One of the best questions my therapist has asked me to date is: “Are you certain you’re estranged?” when I casually told her I’m estranged from most of my family. I have not been in touch with most of my family for most of my life. As a kid, my parents and I went to some of the obligatory family gatherings. The fish fry at my dad’s old racist uncle’s farm. The huge christmas gatherings where the old relatives set up folding tables in the host family’s basement and card games and pool would be played into the night. An occasional funeral or memorial service where I’d see people I vaguely recognized but did not know their names.
When I was eighteen I got married. Eighteen. I left my family thinking I was leaving to do better things, live a better, different life than I could have imagined if I had stayed with them. I didn’t know exactly why until decades later. My teenaged brain made a bad decision to get married because I didn’t understand there was an option to do life on my own. That wedding was the last time I saw the large number of extended family members I knew. I didn’t have models of living on my own in my life except one much older cousin, Ruth, who seemed like the solo traveler of the family and whenever I got to see her which was not often at all, I loved hearing her stories but I still didn’t connect that I could live on my own. I genuinely don’t know what her life was really like and am not certain she was independent. So at eighteen I left my family behind and gave that about as much thought as I did deciding to get married. That meant I also left behind all of the older people in my life that I was only tenuously connected to.
For the first years of my marriage I got christmas cards from some of the older relatives which was nice in the way that once a year someone thought of me and my children. I don’t think many people in my family knew I was struggling in a violent marriage. Not even the closest person to me in my family at the time knew what was going on until years after I divorced, and to this day she does not know how bad it was. I don’t remember when, but the cards stopped and the gifts to my kids stopped and at a point, I was completely disconnected.
After my therapist asked me the question I looked up estrangement. It turns out I’m not estranged from all of my family. I’m disconnected from them. I am estranged from several members. It was an interesting exercise to go through.
Estrangement is taboo. There are many online communities focused on estrangement. I may or may not ever have relationships with the people I am estranged from at the moment. Some of them I have cut ties with completely and one has an on and off estrangement with me which is mostly exhausting.
Estrangement is one of the traumas, I believe, we pass around families. It becomes this weapon of choice. It can be used for good - to protect our own mental health and to allow us time to reassess our decisions, behaviors and the part we play in the destruction of a relationship or family tie. It can be used mindlessly too. In the past, when I felt wounded by anyone I treated being wounded in the same way with everyone - I cut ties. That was because I didn’t have a single tool to address conflict or being hurt. That feeling of needing to leave my family I mentioned earlier? That was part of why I handled things so badly: the rules were 1) be quiet about everything 2) do not ask for anything you truly want 3) never ever ever put yourself first, last, always last, give everything of yourself until you’re spent but don’t expect anyone to aid you.
It’s a tough lesson to learn late in life as I am now. Today, I can see the difference between a conflict that needs to be worked through and a toxic situation that I have complete freedom to walk away from. I missed out on a few potentially amazing friendships because of my past misunderstanding about conflict.
When I think about the definition of estrangement, I recognize I was low contact with my parents for years. I was caught between a violent man who thought he was above everyone and my own dysfunctional parents who were not capable of confronting me or him or any part of the situation let alone protect me from any of it. So I stayed and my soul died a little every year I stayed.
I mention that because estrangement is a thread that has yet to be torn from the fabric of my life. It’s an unaddressed harm that was handed firmly to me, I have handed to my children and my children are choosing to use in their own ways. As my kids grow and their own lives take on the deep complexities we all face, there will be moments they have to choose how to use this thread I regret handing them. Or they will have to choose to cut it and let it end.
As I get healthier and grow stronger in my own ability to confront, work through conflict, and discern the various hurts that have yet to come in my life, I hope I get the chances to mend some of the relationships I have broken, some I miss dearly, so they can grow if they are meant to.