Dear Sally/Sam from Minnesota,
*Note—Both men and women suffer from the estrangement of their children due to a high conflict divorce. Therefore, I use both Sally and Sam to illustrate that point.
Thank you so much for reaching out and sharing your estrangement experience with me. You are no longer alone. In my memoir I referred to estrangement being like a very heavy backpack we carry which no one else can see. It is such a lonely journey carrying that tremendous weight each day in secret.
I am here to share with you that it is time to stop shaming and blaming yourself. People that know you and really love you will be by your side; those that don’t have probably already moved on. Please remember that if that happens, it will be their loss not yours. This is what I do know; most of us who have been estranged are kind. We are the bleeding hearts of this world; the ones who love completely and fully!
Ninety-nine percent of us who have faced Parental Alienation are empaths. We are empathic people who have had some weak boundaries with some very dominating personality types.
Estrangement happened due to some mistakes on your part during the marriage, separation and divorce, but not as egregiously as you might think! What it really boiled down to was reaching a point where you had lost all shred of self-esteem by handing your love, talents and power over to someone else expecting that it would come back to you in the same way. The reality is it didn’t. That is what hurts! That is what is shocking! That doesn’t make you wrong or weak. It just means you spent all your goodness on another person who was not able to reciprocate and also happened to be the person with whom you had children.
Once you realize that your greatest fault was loving someone who couldn’t give back and had so much pain in his/her soul to nurture a separation between you and your child/children, your shame will begin to lift. Your children are children. They are innocent and impressionable even more so than you. And look! You kept believing and hoping and wishing and loving and remaining in your relationship despite not receiving love and fairness.
So, it is time to stop being ashamed of what has happened. Of course you made mistakes, we all do, but the estrangement is not something that you deserved. However, it is your reality now. You can fight the estrangement, blame your ex and others and suffer every day or you can decide to move forward with your life. The choice is yours! Hopefully you will reach a point like I did when you decide you no longer wish to wake up each day miserable wasting away your life with each passing day.
Once you accept how unfair the situation is and that it is simply out of your control, you will then be ready to figure out what is in your control. There is one positive opportunity that comes along with estrangement and that is the gift of time. Once the worst of the grieving is over, you will have time (perhaps the first time in years) to make yourself a priority.
By not putting yourself first all these years, you more than likely forgot who you were down in your core. You forgot what you liked to do, what you liked to eat, how you liked to spend free time and the list goes on. You gave of yourself completely to your spouse and children to make a life and a family you were determined to have.
Then the estrangement comes along and you realize that every role you once played is now gone. You are not a mother or a spouse yet that is all you knew. So who are you now when stripped from everything you ever believed yourself to be?