How blameless we all are!
“how blameless we all are! None of us intended any of this!”
THAT is the truth! Not one of us did anything that caused estrangement. Any difficulties or issues they had should have been resolved by talking to us, not used as a lame excuse to cut us off completely.
— a parent in an estranged parents’ forum
This tidy string of cliches summarizes, in exactly 50 words, why it’s so hard for members of estranged parents’ forums to grasp why they’re estranged.
how blameless we all are!
Members of estranged parents’ forums are allergic to blame. Not a little sniffly, scratchy-throat allergy, but a full on call-911, grab-an-epipen death allergy.
On a mixed forum, I once witnessed an amazing argument in which a member argued that because the child is the one who makes the decision to cut off, the child is to blame for the estrangement. She complained that when children talked about being estranged from their parents, “There’s plenty of he/she did this so it’s their fault I decided,” and said, “I understand explaining why someone cut someone off- I don’t understand why someone blames another for deciding to cut someone off-”
Another member asked, “Why is it so important to you that the person who is behaving badly is not blamed for the ending of the relationship?”
Her answer was some of the weirdest hair-splitting I’ve seen:
“They are responsible “for their part” in the termination of the relationship- But the decision to end it is not because it isn’t their decision to make- Their decision was to treat you horribly, unfortunately- Fortunately,you chose to cut them out of your life, which isn’t something they would have decided to do on their own-”
What came out of the discussion was that the member wanted estranged adult children to say, “It was my decision to cut my parents off,” and end the sentence there. Not a word about anything their parents did that prompted their decision. It was that important to the member that estranged parents not be associated with any possible blame.
Blame allergy.
At the time, I thought she was an isolated case. But no, when I knew to look for it, it popped up everywhere. One of the phrases members use to console themselves is, “We didn’t choose this, so we didn’t cause this.”
None of us intended any of this!
And you’re responsible only for what you intend to do. Intent is magical.
Not one of us did anything that caused estrangement.
Nothing but the worst abuse justifies estrangement, and none of us could have been that abusive because our membership in this forum certifies that we’re loving, caring parents. Therefore, we couldn’t have done anything bad enough to justify the estrangement.
Any difficulties or issues they had should have been resolved by talking to us
…because they never tried to talk to us. At least, not in a way we liked. And all the conversations we had that we liked were resolved to our satisfaction, so we don’t see what the problem is.
not used as a lame excuse to cut us off completely.
There are no reasons, only excuses, which by definition are feeble, wrong, and lying.
The combined logic creates an impenetrable wall. It’s like the Fortress of Solitude in here, guys. Only the worst abuse justifies estrangement, and joining this community proves that you’re not an abuser. Not only does any lesser behavior not count as real abuse, it also counts only if the person intended it to hurt you, and then you have to talk it out with them in a way they’re willing to accept, and you have to do it without casting blame, because blame is horrible and toxic and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking of blaming somebody. Especially somebody in this group, which is composed solely of parents who are certified non-abusive.
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In trying to understand parents who behave this way I do often lurk at a couple of estranged parents forums. I started researching this issue when I wanted to help my BF with his parents and also realized at that time how much my own parents, and other family members, had emotionally abused me.
One forum in particular I’ve come to believe is the “end of the line” for many of the members. They have absolutely no hope or even wish to reconcile with their children. And they certainly don’t want to understand the situation, as instinctively they know that understanding would place the blame where it belongs, and that would crush them.
They are there simply to survive by finding others who also have given up so they can hug and soothe each other. Honestly, maybe that’s not the worst thing. At least they’ve gotten to the point of leaving their poor kids alone.
I know the forum you’re talking about, and I agree. It brings peace to people who aren’t going to find peace any other way.
Estrangement forums bear some similarity to pro-ana forums. They encourage dysfunctional thinking and behavior, and can entrench the members’ preexisting dysfunctions, but OTOH, the bulk of their membership is made up of people who are already predisposed to that flavor of dysfunction. They give solace to people who sorely need it and who can’t find solace in healthier places. And when a member gets into a bad spot, they help pull her back from the brink. One could wish the coping strategies they teach were healthier, but the members have already encountered healthier strategies and rejected them. There comes a time–especially in psychological issues with a high suicide rate–that any strategy is better than none at all.
Gah – I just discovered your site via Carolyn Hax’s FB page. I don’t have the heart to go to the estranged parents’ forums, but I don’t need to, because I heard it all from my own mother, between the time my sister went NC from her and I when I did. My sister was very clear about her reasons but my mother insisted she did it for attention, or, later, that her husband, aka world’s nicest man, drove a wedge between them.
And when my father, from whom 3/4 of his kids, including me, were estranged, died, I learned all about his rationalizations from his second wife. Again despite the fact that the we all told him clearly what was wrong.
Even though my parents have both been gone for a while, I still sometimes feel guilty. Your website is very comforting – reminds me that my parents’ manipulations were just that, not facts.
It’s maddening how they just. don’t. hear.
And the garbage they come up with–why would your sister cut your mother off for attention? If your mother was that good to her, why didn’t she keep your mother’s love and attention and get attention from her peers through selfies or extreme sports or wild stories about her boss or, I don’t know, becoming famous for gorgeous steampunk outfits? If she needed to be a victim, she could have spun stories about roommates, friends, co-workers, church groups, boyfriends/girlfriends… We live in a world where both positive and negative attention are as easy to get as posting on a blog. (Ahem.) Why go scorched earth and take out as rich a source of attention as your own mother? …Unless maybe, just maybe, you actually have a real, substantive problem with her that has nothing at all to do with wanting attention.
Getting it from both parents must have been deeply frustrating. I’m sorry you and your siblings had to go through that, and glad my site is a comfort to you.
It seems impossible that anyone could write the phrase “how blameless we all are!” without it being bitterly ironic. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t gotten it with both barrels from my malignant narc mother and one barrel from my father (who, in his 12 step program, asked me to tell him if he had “anything” to apologize for). Life got so much better when I CO’d them all. They still acted as if they didn’t know why, right up to the end.
Issendai, your work is immensely affirming and informative. It helps a lot to see it as a system and not just individual evil. I’m glad you’re back.
I’ve never seen the estranged parent forums, but I’ve been reading the abuse victim forums since I’ve been thinking about cutting off my grandmother due to emotional abuse. The entire idea that they’re blameless, and that it’s all our fault we want them out of our lives just makes me laugh. If someone is so obtuse that they don’t see a problem with their behavior, even if it’s explained a million times, then I don’t even want that type of person in my life.
I found the estranged parents forums to be helpful to my emotional recovery. Being able to see the twisted words coming from strangers helped me put my mother’s behavior into perspective without the interference of the emotionally-loaded relationship. It’s amazing to me that I can read the posts in a forum and fully understand how bizarre some of the thinking is, but they can’t see it in each other at all. I’m OK with them being sort of the last chance at peace for members. The issue is that some of the posters just start out kind of on the border and the forum pushes them entirely into justifying the dysfunction and relaxing into it. I don’t think that an inclination toward the dysfunctional thinking per se means some of those relationships couldn’t be saved with some rational guidance, but it’s so comforting to have others telling you it’s not your fault. In one of the worst of the forums (likely the one previously referred to), there’s one person that seems to be struggling with her own contribution to the estrangement, but members are almost aggressively talking her out of it. Ultimately I think that many of these parents don’t really care that they’re estranged. It’s just this badge they wear. Their identities as martyrs are dependent on convincing anyone that joins that they are martyrs too. It’s not just avoiding blame, but a whole identity built upon being blameless.