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| Here's a link regarding books on estrangements from Healing Estranged Relationships for anyone who is interested.
This link includes 2 stories about adult children who are estranged from their mother. An estranged son and another. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/785562 |
Here is a link that might be useful: Healing Estranged Relationships
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Khandi, Thank you for the post and links. One common thread I find is that most estranged children don't have any capacity to forgive. They expect their parents to "change" for them. Well, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but people can't and won't change for other people. I know this for a fact because I have tried to change my parents over the past 42 years. After many years of repeated disappointment, I finally gave up and learned to accept them for who they are. PEOPLE! I think that acceptance and healing the hurt is the only way of ending an estrangement. The bottom line is this: NONE of us are perfect parents. There isn't a parent on the planet who hasn't made some mistakes along the way. BUT is it fair for our children to spend the rest of our lives making us pay for those mistakes? I can speak with validity on the subject. I didn't/don't have the greatest parents. I have all kinds of issues stemming from a childhood of emotional abuse. However, I choose not to blame all of my current problems on my parents. I am grown now and fully responsible for my own decisions, reactions, and behaviors. I do not alienate my parents. I chose to forgive them for their short-comings. "People are people." This includes parents. Sometimes I think children idolize their parents too much. They put them on a pedestal and expect them to be perfect. We screw-up and they throw us out with the bathwater. I don't know why our children can't accept that we aren't nor will we ever be perfect, forgive us, and move forward. Instead they continue to punish us for something we can't possibly fix. The past is the past, we can't change it. The only thing we can control is the future. If my daughter can't forgive (what? could SHE have a short-coming?) then so be it. I will continue to move forward without her. Life is too short and the moments too precious. In the end, when we are all gone, 100 years from now, will it even matter? No one will know and no one will care. "Live for today" is my new motto. I for one, am tired of being a victim of something I can't control. I am reclaiming my right to live a happy, healthy, and satisfying life with or without my daughter. Have a great night, |
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