To the Readers:
My intention is to give you a glimpse into the reality of a reunification after an estrangement. Without therapy I don’t think it is possible to fully restore the relationship or heal the damage that has been done. I also know that if the outside influences that created parental alienation in the first place are still in the equation daily, estrangement will always be lurking in proximity. This happened with the relationship with my own parents due to Marie’s father and my inability to fully understand the family dynamics at that time.
I think it is crucial to stress the importance of working on yourself every day to become aware of your weaknesses, the role you played in the family dynamics to create an estrangement, and learn the tools to do things differently in the future. The past is the past, but the present moment is the opportunity to move forward with new insight and skills to become your best self. So if your child or other loved one chooses to come back into your life and end the estrangement, you’ll be the strength, beacon and light he/she will need to heal.
Hugs!
Dear Marie,
This last year of slow withdrawal has brought me to a new place in our world of estrangement. The first 5 1/2 years of estrangement I wrote my memoir to bring us both healing and truth. Initially my words were written with severity and raw emotion. Through time, editing and healing I was able to publish my truth from a place of wholeness, not brokenness. I did moral inventories through each step in editing to convey the truth, my truth, without bitterness that could ultimately hurt you. The dance was to write and not conceal the truth from you yet minimize the sting of truth. I wanted to protect us both yet hold the space open for honesty.
Honesty is my theme this morning. Today I wrote to Grace to share some excellent business news. I didn’t share with you personally nor on our group chat. Not because I didn’t want to, but because of fear and self-protection. I realized these two themes (fear and protection— yours and mine) are what governed and dictated my actions throughout your childhood, post divorce, during estrangement and now as well. Our family did not live in an environment of truth. We withheld, pretended and played roles in order to protect the dysfunctional family system.
As I’ve gone down the path to heal the self, I’ve learned my greatest value is truth and honesty. It’s been the hardest value to stay true to, but I have to look at it as strength training. I’m getting more honest as each day passes with opportunities all around me to practice saying what I really think and feel (and do so with tact). The fact is I don’t trust that our relationship is standing alone without your father’s involvement which has me withholding sharing my life with you for fear that it will be used to hurt you/me/us.
I understand your desire to share everything with your father. I did the same with him, as well as with my own mother when I was young. There should be no negative consequences to being truthful. With people who do not harbor hate and only love for others, you can share to your heart’s delight because people with love will grow love. People with hate and anger will grow hate and anger.
Both you and your sister have expressed to me that your father still seeps hate and anger towards me. He has not yet chosen the path of healing his internal wounds. This results in continual tactics to continue to sew an environment for parental alienation to germinate and grow rampant like a field of prolific weeds.
What I believe you don’t yet understand is how information can be used as leverage to hurt other people and control others. Sometimes withholding information is the safe thing to do. In healthy relationships the truth can help you grow together and create a space of shear safety within that relationship. In unhealthy relationships the truth can be manipulated to follow through on hidden agendas and can create a lot of misery and mayhem when there needn’t be any.
When you become more aware of yourself, you also become more aware of others. I’ve learned to understand the Bible verse not to throw pearls to swine. In other words do not give of yourself, your words or energy to someone who doesn’t understand your value or the value you can provide. It will drain you or in some cases harm you.
Bringing this back to you and our relationship it dawned on me this morning that although we have the door open between us, we have not had conversations about what exactly happened to create the door to be closed for 5 1/2 years. We have not had a conversation as to why the door has been narrowing over this past year.
Without deeply honest conversations to build a solid foundation for our relationship to grow and move forward, it’s like we are interacting in a holding tank and within that tank we either remain silent, speak superficially or withdraw out of fear, self-protection or protecting each other. I believe neither one of us actually wants to hurt each other, but without authentic interactions we are hurting each other.
I’ve spent the last month formulating how to reach out to you. I want to learn to build our relationship and create honesty and trust. My plan is to meet with my therapist who has specialized in relationship dynamics that create estrangement in order for us to have the necessary conversations to heal.
It has been five days since you moved out of your childhood home once again after having lived with your father for the past year and a half. Although living in one of his rental properties only a couple of blocks away, I hope this space will allow you to flourish and become your own best version of yourself—your true self. I hope this space will open up the door once again to us, the one that has been slowly closing. Only time will tell. Patience and trust, trust, trust I tell myself nearly every day. Trust that healing and relationship building will happen between us.
I love you Marie! And Grace if you are reading this! You two mean the world to me, always and forever!