Thankyou Canadian mother, Wearyofitall, and Lindajoan for your encouraging words.

I know how you feel, my first ES pulled away when he got married, and the others followed suit because all of their girlfriends and wives are all buddy buddy with each other and enjoy bashing me. If I treated them all the way they treated me, they would all come unglued, yet they all see nothing wrong with the way they treat me... I am so sorry that you are also going through this..... It sadden me to see any parent have to endure this from their own children and in-laws. {{{HUGS}}}

Ishallwearpurple, I just wanted to share with you that my DH and I also share your experience of having one EC deciding to reject you and having the rest gain courage from this and before you know it all of your children and in-law children are treating you the same. It seems to be a characteristic or symptom if you will of what we have all experienced here with our EC. Hard not to take the rejection personally, this I know too well! Satan wants us to believe it is our personal failure I am sure!

Also another common experience I have read here is that of DIL's poisoning ES minds against us with lies and then so totally immeshing our sons into their own families that you come to see your son or daughters for that matter totally change into people you do not in any way recognize to be the person you raised them to be! This also happened to us! Then the DIL's took it one step further and caused our sons to tell us we would do well to spend time with their in-laws because they were such godly examples. The final straw came when we were expected to be "under" the authority of the DIL's father's guideance and all holidays and bday's had to be spent at in-laws or ES was "never going to see us again"....

I would like to say after reading the past few days of all the posts shared of similar experiences here, I am beginning to feel a great weight lifting off of my spirit, for I am finally realizing due to seeing this same script played out in so many, many of us here that the Estrangement was not mine and my DH's personal failure as parents, anymore than it is the fault of a parent that their child contracted a deadly physical disease.

I now believe that the Estrangement is the deadly "spiritual" disease our children are being exposed to in our times, just as polio was in the 50's when I was a child. Our children caught a disease of the spirit none of us could have prevented, as it was our children's choice to inoculate themselves spiritualy or not!!! This spiritual illness they have is not my fault and I am no longer going to continue to beat myself up over the "why or how" this happened to us!! Of course the sadness and loss still remain in my heart, but I am kicking the guilt out of the house today!

Reading this post and all of the replies shows me that I am not alone to have more than one child turn against me, it spreads like a disease. I too had to remove my ES's and DIL's from my FB page, they totally ignored me except for when they were bashing, lying about and disrespecting me, it hurt too much to see it.....

My heart goes out to all of you.......... Hugs and Prayers

I believe they try to "recruit" the others so to speak to justify their actions. One of my dtrs I have had problems with ever since she got married 11 years ago. She acts much more like her inlaws than she does ehr own family.When one of her sisters started spending more time with her and her husband she became distant and we only heard from her if she needed a baby sitter. Then the 3rd dtr bacame distant and seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. This is the short version but they are all semi estranged now and really more like estranged with seldom contact if I initiate it. Honestly they aren't my favorite people any more due to the way they have treated me. They truly act like they wouldn't care if I lived or died but then again I have stopped taking all their bad treatment without saying anything.

I think you hit the nail on the head "Nana" when you said that "they try to "recruit" the others so to speak to justify their actions." That could explain why so many including myself have more than one adult child and in-laws who is estranged.....

I agree. They feel better about their own bad behavior and decide that we are the ones to blame when they get together. What they won't admit to each other is that all of their behavior has been rude and disrespectful and that is why we upset with them. Ours have the added element that we are not their "real" parents, but rather their adoptive parents. Surely their "real" parents would put up with all their nonsense.....

Chocolate, our ED is also adopted. I noticed you put 'real' in parenthesis. We always considered that we were the real parents although not the biological. The ones who raise the child are real. I could tell you agreed the way you said it. All of you good parents, here, deserve honor and respect according to God's commandments.

lindajoan, yes, I totally agree, we are the real parents too even though we didn't raise them from birth. We always call ourselves their parents or clarify if need be to others that we are their adoptive parents. We have overheard ours refer to their bio parents as their "real" parents though. Our ES has also accused us of not treating them like we are their "real" parents. A comment that was deeply hurtful because I know in my heart that we have gone above and beyond 24/7 for all 3 of them for every day that we have had them in our lives, much to our own detriment, just like all Christian parents. We are just so astounded that they have turned on us this way. The majority of teen/tween orphaned children do not get that second chance, as sad as that is. They still have yet to really give us credit for taking that huge risk. I don't know what else we could have done/not done. I could write a novel here! Basically, I guess I was just saying that they do conspire together because they have that bond of history together. Their ties to each other are strong than their ties to us so for them it is pretty easy to all conspire and bad mouth us.

I totally understand what you are saying. DH and I totally relate to your story. Your children and our ED (and all of our EC from this group) do not show any appreciation for what their good parents did for them. God willing, one day they will stop to realize it. God is able.

Lindajoan, it just seems like such a sign of the times how kids treat parents today. God forbid it gets much worse. Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus.

It is all too common these days. God please grant each one of is your grace.

I agree Chocolatecat and Lindajoan, I think this is a sign of the times and it is just way too common these days.....I never even heard of this until it happened to me. And Yes God please grant each one of is your grace... Amen....