Actually, this second link is one of my most favorite sites. It has some amazing advice for people of all backgrounds with estranged parents. ;)

Good morning Ravenshy,

I agree. The second site really does have some great advice.

Unloved Daughter,
My name is Lynn and my daughter and I have been estranged for nearly 4 years. The "anniversary" of our estrangement was in August 2008 and as the day looms closer my sadness and pain over this estrangement becomes more intense. My daughter was 17 when she left. My son was 14. I had been a single parent for 12 years. When my ex-husband (their father) remarried and began having children with his wife my kids came to me (my daughter was 14 and my son was 11) and asked if they could live at their dad's house every other week so they could live with their new siblings. At first I was shocked but I knew in my heart letting them do this was what was best for them so I agreed to the new arrangement. For the next 8 years I injected myself into this "blended" family. Attended birthday parties, celebrated holidays with them-I wanted my children to know I respected and supported their choice. But my son got sick when he was 14 and needed emergency surgery. It was a very terrifying event for me-one that I handled but instead of receiving support and kindness from my ex and his wife I was treated very poorly and disrespectfully by them and I made the decision that I could no longer have a relationship with these adults who could treat me with such callousness. My children were now teenagers and I sat down with them and explained why I was not going to participate in the same capacity as I had for the past 8 years. Everything went downhill from that point. They stole money out of my wallet. They lied to me. They treated me disrespectfully. I felt myself walking on eggshells when they came "home" for my week. Their behavior changed considerably and I felt betrayed and angry. I didn't understand it and when I tried to talk to them about it they rolled their eyes and told me I was crazy. In August 2008 I wrote them both a letter. I poured my heart out and told them how I was feeling. I brought up the fact that they were stealing money from my wallet and ordering movies on line and using my credit card to purchase songs on I-tunes without asking for my permission. I was not a rich woman. I had a job but I also had a house and bills and two teenage children to support. I received child support from my ex-husband but my daughter's was going to end as she was turning 18 and that left me with hardly any money to help with her college tuition. After they read my letter both of them came to my home when I was at work and left everything I had ever given them and they left me their own letters (brutal) and their keys to my house. My son came back-briefly about three months later but that was only because he was a minor and the court made him come back-for visitation only. My daughter never came back. She was 18 by then and could make her own decisions. I have written her emails, letters, sent her cards and gifts. No response. She has even sent the cards and gifts back, unopened. My son still lives with his father (who is very rich) and I see him for about an hour a week. He will text me and phone me but our relationship is strained at best. He never talks about his sister to me. I used to ask him questions about her but my questions made him uncomfortable and I didn't want him to feel that way so I just stopped asking. Occasionally my daughter acts/sings in plays around town and if I see she's been cast in a play I buy a ticket and sit in the back of the theatre just so I can drink her in for a couple of hours. She doesn't know I'm there because I'm afraid if I let her know I'm there she'll reject me-or worse.

I don't know your story Unloved but I wanted you to know mine. Not every mother who is estranged from her daughter is a monster. I never hurt my kids. I didn't abuse them, emotionally or physically. I wasn't a drunk or and addict. I put their needs and wants before my own because that was my duty as a parent. I did the best that I could. I wasn't perfect. No human is perfect but I did my best with the cards I was dealt. And I loved them more than life itself-still do. My life is very different now. I have a job that keeps me very busy but I no longer have any friends. I do not know how to explain to anyone I meet or to my former friends why my kids abandoned me. It's too painful and shameful so I stay isolated and alone when I am not at work. My daughter not only kicked me to the curb she kicked my parents and my family as well. She is the first born grandchild in my family and she was adored by all of us. This estrangement has devastated me and my family.

I miss my daughter every single minute of every single day. Sometimes I dream about her-and I get to speak to her and touch her in my dreams. There's a few seconds, when waking in the morning when reality doesn't exist and the pain is not there. But that is the only time I don't feel this gut wrenching pain in my heart from missing my daughter. I have no hope she will come back to me. I know nothing about her anymore. Nothing at all. I don't know if she's happy or if she has a boyfriend or how she did in college. She is a stranger to me now. I have no pictures of my kids up because when I look at their wonderful young faces in the pictures I start to cry. My life has no meaning anymore because my children don't want to have anything to do with me. I know their father and step-mother have contributed greatly to this estrangement by alientating them from me. I can't fight them. Their hold on them is too powerful. I know that I will leave this world as a woman who lost her kids and take with me all the pain and heartbreak this has caused me and my family.

I don't think children fully comprehend how devastating estrangement is to a family-to your parents because if you did, estrangement would not occur. My love for my children is greater than any love on earth. I would take a bullet for either one them. Losing them like I did has impacted my life in such a way that i will never be the same person I used to be before they left. The rejection of their love is something I will never forget. I think if you all knew the impact estrangment has on parents you would all think twice before jumping on that train.

lgran10036,

Thank you for sharing your story. I know that all parents are not bad, and I believe there is selfish children. I feel your pain, and I wish you healing and peace. You're not alone. I wish my mother loved me.

Oh i forgot to add, that bad people have children. Serial killers can breed. I am the product of bad people. Not all mothers love their children. As much as people want to believe that all mothers love their children, the truth is that NOT ALL mothers love their children. I was unwanted and unloved at birth. My bio-father is dead, perhaps my mom couldn't bond with me because she hated him??? Whatever my mother's reasons, she didn't bond or try to love me.

HI
You are so RIGHT about holding anger in. It's like cancer, plus you'll find yourself doing things or thinking about doing things that will make you feel sorry later. I had never did anything to anyone in my family or outside my family. I'm a harmless person. Anyways, I remember in 1994, I was so upset with my brother. I had just gotten off the bus, in front of the college I was attending, when I got crossed the street, I felt so much anger that I wanted to get back a bus, return home, walk around the corner of my house and assult my brother but I never did. I just felt that way that morning.

I'm also sad because my heartless brother (oldest one) in Ohio decided to do a family research on my mom. Since then she had not been the same person, if anything it had made her feel like she did during her childhood (this research triggered off pstd in my mom). Oh my I don't know where to begin with this but again, you are so right about what you said, how encouraging to others.

I want to add we forgive others who harmed us and we are trying are best to forget about it. When mom wants to check on how others are feeling in their lives, they make her feel like crap. She forgives them but it makes her sick.

Update. I have one sister and five brothers. The oldest lives in Ohio, my sister and two brothers live in California, the youngest brother lives here with me and mom and I have a brother who is three years older than me but you'll think that I'm the oldest because of the way he acts. He loves to keep his thoughts back in the past when he was a teenager while my oldest brother in Ohio is a JERK!. He keep bringing up my mom's past, which makes her focus on that time instead of today (2015). Because of how this had brought out terrible memories for my mom, she is emotional all the time. She had a bad childhood, one of the things she had experienced was REJECTION. Like Ingrn said rejection is very painful to a parent, especially if that parent did not abuse the child. All they did was tried to do the very best they could for their children (especially if the father was not around to help). My mom was a sickly lady but you know what? she worked two jobs, raised us kids and just had to deal with bad cards that was dealt to her.

Right now, she is dealing with guilt of her kids (sometimes me and my youngest brother who lives with us). We do so much for our mom and we do not regret it not in the least but my mom feels bad because she thinks that she is robbing us of our lives, or that she feels that is taking advantage of us. I'm glad to have someone to call mom but it concerns me when she grieves over her other kids. Seriously! When she is upset emotionally, her back aches, she has pain in her bladder (making another think she has bladder infection) but after tests are taken at the hospital, the tests come back 'normal'. It may appear that she is confused but starting at 4:00 pm, mom is normal like anyone else. She is in a good mood, laughing and teasing like before all this junk started. It really puzzles me a lot. In the morning, when she wakes up, she is so sad and always talking about my siblings.

My siblings do things like creating trouble then act like they never did anything. For example back in 1989, when we lived in Ohio, my oldest brother and his family (wife and kid) came to our home to visit, my mom came upstairs to get something. (I was in my room listening to music), my nephew, who was about 5 years old at the time, followed my mom upstairs. She told him to stay away from the stairs, when she was ready to go back down, she called for him to wait until she came to him but he wouldn't listen, he tried to walk down the stairs on his own, missed a step and rolled down the stairs (There stairs was carpeted). My brother walked into our apt, asking what happened, his wife told him. Mom and I tried to tell him what happened but he would not listen to neither one of us. Mom was so upset that she fainted, my brother walked over her like she was dog poop and he did not want to step in it. Mom and my youngest brother left (but I did not know they were gone). After mom and my brother left, I was so mad that I slammed the front door, went upstairs to my room. My oldest entered the room like nothing happened. Also there are other times he was a jerk!

My sister -I remember after my sister got married, we always felt unwelcomed there and whenever my brothers came to visit her, she'll put them to work instead of enjoying their visits (she did not know how to forgive a person). She has too much anger in her. Example in 2002 one of my brother's girlfriend was killed brutally but my sister did not want to be bothered. There is more but I'll leave it for now.

My other three brothers were weiredos too. One told my mom at the start of 2014 that he was going to kill himself (he was on facebook talking to people), One brother told my mom that he never called her a name in her face but he did behind her back. And one got mad at my mom that he told an old friend that his mother is dead.

My mom never told anyone that she is a perfect person but I feel that she did not deserve this agony. Today, it makes me upset because mom had been very depressed and felt so guilty. At times it was hard for her to believe me because of the mental abuse from her other kids. Back in 2000 until 2009, life has been pleasant, almost carefree. Now my mom worry about everything and she get upset easily. Since she was told by a doctor that she has cancer and that was going to die, then now they are saying she don't have cancer, it's an autoimmune disorder. Our live here at home had been a living hell! if it wasn't doctors, it was adult children and their stupidity, not being able to see her grand kids or great grand kids.

Sometimes I wonder would life get better? I mean it seems like I'm getting a curve ball thrown at me each and everyday of my life.

The bible says to hate what is bad. And to also forgive. So I hate what she did to me...but I FORGIVE her for what she did.
Hate and anger is not a good thing to carry around. It does a person no good. And it makes a person bitter and miserable. What is it going to change? Nothing probably.
Best thing is to try and let it go. Or let it be. I saw a sign the other day. It said just three simple words. "

Let it be."

A very profund statement.
L.

good advice Lynn

I agree with what you said. My brother and I do get along but he will call my mom to tell her things that I did not say. In fact, I haven't been on the phone talking with him for a long time, if I get on the phone to talk with him, it'll be about the weather, music or about the fact we are older. I'm 46 and he is three years older than me. I think he feeds mom's emotions to much. Example when he come around, mom would act like a very depressed person, and very snappy. It gets to the point that you can't communicate with her. She is very hurt and unhappy with the police and fire department. Because of her unhappiness, she wants to move away. I'm not happy about the move because when we moved here from California in 2000, mom said to us one morning "what did I just do?". or if she did not say that she'll state that she never liked this place. When I asked her why she moved here, she replied by saying that she was ran from California because of family issues. Then some have the nerve to wonder why I'm the way I am now. Plus my oldest brother told my dad that if something happened to my mom what would me and my youngest brother do? I took it as him saying, I hope they don't come my way.

Like I said I forgive but it doesn't stop me from feeling hurt and devastated like I did this weekend. This weekend I saw how angry and hurt my brother was and when I come back home, my mom was so upset that she did not talk to neither one of us (we did nothing to cause this reaction from her). I'm tired of being hurt emotionally, hearing words about moving away, packing boxes, or putting things in the storage and upholding a brother who is capable of hurting her with his mouth. He is a type of person that will talk to you as long as you do what he wants. Example he wants my mom to move closer to him but I know how she really feels about him and his daughters. I'm trying not to let this mess get the best of me and I throw in the towel. I've done so much for my mom but when he come around it seems like I did nothing and I'm being put on the s**t list with others.