everyone around you.

Sometimes protecting your privacy is part of looking after yourself.

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.

Estrangement can sometimes leave you thinking about your own behaviour.

Perhaps you’ve remembered things you said.

Things you did.

Things you wish you had handled differently.

Maybe you know that you made mistakes.

And that can lead to an uncomfortable question:

“What if I was part of the problem too?”

It can be tempting to think that there are only two possibilities.

Either the other person was wrong and you were right.

Or you were responsible for what happened.

But relationships are rarely that simple.

You can have a part without having the whole responsibility

Perhaps there are things you genuinely regret.

Maybe you weren’t always patient.

Maybe you reacted badly.

Maybe there were times when you didn’t listen, withdrew, said things you wish you hadn’t or handled conflict in ways that weren’t helpful.

Being able to recognise that can be important.

But recognising your part doesn’t necessarily mean taking responsibility for everything that happened.

A relationship can contain more than one person’s behaviour, experience and perspective.

Understanding your part doesn’t mean agreeing with their version

You may come to understand why someone experienced the relationship differently from you.

That doesn’t automatically mean their interpretation becomes your truth.

You might think:

“I can see why that hurt them.”

And still think:

“There were things happening between us that they don’t seem to understand.”

Both perspectives can exist.

You don’t have to choose between complete self-blame and complete innocence.

What if you did something you’re not proud of?

Sometimes taking responsibility can actually be part of moving forward.

You might be able to say:

“I wish I’d handled that differently.”

“I understand now why that was hurtful.”

“I can see something I contributed to.”

That doesn’t make you a bad person.

People can behave badly without being defined entirely by their worst moments.

And if you have changed since then, that matters too.

Guilt can sometimes make everything feel bigger

When a relationship has ended badly, it can be easy to look backwards and reinterpret everything through the ending.

You might start thinking:

Maybe it was all my fault.

Maybe I caused this.

Maybe if I’d done that one thing differently, none of this would have happened.

But relationships don’t usually unravel because of one conversation, one mistake or one person.

There may be things you wish had been different.

There may also be things that were outside your control.

Trying to separate those can take time.

Taking responsibility isn’t the same as taking the blame

There is a difference between saying:

“I had a part in this.”

and:

“This was all my fault.”

The first allows you to reflect.

The second can close down reflection because everything becomes an accusation against yourself.

Taking responsibility can mean being honest about what you would do differently now.

It doesn’t require you to carry responsibility for another person’s choices, behaviour or feelings.

What would you do differently now?

Perhaps the most useful question isn’t:

“Who was to blame?”

It might be:

“What have I learned about myself from this relationship?”

You may have learned what you need from relationships.

You may have recognised patterns you don’t want to repeat.

You may have become clearer about your boundaries.

You may have realised that there are things you want to handle differently in future.

That learning can matter whether or not the relationship is ever repaired.

You don’t have to decide that you were completely right.

And you don’t have to decide that you were completely wrong.

Sometimes moving forward means being able to hold a more complicated truth:

“I wasn’t perfect. I had a part in what happened; that still doesn’t mean everything was my responsibility.”

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.

You may have made the decision to step away from a relationship because you felt you needed to.

Perhaps contact had become difficult.

Perhaps you were exhausted by the same patterns happening repeatedly.

Perhaps distance gave you space to breathe.

And then you felt something you weren’t expecting.

Relief.

Followed by guilt.

“How can I feel relieved about losing someone I care about?”

Relief doesn’t mean you didn’t care

Feeling relieved can be uncomfortable when you’ve been taught that losing a relationship should only make you sad.

But relief can tell you something.

Perhaps the relationship had been creating stress.

Perhaps you no longer had to anticipate the next difficult conversation.

Perhaps you weren’t constantly wondering what might happen next.

Perhaps you finally had some space to think about yourself.

Feeling that relief doesn’t erase the care you may still have for the other person.

Two feelings can exist together

You might feel lighter and heartbroken.

You might feel more settled and still miss them.

You might know that distance was necessary and still feel guilty about it.

These aren’t necessarily contradictory.

Relationships can contain many different experiences at the same time.

You don’t have to choose one emotion and reject the others.

Where does the guilt come from?

Sometimes guilt comes from our own actions.

Perhaps there are things you regret.

But guilt can also come from expectations about what we think we should feel or do.

You might believe:

I should be able to make this relationship work.

I shouldn’t feel relieved.

They’re still my parent.

They’re still my sibling.

They’re still my child.

I’m supposed to care.

Good people don’t walk away.

These thoughts can make it difficult to separate what you actually feel from what you think you ought to feel.

Relief can be information

Rather than judging the relief, you might become curious about it.

“What has become easier since I stepped away?”

Perhaps you sleep better.

Perhaps you think about the relationship less.

Perhaps you feel more like yourself.

Perhaps you’re no longer constantly trying to manage someone else’s reactions.

That doesn’t automatically mean that ending or reducing contact was the right decision.

But it may tell you something about what the relationship was costing you.

Guilt doesn’t always mean you’ve done something wrong

Guilt can be useful when it points towards something we genuinely want to take responsibility for.

But sometimes guilt is more complicated.

You may feel guilty simply because someone else is hurt by your decision.

You may feel guilty because the relationship has changed.

You may feel guilty because other people think you should behave differently.

Their feelings matter.

But they don’t automatically determine what you should do.

You don’t have to punish yourself for feeling relieved

You can care about someone and feel better without them being closely involved in your life.

You can miss someone and feel relieved.

You can wish things had been different and still accept that they weren’t.

You can feel guilty without deciding that the guilt means you have made the wrong choice.

The question might not be:

“Which feeling is the real one?”

It might be:

“What is each feeling telling me?”

There may be something to learn from the relief.

There may be something to understand in the guilt.

And there may be room for both.

Estrangement doesn’t always give you one clear emotion or one clear answer.

Sometimes moving forward means learning to live with the fact that you can feel relief and loss at the same time.

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.

One of the most confusing things about estrangement can be missing someone you don’t actually want back in your life.

You may have made a decision to have no contact or low contact because the relationship wasn’t working for you.

You may still believe that was the right decision.

You might miss the person they were at certain points in your life.

You might miss the relationship you wished you could have had.

You might miss particular memories, traditions or simply the idea of having that person in your life.

That can leave you wondering:

“If I miss them, does that mean I’ve made the wrong decision?”

Not necessarily.

Missing someone doesn’t tell you what you should do

We often treat our feelings as though they should give us an answer.

If you miss someone, perhaps you should reconnect.

If you feel relieved, perhaps you never cared.

If you feel angry, perhaps you haven’t moved on.

But feelings don’t necessarily work like that.

You can miss someone and still know that having them closely involved in your life isn’t right for you.

You can care about someone and still need distance.

You can remember good times without forgetting the reasons the relationship became difficult.

Two things can be true at the same time.

Sometimes you miss what you wanted the relationship to be

Estrangement isn’t always just about losing the relationship that existed.

Sometimes you are also grieving the relationship you hoped you would have.

The parent you hoped would understand you.

The sibling relationship you thought would last throughout your lives.

The relationship you imagined you might have one day when circumstances changed.

Missing that possibility doesn’t necessarily mean you want the relationship that actually existed.

You may be missing what could have been.

Memories don’t always disappear because you have chosen distance

You may still think about birthdays, holidays, childhood memories or ordinary moments.

Something can remind you of them unexpectedly.

You might hear a song, visit somewhere familiar or see another family together and feel something you weren’t expecting.

That doesn’t mean you have gone backwards.

It means the relationship was part of your life.

Choosing distance doesn’t erase your history.

What does the feeling mean for you now?

Instead of asking:

“Does missing them mean I should go back?”

You might ask:

“What exactly am I missing?”

Is it the person?

The relationship?

The good parts?

The sense of belonging?

The hope that things could have been different?

Or simply the fact that someone who was once part of your everyday life isn’t anymore?

Understanding what you are actually missing can sometimes tell you more than the feeling itself.

You don’t have to turn missing someone into a decision

You don’t have to act on every feeling.

You can miss someone and do nothing about it.

You can feel sad and still maintain your boundaries.

You can acknowledge the good parts of a relationship without deciding that you want the whole relationship back.

And you can change your mind too.

Perhaps one day you will want some form of contact. Perhaps you won’t.

There doesn’t have to be a decision every time you miss someone.

Sometimes a feeling can simply be a feeling.

Making sense of both sides

Estrangement rarely fits neatly into one emotional category.

You might feel relief and sadness.

Love and anger.

Certainty and doubt.

You might know that distance was necessary and still wish things could have been different.

None of those feelings automatically tells you what you should do.

The question may simply be what you want your life to look like now, and what place, if any, this relationship has within it.

You can miss someone without wanting them back.

And you can hold both truths at the same time.

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.

One of the painful parts of estrangement can be feeling that the person you’re no longer close to has a completely different idea of who you are.

They may see you as selfish.

Difficult.

Uncaring.

Unreasonable.

Ungrateful.

Or perhaps they believe you are the person who caused the relationship to break down.

And yet, that may bear very little resemblance to how you understand yourself.

You may look at their perception of you and think:

“How can they possibly see me that way?”

They see what happened from their side

The person you’re estranged from has their own experience of the relationship.

They may remember particular events differently.

They may have interpreted your words or actions in ways you never intended.

They may believe you were angry when you were frightened.

They may have experienced distance where you experienced needing space.

They may see you as rejecting them when, from your perspective, you were trying to protect yourself.

They may believe you simply walked away.

They may have no idea how long you thought about it before you did.

They may not know how many times you questioned yourself.

They may not know how much sadness, guilt or uncertainty accompanied the decision.

They see the decision.

They don’t necessarily see everything that came before it.

Being misunderstood can be incredibly painful

It is difficult enough to lose a relationship.

It can feel even harder when the person you’ve lost seems to have an entirely different understanding of who you are.

You may want them to know that you cared.

That you didn’t make the decision lightly.

That you tried.

That you were struggling too.

That there was more going on than they could see.

Sometimes the need to be understood can become almost as important as the relationship itself.

You may find yourself going over conversations in your head.

Thinking about what you should have said.

Imagining how you could explain it differently.

Wishing they could somehow see what was happening for you at the time.

What if their version becomes the version everyone believes?

This can become particularly difficult when other people hear their understanding of what happened.

Perhaps relatives hear that you walked away.

Perhaps they hear that you changed.

Perhaps they are told that you no longer care.

And you may know there is a much bigger story.

You may want to correct it.

To explain.

To make sure people know that there was another side.

Sometimes you may choose to explain.

And sometimes you may decide that you don’t want to share private aspects of your life simply to defend yourself.

Both can be difficult decisions.

You can acknowledge their experience without accepting their definition of you

The person you’re estranged from may genuinely believe their version of events.

That doesn’t necessarily make them dishonest.

It doesn’t necessarily make you dishonest either.

Two people can experience the same relationship very differently.

You may even be able to recognise things that you got wrong.

Perhaps there are things you regret.

Perhaps you behaved in ways you wouldn’t now.

Perhaps you can understand why the other person felt hurt.

None of that means you have to accept a description of yourself that doesn’t feel true.

You can hold more than one truth.

“I understand that this is how they experienced me.”

and:

“That isn’t how I experience myself.”

You may never be able to change their mind

This can be one of the hardest things to accept.

You may explain yourself perfectly and still not be understood.

You may apologise for the things you genuinely regret and still be seen as the person who caused everything.

You may give someone more information and find that it changes nothing.

And sometimes the relationship may never reach a point where both people agree about what happened.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you have failed.

Some things cannot be resolved simply by finding the right words.

What does it mean to you if they misunderstand you?

It may be worth noticing how much their perception has become part of the way you see yourself.

Do you find yourself trying to prove that you’re a good person?

Do you worry that their version of you might be the version other people believe?

Do you need them to understand before you can feel comfortable with your own decisions?

Or are you carrying an image of yourself that came from the relationship rather than from how you actually understand yourself?

You cannot control how someone else sees you and you may never change their understanding of what happened.

But you can begin to separate their perception of you from your understanding of yourself.

You don’t have to deny their experience.

You don’t have to accept their definition of who you are either.

Sometimes moving forward means being able to say:

“They may never see me the way I see myself. And I can still know who I am.”

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.

Estrangement can be difficult for many reasons.

There can be grief, guilt, anger, relief, uncertainty and sadness.

But sometimes there is something else that can be surprisingly difficult to talk about:

What other people think.

You may know why you don’t have a relationship with your parent, adult child or sibling.

You may have spent a long time thinking about it.

You may have tried to make the relationship work.

And yet, telling someone that you’re estranged can still leave you feeling exposed.

Because there is a strong expectation that family relationships are supposed to continue.

Parents and children are supposed to stay close.

Siblings are supposed to remain part of each other’s lives.

And when your relationship doesn’t fit that picture, you may start to wonder whether there is something wrong with you.

Perhaps you’ve heard comments like:

“But they’re your mum.”

“You only get one dad.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean it.”

“You’ll regret it one day.”

Sometimes people say these things because they don’t know what else to say.

They may believe that family relationships should always be preserved.

They may find estrangement uncomfortable.

Or they may simply have no understanding of what led to your decision.

But hearing these messages can have an effect.

You can begin to feel that your situation needs explaining.

That your decision needs defending.

Or that other people are quietly judging you.

When estrangement becomes something you feel ashamed of

You might avoid telling people that you’re estranged.

You might change the subject when someone asks about your parent.

You might feel uncomfortable when colleagues talk about family gatherings.

You might dread questions around Christmas, birthdays or other occasions when family relationships become more visible.

You may even find yourself comparing your life with other people’s.

“Why can’t my family be like theirs?”

“Why am I the person who doesn’t have a relationship with my parent?”

“What does this say about me?”

That last question can be particularly painful.

Because estrangement can become more than something that has happened in your life.

It can start to feel like something that says something about who you are.

There is a powerful expectation around family

We don’t always talk about it, but there are strong ideas about what family relationships are supposed to look like.

Adult children are expected to stay connected to their parents.

Parents are expected to remain involved in their children’s lives.

Siblings are expected to remain siblings in more than name.

And when those relationships break down, people can sometimes look for a simple explanation.

Perhaps someone is selfish.

Perhaps someone is difficult.

Perhaps someone should apologise.

Perhaps someone needs to forgive.

But real relationships are rarely that simple.

There can be complicated histories, different experiences, things that were never resolved and decisions that made sense to the people making them.

You don’t have to explain yourself

One of the difficult things about shame is that it can make you feel as though you need to prove that your experience is legitimate and there’s nothing wrong with you.

You may find yourself giving people far more information than you really want to.

You may try to convince them that you had good reasons.

You may worry that if they knew the whole story, they wouldn’t understand.

But you are allowed to have private aspects of your life.

You don’t have to disclose painful experiences simply because someone is curious.

And you don’t have to persuade everyone that your decision makes sense.

What if people judge you?

They might.

Some people may never understand your decision.

Some may have strong views about what you should do.

Some may believe that you should reconnect, forgive or try harder.

That can hurt, particularly when the judgement comes from people whose opinions matter to you.

But someone else’s expectations about family don’t necessarily tell you what is right for your life.

Their experience of their own family is not your experience.

Their idea of what a parent-child or sibling relationship should look like doesn’t tell the whole story of yours.

What does the shame mean for you?

It may be worth asking yourself:

Am I ashamed of being estranged, or am I ashamed of what I imagine other people think about me?

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

You may still feel sadness about the relationship.

You may wish things had been different.

You may have doubts about some of your own choices.

None of that means you have to accept someone else’s judgement of you.

Your relationship with a parent, child or sibling is one part of your life.

It does not have to become a definition of who you are.

Sometimes moving forward involves making sense not only of the relationship itself, but also of the expectations you’ve absorbed about what family is supposed to look like.

You can care about what other people think without allowing their understanding of your family to define your understanding of yourself.

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.