Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

by Karl Pillemer

Think of a volcano. The fire’s inside and steam is coming out of the top. But all of a sudden, it’s not from the top but from a fissure that opens up on the side where lava comes pouring out. It’s not what you might expect, not the dramatic blowing of the top, but something relatively minor. All that gas and lava comes spewing out. A relatively trivial opening can be just as devastating as the top going off of Mount St. Helens.

Just as the circumstances leading to a volcanic eruption build over the course of years, the powerful estrangement event is the culmination of a long history of tension and disappointment.

The signature incident embodied long-standing, unresolved conflicts, which then exploded in an unexpected way. For many people, the volcanic event crystallizes everything that was wrong about the relationship. Out of many similar moments, they are pushed toward dramatic action by this particular event, even if they do not understand precisely why.

When estranged people tell others about the event that led to the rift, they often encounter the response, “Wait—that’s all that happened?”

After the initial shock, they harden over time and are reinforced by rumination. Social science helps us unravel the mystery by showing that it is in fact normal to be profoundly affected by negative relationship events.

They define “angry rumination” as “perseverative thinking about a personally meaningful anger-inducing event.” The event may have happened to you or to someone else;

it is natural to reflect back on a troubling incident, but angry rumination is different from that kind of self-analysis because it is repetitive and intrusive. It involves keeping up the thoughts about the event and playing the episode over and over in one’s mind. Such rumination is often invasive; you may relive the event mentally as you are driving to work, taking a shower, or making dinner.

understanding such events and our response to them can be a key to decoding the causes of a rift, as well as to finding a path forward. People who moved beyond “I can’t believe he or she did that to me!” discovered avenues toward reconciliation. In “The Tool Kit” below, we will explore different ways in which the reconcilers dealt with volcanic events.

the “cause” of the estrangement is not the event itself. Rather, the momentous incident serves as a critical turning point that emerges from a long history of interactions. The first strategy they propose is working to understand the event. By doing so, you can go a long way toward uncovering the cause of the rift. The second strategy is to take action immediately after the rift, before the emotions harden and are difficult to change. In the final strategy, they turn the idea around, proposing that we look for events that can lead to reconciliation.

the “out of the blue” incident was in fact indicative of long-standing problems in their relationship. More important, she became aware that her own actions had contributed to past problems the event symbolized.

she began to see the relationship in a different way that opened her up to reconciliation: I realized that every single one of us is one hundred percent responsible for fifty percent of the relationship. I asked myself a hard question: “Was

The situation is in progress; as Susie put it: “It’s a guarded reconciliation at this point. I’m being very careful and cautious with the relationship. It’s still not where I would like it to be, but it’s better than it ever was.

tracking back from the incident and understanding it from the other person’s perspective is extremely useful.

What in our shared history created the background for this event?

viewpoints of both parties harden quickly after a volcanic event. In a relatively short time, it becomes easier to stay in the rift. The new reality sets in fast; therefore, the time to “make things better” is as soon as possible after the blowup.

“I should have had a heart-to-heart with Gloria right away. After a week or two, we were both so angry, and I guess hardened. It was terribly difficult even to start a conversation.” Days turned into weeks, and over time Gloria simply got used to the lack of contact.

relationship “first aid” is needed after a major blowup. As each week goes by, it becomes more and more difficult to pick up the phone or write an email asking to discuss the incident. One reason why speedy communication is so important is that the incident may have been based on mistaking the intentions of the other person or reading things into his or her actions. If for no other reason, engaging soon after the event can help identify whether the cause is a misunderstanding,

go back soon and clear things up. Just try to talk to the person as honestly as possible. Because the more you beat around issues and avoid them, the more compacted they become, the worse it is, and the harder it is to try to get to the core. The longer you wait, the harder it will be.

He overstepped normal boundaries and we had a blowup. Then he lied to others about what happened. I cut all contact with him for a year. We were helped to get over it by a mediator, and I would recommend this to anyone in my situation. I think people should seek out somebody who can identify the problem and help each of them avoid it in the future. Each person is so entrenched in their victimization that they can’t see their participation in the blowup. Find a mediator who is an objective third party and does not have a dog in this race. Because there’s no way that you can have clarity when you are so emotionally invested.

I have two adult children, and they don’t get along very well, unfortunately. So I was having lunch with my son, and I was lecturing him that he should try to get along better with his sister. And he turned to me and he said, “Like you do with your sister?” That was my lightbulb moment. I called her that day, and we both decided to try again. We are so close now. I have felt nothing but joy that we have reconnected.

awareness may mean you are ready to let go of the event that led to the estrangement. Pay special attention when a nudge hits you strongly. Just as one incident can begin an estrangement, another event may occur that hits at a gut level with the message: It’s time to let go.

Just as you have created a narrative about the event (one you may have shared many times), you can also change that narrative. Indeed, taking a hard look at the story one has been telling can lead to a shift in perspective.

going beyond just remembering an event to analyzing, interpreting, and explaining it can lead to wisdom. Thus, although you do not have the power to go back in time and change the event, it is possible to construct a different narrative, which may help you to let it go.

“I decided I was not going to live with a family estrangement—I would rather have a relationship on her terms. Part of it may be that we are Latino; family is just so important in our culture.”

This lightbulb went on in my head that all these years I was trying to establish a relationship like I thought it should be. I had this ideal image of an equal, healthy, adult relationship, and I came to the realization that I had to understand her personality and her ideas. It hit me that I wouldn’t try to make her see things my way. I would just stop all of that. I changed my thinking from the idea that I have to fix her to something like this: “It’s okay, you’re not in that role anymore of trying to help her. Just take what you can get.” And I would have never accepted that before.

Reflecting on the volcanic event, Julia mentally rewrote the story of what occurred, adding in her daughter’s perspective to the narrative:

I would think about that terrible time at our house, and I’d ask myself, “What have I done? You know, all I’ve done is try.” And then one day another lightbulb went off: “All I’ve done is try?” That’s exactly what I’ve done! I’ve tried too hard. That’s my fault in this. I’ve tried too hard and too much. When Alma blew up, she was pushing against those efforts from my husband and me. Why all those years did we keep trying to take her on and make her see reason, or see things the way we did? So I came to see what happened that night in an entirely different light, and it changed the way I saw the entire estrangement.

“A lost coin is found by means of a candle; the deepest truth is found by means of a simple story.”

rewriting your event narrative may help you see the incident in a different light and point toward a new direction for the relationship.

that I did not want to be that person who left the world with a grudge, or with someone having a grudge toward me. So I reconnected with my dad. So many things had gone on between us that it was tempting to bring up past hurts. But I could tell that he was more interested in seeing who I was and me seeing who he was than hashing up the past. We both found that we were focused on more important things in life, and on connecting with one another. So in a way it was like a new relationship.

In many families I interviewed, past and present were so interwoven that they became inseparable. For some, the history of the relationship almost entirely overwhelmed the present

To what extent must the other person come to agree with my version of the past?

involved. In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to earlier scenes in his life. Scrooge becomes a shade, a kind of ghost of his present self, who lingers unseen as events transpire. The past is something like this in estranged relationships, a figure in the background who haunts the present, creating a lens through which the participants view their current interactions. The past isn’t past at all.

In an estrangement, the issue is not simply coming to terms with one’s own past. Instead, people wish to impose their vision of the relationship’s past on others. They insist that the other person must understand what really went on and admit his or her critical failings.

dishonest with herself and with her children, portraying family life as idyllic to others. For Eric, this was the beginning of a pattern of deceit. Eric and Paula continued to struggle in their relationship to their mother, and the core issues lay in the interpretation of what occurred forty or more years ago. Their very descriptions showed the gap in what is considered to be “reality” itself.

Over and over in my interviews with people who remained in estrangements, I heard the term “reality.” At the risk of redundancy, each person’s reality is the real reality, and the other’s view is biased, reconstructed, or delusional. I discovered in my studies that one of the major barriers to reconnection is the urge to align two views of the past. Many people remain estranged for that reason alone: The other person will not give up his or her view of past events and subscribe to the “correct” one.

disagreements about what “really happened” in the past. For Alan, it is essential that his parents adopt his view of past events and give up their own. For even first steps toward a reconciliation, they must accept blame: What we are looking for is my parents to apologize and acknowledge that their concerns about Inez were false, and that these were their own issues that they needed to work through. In the past, I approached my parents about this, and they took the stance of, “No, the problem was just her, and we’re not going to apologize for anything.” My family was very much in denial,

“They would like to just start over and not process what went on.” Alan, however, cannot move on without aligning their views of the past. Otherwise, he feels that a reconciliation is impossible. There was resignation in his voice as he told me: “I can’t just sweep this under the rug. That’s what my family wanted,

but a point was reached when the past mattered less than the present and future did. We will explore their advice for moving on together without a shared narrative of past events.

THE TOOL KIT

reconcilers are nearly unanimous on one strategy: Bridging the rift requires abandoning the urge to align the past.

second strategy is based on this principle: Time spent waiting for an apology is time wasted.

Third,

Focus on building a new future that can ec...

individuals involved develop narratives based on what is necessarily selective memory.

Rather than representing an objective “truth,” narratives tend to support our own identity.

“Narratives move beyond simple chronological accounts to include thoughts, emotions, motivations, intentions, and evaluations, essentially describing a human drama of self and others.”

both parties have composed narratives that place them at the center of the family drama and support their sense of self. The crea...

critically important conclusion: It is unlikely, especially after years of estrangement, that someone is going to simply accept your narrative of what caused it. Even agreement on the existence of specific events is not enough, as people disagree on the details and the meaning of those events.

their accounts break off—so much so that they could be describing two different families.