You raised your child, loved them, worried about them, and did what you thought was best. Now that same child doesn’t want you in their life. Maybe you know why and maybe you don’t. Either way, you’re left wondering how to move forward from here.
When an adult child stops speaking you wonder what you did wrong to warrant such drastic action. As you ruminate conversations over in your head, you’ll wonder what you might have said differently to produce a different outcome.
In my estrangement journey, I experienced considerable guilt and shame. It’s a common feeling when you are estranged from a son or daughter.
You’ll wonder how to move forward, if at all. Sometimes you want to reach out and other times you feel the need to step back and let them make the first move. It can be exhausting.
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about those feelings and what you can do to move forward personally – even amid the estrangement.
How to Move Forward When Your Child Won’t Speak to You
Gut-wrenching pain is the best description I can find when an adult child won’t speak to you. Emotional pain can turn into physical pain and create troubling health issues you never wanted. How do you move forward?
I’ll cover five points for you to consider. Moving forward sounds like you are giving up on the relationship sometimes, but that’s not the case. Neither does it guarantee reconciliation. No one can promise that. It requires two people and you’re only able to control you.
Let’s look at the five points.
- Acknowledge the Loss
- Why Moms Can Become Stuck
- Separate Control from What Cannot be Controlled
- Moving Forward without Giving Up
- An exercise to put it all together.
Acknowledge the Loss
When your child won’t speak to you, there is an enormous loss. Thinking about the relationship when it was good, wondering what they are doing and if they miss you. Birthdays and holidays come and go, and an empty chair remains at your table.
Estrangement may include other relationships such as grandchildren you no longer see. You’ve lost a relationship with someone you love deeply and are grieving someone who is still alive. An episode you may want to consider later is How to Grieve Someone Who is Alive at https://beckykolb.com/80
Simply give yourself permission to acknowledge the loss. It’s okay to grieve this person and all the memories along with missing them terribly. Resist the urge to hide it. Acknowledge the loss because it’s real.
Why Moms Become Stuck When Your Child Won’t Speak
It’s okay to be stuck, but you want to put your life back on track and that involves figuring out what is keeping you stuck. Most often, replaying conversations is dominant. Angry at words that were spoken and wondering what could have been said differently.
Searching for answers can keep you stuck as you don’t know without having a conversation and they refuse to speak to you.
You may monitor their social media in an effort to see what they are doing. Don’t. If they are having fun in their life and you’re grieving and a hot mess, you’ll be triggered and remain stuck. People don’t always post what’s really going on in their lives.
Waiting for an apology or an answer to a call or text can keep you stuck and unable to move forward until that comes. Truthfully, it may never come.
Let these unanswered questions go for now. Someday you may learn the answer, but for now, it’s just head conversation that keeps you stuck.
Identify and Focus on What You Can Control
Now, you are a mom, so that puts you in superhero category. You’ve birthed this child, reared them, nursed them to health, listened to their stories, attended their extracurricular activities and many more loving duties.
Here are some things you can do in family estrangement: Examine your behavior, make appropriate amends, respect boundaries, and choose your responses.
What you can’t do when your child won’t speak to you is: Force them to reconnect or reconcile.
Furthermore, the very thing we cannot control is where you spend a significant amount of time and that will keep you stuck. Learn what you can and cannot control and let go of everything except you.
Move Forward without Giving Up
Continue to love your child – even when they won’t speak to you. And begin to rebuild your own life. These two things are not mutually exclusive. You aren’t giving up on your child. You’re saying you won’t give up on you.
Consider how you can move on with your life since you’ll stop replaying those conversations, checking your child’s social media, and waiting for an apology. What other relationships need your attention? What have you longed to do but have put off?
Get in touch with your feelings and figure out what makes you happy – apart from your child who won’t speak to you. Then put a plan together and begin doing those things.
A Thoughtful Exercise to Help
I want you to write down three orr four ways estrangement has changed your daily life. Has it taken valuable time and energy that you could have devoted elsewhere? Maybe it’s robbed you of exercise simply because you don’t feel like it. Or you’ve neglected other important relationships because you couldn’t get past the estrangement.
Choose one small thing and reclaim it this week. Next week, take back another. You don’t have to allow the estrangement to rule your life. Take it back – one step and one day at a time.
You don’t have to stop loving your child to start taking care of yourself.
Moving forward isn’t giving up on the relationship. It’s not giving up on you.
I’ve put together a free guide to help you. It’s called “5 Things to Do When a Loved One Walks Away.”
You can download it at https://www.beckykolb.com/guide
Thanks for listening today. I know it hurts when your child won’t speak to you and I hope you will find some helpful take-a-ways to get unstuck and start living life again.