Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them

by Karl Pillemer

“echo chamber,” in which they hear only views similar to their own. This tendency to find and listen to sympathetic others forms a major barrier to reconciliation.

It’s always something like: “I, an innocent little old lady, was harmlessly sitting in my living room when my crazy bitch of a daughter stormed in and started screaming and spitting on my face. She called me the worst mother who’s ever lived simply because I didn’t attend her eighth-grade graduation ceremony. Then she said that I would never see any of my grandchildren! Oh, and she said it all with a smug, evil, emotionless smile on her cold lips.” It’s all very exaggerated, so you’d look like a complete jerk to question it. Similarly, here is a mother who visited a “go no contact” thread for adult children who believe they were raised by narcissistic parents and need to cut them off completely. She told members of an estranged parents group:

I have news for you. They are all reading a script. They did join the same cult. What they are doing is called “Going No Contact.” It’s literally a scripted plan that they follow. It starts when they judge us as not just humans with whom they disagree, but “evil” because we don’t see things their way. They complain online, and meet other complaining children who honestly believe, thanks to the self-esteem movement, that any time they were uncomfortable for a moment equals abuse. If their parents disagreed with them or made them do something that they didn’t like or whacked their fresh asses when they talked back or refused to follow rules, they add this to their pile of justification. Lacking coping skills, they believe that anytime they are not happy, they have been wronged, and the person who dared to “make” them feel bad is a Narcissist.

The reconcilers offer this simple but highly effective advice: Talk to people who may not agree with your position.

It’s so easy to blame the other person. It’s just so much easier to say, “Well, he did this or he did that.” But of course everybody has a part in it, and if you don’t look at your own part in it, you can’t reconcile. If you’re only looking at their part, it’s just not possible, because it won’t work. I realized that I blew up and said some things I shouldn’t have said. I did insult him in unkind ways. People need to think about what they did, what’s their part in it. And if you’re going to make an apology or reach out, stick to your part in it and not their part.

the best was a group. Some kind of group, wherever you can find it.” She went on: I’m in a 12-step program. I go to Al-Anon for adult children of alcoholics, and everybody in there gets it.

We later reconciled, in large part because I learned to accept his limitations. It doesn’t do me any good to expect anything more from him, because it’s just not there. I would tell people that you may just have to let go of your expectations for the person. It is liberating. You stop wasting emotion expecting something that’s not going to be there.

Chevy Chase’s character Clark Griswold in the iconic Christmas movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the film, there is this bit of dialogue with his long-suffering wife, Ellen: Ellen: You set standards that no family activity can live up to. Clark: When have I ever done that? Ellen: Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, funerals, holidays, vacations, graduations . . . Clark and I are not alone; family life is built on expectations for one another’s behavior. At its best, this shared understanding of how we expect our relatives to act keeps family life running smoothly. When we interact with our families, we play a role in relation to the roles of others. That is, in fact, how a social role is defined: a set of expectations for how we are supposed to behave.

In most cases, a relative believed that his or her expectations were the only correct ones. Many estrangements are born, I learned, from the belief that my expectations are universally valid and that your failure to live up to them is grounds for ending the relationship.

“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.” The author Brené Brown states the idea even more clearly: “Disappointment is unmet expectations, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment.” Over and over, I saw the power of family-related “shoulds”: the relative should have done this or should not have done that.

“Is the failure to live up to my expectations worth ending the relationship?”

Family is supposed to be there to help you through everything in life. Your family is your roots and they’re there for you. He has burned the roots, He has burned the legacy. He just threw it all away. Family is always there for everything, and he’s just never going to have that. He’s broken one of the commandments already: “to honor your parents.” And honor does not necessarily mean love, but it does mean “be respectful.”

“Kids who cut off their parents have committed abandonment, they have committed desertion. If a soldier deserts, you don’t say, ‘What’s wrong with the military?’ You say it’s shame on him. It’s the same for the kids: It’s shame on them.”

many estranged parents held firmly to two sets of expectations: that their past provision of support to their child obligates the child to remain in the relationship, and that family ties are so binding that even chronic stress in the relationship should not undo them.

Many adult children do not subscribe to the view that they are obligated to remain in the relationship in the face of persistent unpleasant interactions. They are much more likely to weigh the positives of remaining connected against the negatives of stress and discomfort. Bridget Zaretsky’s experience is a typical one, showing how adult children eventually decide that the parent-child tie is not, in fact, absolute.

I think family is very important, but I don’t think that you have to work on toxic relationships forever if they’re not going to work. Just because you’re my blood relative does not mean that you are my family. I don’t see biology necessarily as family. I see it as mutual care for each other and a reciprocal relationship that both parties can benefit from. If you’re both not doing that, then I don’t consider that as family. I see that people who are not my biological family have been more like a family to me.

Make a concrete decision about whether this is someone you want in your life or somebody you feel you could do without. You can decide between blocking that contact or working on that relationship. If your parent responds negatively after many tries, you can go back to the first option, cutting off that tie. It takes being aware of yourself and the relationship, and making a decision and standing firm.

carefully weighing whether holding firm to one’s values and expectations is worth an estrangement. This consideration is particularly important for parents because of the imbalance in commitment to the relationship. Generally, it is easier for children to exit. Therefore, parents must weigh whether they have more to lose than their children do by holding to inflexible expectations.

THE TOOL KIT Most of the reconcilers had to grapple with the issue of unmet expectations, and they have clear advice about how to deal with them. One strategy they propose is abandoning the idea that we can change the other person. They also suggest exploring the possibility that your relative may have changed over time, and thus moved closer to your expectations and values. Finally, they propose a strategy that can guide decisions about reconciliation: asking yourself, What is the least that I can accept?

if you want to reconcile with somebody who hasn’t changed and hasn’t grown, or who’s not emotionally very healthy, you just have to accept them how they are. Accept that you’re never going to have that perfect relationship that you might be hoping for. You have to be okay with whatever relationship you get, and then do the best you can to protect yourself. But at least open the door for that relationship. It’s important to have a realistic sense of what might be possible and not to be hoping for something that never will be.

Stanford University demonstrate that as people move into their later years, they learn to better regulate their emotions and they place a higher value on interpersonal relationships with family.

flaw in holding to this view as years go by. Specifically: It is possible that the relative is no longer the same person with whom you originally had the rift.

to continue to make assumptions about a relationship based on data that are five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years old does not make sense. The reconcilers suggest that you take the opportunity to test the relationship to determine if the circumstances that led to your expectations being violated have changed.

Courtney’s attempt was successful because, over the long period of the rift, her mother-in-law had changed. She was no longer the relentless critic engaged in a struggle for her son against his wife. Her attitude and behavior had moved much closer to Courtney’s expectations.

The reconcilers’ message is clear: The passage of time and shifting circumstances may have profoundly changed the relative. The irresponsible person who let you down again and again may have become more reliable; the angry person may have mellowed; the harsh parent may be experiencing remorse over his or her behavior. After years, you may find a relationship partner who comes closer to your values. Expect the unexpected: Many reconcilers found that the estrangement had brought about important changes, allowing for reconciliation to take place.

is less than ideal, arguing that you are selling yourself short if you do so. Similarly, the legion of life coaches tells you not to settle for an unfulfilling job. They urge you to keep looking until you find a career that aligns with your hopes and dreams. If you subscribe to such views, I am going to ask you to suspend them when you think about reconciliation. In most cases, both parties have to settle for less than they desired to restore the relationship. As I analyzed the interviews of individuals who reconnected, as well as those whose reconciliation attempts had failed, one clear piece of advice emerged: Decide what is the least you can accept in a restored relationship.

to get to this positive ending, Polly had to carefully consider the question: What is the least I can accept to reconcile? For Polly, after six years of separation, the answer was an easy one: She would unconditionally accept whatever terms her daughter proposed.

she decided she was willing to accept whatever terms were required. She abandoned the need for an apology for her daughter’s lack of empathy and understanding,

when I go to her house, there are pictures of their kids’ birthday parties. They are lovely photos, and I don’t say, ‘Gee, I sure wish I could have been there.’ You have to move on, let it go, and be happy for what you do have.”

if there’s any chance of reconciliation with a child, I don’t see putting stipulations down. As the parent, you have to take the high road, in my opinion. And I don’t know a nice way to put it: You may have to eat dirt in order to move forward. I know a lot of people refuse to give in. “I will not apologize; I will not do this or that.” But you’ve got to give in to get ahead, if that’s what you really want.

Accepting the relationship on the relative’s terms was a “foot in the door” to a renewed relationship. As time went on, the terms were relaxed as trust was built. Polly shook her head and laughed: And you know what? All these stipulations? They all fizzled. All went up in smoke and everything turned out fine. My husband now has a nice relationship with my grandkids. When I babysit, my daughter and her husband come home to a clean house, cooked food, and so how can you complain? The children are happy, they tell my daughter they love being with their grandma, so the original rules just went away.

“You can go home again—but it won’t be the same ‘home.’”

longing, of nostalgia for a past in which family relationships, if not smooth, at least provided a comforting base of security and attachment. They described a yearning to have things “return to normal.” I learned from my interviews that many people imagine a reconciliation not unlike that of the Prodigal Son. But what happens when the dream doesn’t come true?

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously offered this maxim: “A person never steps in the same stream twice.” Like that proverbial stream, family life during the time of estrangement has continued to flow and change.

When people explain why a family member has cut them off, they often attribute it to the relative’s anger, hostility, selfishness, or other negative attributes. But my interviews uncovered a more important reason why people remain in an estrangement for years: They are anxious about what it would take to reconcile. They are afraid to make themselves vulnerable again to unwanted demands, fights, criticism, and disapproval.

that I should not go to any more to family events. That’s kind of sad, but at the same time, without all of that drama in my life, I don’t have the stress. I go back and forth between wanting to have all of them and wanting to have none of them.

We have friends who have all their relatives come to their house for holidays, and we kind of get adopted into that family. And I see that it’s nice to have family, and I wish we had it. I’m just afraid of getting drawn back into his meanness and craziness.

key insight of Bowen theory is that people cut off a relative not because they no longer care but because they may care too much. When the emotional intensity of a relationship becomes too high, cutting it off serves as an escape valve. This idea, in particular, resonates throughout my studies of estrangement. Bowen theory asserts that family life embodies a fundamental conflict between togetherness, which is referred to as “fusion,” and individuality, or “differentiation.” When the push toward fusion with family members is too great, anxiety ensues.

successful reconnection, they realized that the limits needed to be clear and concrete. The reconcilers propose a strategy of setting specific terms for the renewed relationship. Their second strategy involves taking the long view, understanding that it is likely to be a process of setting terms, having them violated, and trying again. Finally, they strongly suggest seeking professional counseling for help in sticking to the terms of the renewed relationship.

The two groups made comments that were mirror images of each other, and shared the same fundamental weakness. On one side, those asking to be let back in declared their willingness to “do anything” the relative wanted. The initiators, on their part, claimed that they had already provided many chances and that the relative failed at them (reinforcing the idea of “I’m done!”). From the viewpoint of the reconcilers, however, neither party has followed the path that makes reconnecting work. Whether you are offering or requesting one more chance, their advice is to make the terms of the reconciliation as specific as possible.

The goal is to move beyond old grievances and patterns of behavior, offering the conditions for reconciliation in an unambiguous way.

My son from my first marriage was estranged from me for a number of years. He then lost his job in his late twenties and had mental health problems. He came to me asking for help. He was living in marginal circumstances, and my husband and I said, “We want you to be safe. Come out and stay with us.” Things were okay at the beginning but went south after about a year. He attached himself to friends who were having problems with the law, he was lying, he was abusing drugs.

need to move out and start your new life. We’re going to be here if you need us, but we’re not going to be engaged with you while you’re doing these things wrong.”

As might have been predicted, Merrill was arrested and hit rock bottom. At that point, he asked for another try at a relationship with Harriet and her husband. After all he had put them through, they were understandably reluctant and debated about maintaining the estrangement. Harriet told me that things had to be very different: “We knew that otherwise we would not have a relationship with him, because we could not handle it anymore.”

Through his experiences, Merrill had taken responsibility for his situation and no longer blamed Harriet and her husband: He told us that the problems that were happening were not caused by others. He understood that we weren’t being mean, or mad, or bad by not being willing to give him everything he wanted when we didn’t think that it was right. He said he did a lot of crying in therapy about this anger at himself. He has a job now and a better set of friends. So we came back in and helped him build a reasonable life. Our relationship has reopened.