Caring Parents of Estranged Adult Children Community Group

We have given our lives to our children and they reject us. We still love them but this love is now frozen in time. How do we deal with the resulting chaos of our lives? We talk and we listen to one another as we cope with this loss and assault on our sensibilities. Respect in our thinking and language are a must.

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MariaStevie 03/26/2015

Yes. Let's keep caring for our estranged adult children. Let's care enough to let them be responsible for healing the estrangement they chose. Let's care enough to set healthy boundaries with them. Let's care for them by letting them earn our trust since they have broken it. Let's care for them enough to let them have the natural consequences of their choices without trying to fix it for them. Let's care enough to love the unconditionally, but in a healthy way that includes not allowing them to victimize us.

Yes. Let's keep caring for our estranged adult children, by respecting and taking care of ourselves too.

71380m 03/27/2015

I think I will write this one on an index card so I can give myself some courage when I need it.

norahgm 03/27/2015

Love it...

IronCowgirl 03/27/2015

Maria, Forgive me, but I am not quite understanding your post, although it could be the term I don't understand....."caring". Maybe we really are on the same page, it is just semantics. As I read your post, I was asking myself, "How can we 'care' if they are not in our lives?" In my mind, I was thinking I don't even know what is going on with them so how can I 'care'?

Please tell me if I wasn't getting it.

I pray daily for my ES and family. I especially pray for my two grandchildren....for their safety, health, and all the rest. I pray for reconciliation at some point and pray my grands will know the truth some day and know that I love them and never did or say anything to hurt them, as their parents are telling them.

I definitely am not like some on other sites who are bitter and say horrible things about their EC. No question my ES is not quite right and obviously has a distorted memory of his childhood and has said lies and mean things about me and to me, which I will no longer allow. But, he will always be welcomed back in my home as long as, if and when he does, he comes with an attitude of respect.

I guess I take the same position I did when they were little and did something wrong. I would tell them I LOVED them but didn't LIKE what they did.

Is what I just wrote saying that I "CARE"? If so, then I do. :) Happy Weekend...... Hugs......

xfmlg 03/27/2015

Iron: From what i read in your reply to Maria, you are one very caring mom to your estranged ones even though they are not in your life. You have described the caring so well and what you say is also so true for me. I am repelled by all the badmouthing and anger expressed at our estrange ones, and this is the reason i started this site.

Maria: Thank you so much for condensing the caring into such a concise set of words. With this post, you are bang on the with how we are still the caring people who continue to try in spite of all of our situations.

MariaStevie 03/29/2015

Thank you. Iron - We can choose to still love and care for our EC even if they have chosen not to be in our lives. I'm just learning that part of caring for them is letting go and letting God. In other words, we can care about them, but not care take them. We can let them be responsible for the choice they made to estrange themselves by not trying to fix it which we can't do anyway. We give that to God. Our part is to still love and care about them. Thank you xfmlg.

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