🌗 Estrangement Has Two Sides: Holding Space for the Unseen Story

This book is excellent, and gives a different perspective from someone who was parentally estranged. This is the front cover of the book

One of the hardest truths I’ve had to accept about estrangement is this:Every story has more than one side.

When people hear the word estranged, they often assume they know what happened. They want to assign blame, take sides, wrap it up with a bow, and move on.

But real life is far more complicated than that.

Estrangement isn’t always loud or explosive. Sometimes it begins quietly—with misunderstandings, unmet expectations, emotional distance that builds slowly until it becomes a wall. Sometimes it happens after years of love and laughter. Sometimes it happens even when your intentions were good.

I know my side of the story. I live with it every single day.But I also know I’m not the only one in this story.

Our adult daughter has her own perspective, her own hurt, her own reasons. I don’t know all of them. Maybe I never will. But I try to hold space for the fact that she, too, is human.Just like me. Just like Nelson.

I don’t speak out about estrangement to make someone else the villain.

I speak out because my silence was swallowing me whole.

I needed a space to express my pain, to untangle the grief and guilt, to say, “This hurts, and I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t.”I also needed a place to say, “I still love her,” without judgment or shame.

That’s the tension of estrangement.It lives in the and:

• I’m hurting, and I still love them.

• I feel abandoned, and I know they’re hurting too.

• I want to fix it, and I’ve had to accept that I can’t.

• I believe in reconciliation, and I also believe in boundaries.

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The work of healing doesn’t mean ignoring your pain. It means learning to carry it with grace, without letting it harden your heart.

It means allowing yourself to hope—but not hinge your entire identity on someone else’s return.

So today, I choose to believe that God sees both sides, even when I can’t.He is not just healing my heart—He’s working on all of us.

If you’re walking this path, I want to encourage you:You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to explain your side to everyone. You don’t have to win anyone over.

But you can be honest. You can be tender and brave. You can speak your truth without silencing someone else’s.

Estrangement has two sides—and sometimes, the only healing we’ll see is the one that begins in us.

I also want to share something personal that helps me understand this truth more deeply: I am estranged from my older brother and his family. It’s not because I don’t love them—I do. But being around them gives me tremendous anxiety. I am not comfortable with the conversations, and for my own mental health, I have chosen to stay away. That’s a decision I didn’t make lightly, and it has brought peace to my heart, even though it’s still painful.

That’s why I cannot judge my estranged adult daughter. Maybe she feels similarly. I don’t know. As much as this hurts Nelson and me, I have to give thought and legitimacy to the fact that she hurts too. I know I have hurt her, just as she has hurt me. If there is going to be any healing in our family, I have to acknowledge her hurt as well. It isn’t just about me or Nelson.

It’s about all of us—our entire family.

If I had access to her to have a conversation right now, or even to write a letter, or if I knew she somehow reads this blog, I want to make sure that it represents the two sides of the coin, the yin and the yang. Estrangement is not simple, and it is not about an apology—it is about a real change. Change that is permanent.

Sometimes the only way to change the landscape of an area is to blow it up. Every single time a volcano erupts, it changes the landscape of the surrounding area. It changes shape. The land changes. It never looks the same as it did before. There is bad and good in it—just like estrangement. The best thing is to not assign blame to anyone. Be ready to listen, and be open to listening to a good therapist—and maybe even your other children.

I guarantee you that my listening to my other two adult children about what they experienced growing up was an emotional volcanic explosion all of its own. Nelson and I were not bad parents. We were supportive and loving. We are human, and humans hurt humans. No matter what, there is damage. None of us come out of childhood unscathed.

I can scream and yell and cry, and I have—but I have to consider that she has done the same. I realize she didn’t make the decision on a whim. It was a thought she carried for a while, and eventually, she had to separate herself to preserve her own mental health.

A friend of mine recently sent me the name of a book: "Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement" by Harriett Brown. I’m reading it right now. It shares the perspective of a woman who was estranged from her mother, and it’s giving me a lot to think about. I highly recommend it to anyone who is estranged from their adult children. It’s necessary for us to see both sides, to look at things from the point of view of our adult child. We cannot put all the weight on them. We must take responsibility for our own errors.

Please don’t think that I am discounting your pain or mine.

I know you’ve probably apologized—maybe many times. I have too. But apologies in words aren’t always what our estranged adult children need. That’s something I’m learning. Truthfully, I don’t know what my daughter needs. All I can do is give myself what I need and work on creating a healthy mindset. Our children, no matter how old, need their parents to put the child's emotional and mental needs above their own. I have to make sure that I am not needing my children to feed the spaces in my heart and soul, but rather are feeding and encouraging what they need. Our children, young or adult, do not need us to be our listening ear, or the people that we lean on. We have therapists, and friends for those things, and we need to keep those worlds separate.

I have to become someone who can win friends, someone who is helpful, someone who chooses love and healing. The best way I can serve my estranged adult daughter is by getting better myself.

With compassion and courage,

Crystal

Please remember that you are loved and enough. Let us hear from you. Nelson and i would love to hear your story.

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