A therapist’s advice for dealing with the pain of family estrangement during the holidays

John Yang:

The picture perfect image of holiday gatherings as happy families gathered around dinner tables isn't everyone's reality. According to a Harris poll conducted last month, about 18 percent of those surveyed said they had only limited or no interactions with their immediate family.

When we asked viewers if they'd be willing to share their stories of family alienation, we got more than 1600 responses. Here are some of them.

Camilla Hudson, Chicago:

My name is Camilla Hudson. I live in Chicago and I'm estranged from my son.

Angela Reed, Fall River, Massachusetts:

My name is Angela Reed. I am from Fall River, Massachusetts, and I am estranged from my mother.

Camilla Hudson:

I don't have a phone number for my son. I don't have an address for my son.

Angela Reed:

There were so many reasons for initiating the estrangement. Some of them even go back to childhood and as a mother myself, things I would never do to my kids.

Jonathan Simcosky, San Francisco:

My name is Jonathan Simcosky and I live in San Francisco. I grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and I no longer speak with my parents or my brother.

Frances Scott, Missoula, Montana:

My name is Frances Scott and I live in Missoula, Montana, and I am estranged from my adult daughter. As of about eight years ago.

Jonathan Simcosky:

I'm the gay son of a Southern Baptist preacher. So the relationship was always pretty difficult. But I would say sort of their ongoing support of Donald Trump became really untenable for me. The conversation has just been about, like the extent to which his moral failings matter. They're giving Donald Trump a pass when I don't get one.

Senta Leslie, Richmond, Virginia:

My name is Senta Leslie. I live in Richmond, Virginia. I'm estranged from my mother and my brother.

Frances Scott:

The first two or three years, I didn't cope very well at all.

Senta Leslie:

With my mother it just felt like I could never do anything right.

Frances Scott:

I would sometimes be in a store and I might see this lovely interaction going on with a grandchild and their grandparent, and I would — I basically had to leave the store because it just made me so sad.

Senta Leslie:

I sent a text that just said, you know, until you can pretend like you like me, I'm not doing this anymore. And I haven't heard from her since.

Camilla Hudson:

My son sent my therapist three separate emails. He outlined a lot of very specific things in these emails. And literally for over a year and a half going on two years, my therapist and I literally went through his emails, point by point by point.

Angela Reed:

The biggest hurdle to our relationship is her not taking accountability and recognizing the things that she may have done wrong.

Frances Scott:

I would say to her certainly that I am sorry for any trauma that I may have caused her. I certainly feel like my alcoholism caused some of that for her, and I am deeply sorry.

Jonathan Simcosky:

I don't miss the fighting and the same fights going on and on. So, I'm sort of grateful to be liberated from that. But I regret the brokenness.

Senta Leslie:

I occasionally hear people tell me, well, I would never do that. I could never dream of cutting off a family member. And for those people, I just — I'm glad that they could never dream of it.

Frances Scott:

If it is best for her for us to not be in contact, I respect that.

Angela Reed:

A little heart achy that I don't have a mom for some of these, like big events and holidays and whatnot. But it's not like I want her there. It's like I want who I wanted as a mom there.

Camilla Hudson:

I've made my peace with the fact that I may not. It may not ever change, but I remain hopeful that it can and it will.

John Yang:

There's still a taboo about breaking family ties, but a growing number of groups are raising awareness about it and helping people deal with it. Family therapist Whitney Goodman's online community, Calling Home is one of them. She's author of "Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy."

Whitney, just because of what we've just been through with the election, there are a lot of focuses on political divisions as being a reason for families being divided and not speaking to one another. But are there other causes or what are some of the most common causes of this?

Whitney Goodman, Family Therapy:

I've actually been surprised how little people have said that politics are the reasons that they're not speaking to their family. The most common reasons that I've been given are things like emotional abuse that's still happening in adulthood, emotional neglect in both childhood and adulthood, and also emotional immaturity on the part of the parent or the other family member.

John Yang:

You know, I think the common thought is, or at least the societal thought is that this is something that needs to be fixed if a family members aren't speaking to each other. But can this also be a rational step?

Whitney Goodman:

Absolutely. You know, of course resolving this is the ideal outcome, but that requires everyone involved to want to participate in that and to be able to participate in that. And unfortunately, we find that in a lot of families there are not always two people who want to learn the skills to compromise and fix the problem. And that's when we're going to see estrangement happening.

John Yang:

: What advice do you have for perhaps both sides of this? For the person who decides to walk away and the person who's left when the other one walks away? What advice do you have?

Whitney Goodman:

I think there's an immense amount of pain on both sides and there's still certainly a stigma that I want people to know that this is actually far more common than you realize. And I think it's very important for both sides to take the space and time to look at what went wrong in the relationship. And what can I own on my end? What can I improve? Especially if someone has to become estranged from you, that's very important to look at your role and also just listen to the boundaries that the other person is setting and try to respect those boundaries.

John Yang:

but also just removing the stigma. Do people feel like this is a horrible thing that they've done or a horrible thing that's happened to them and you want to remove that sense?

Whitney Goodman:

You know, I think that any time a family relationship falls apart, it's very sad and it's not the ideal outcome. But we do also have to realize that the people in the world that are hurtful and even dangerous or abusive can also have family members. And sometimes their family members are the ones being hurt by them. And so I think when we say, you know, you shouldn't be in abusive relationships, whether that's with a partner or a friend, we also have to extend that to family and tell people that they deserve to feel safe and respected within those relationships as well.

John Yang:

What advice would you have for someone who feels the need to step away or to break ties with their family?

Whitney Goodman:

I think that it should be taken as a very big decision. And I find that most people spend years, if not decades, making that decision. I would want them to know that they deserve to feel safe and respected and loved in their relationships and that sometimes our families can be a source of great pain and hold us back from really being able to be the best versions of ourselves.

And so if you find yourself in a position where you've tried everything to make this work and you just keep hitting a wall, it might be time to walk away.

John Yang:

What about the family members who are in touch with each side, trying to bridge the gap, as it were? What do you — what's advice for them?

Whitney Goodman:

Yeah, I work with a lot of people in that very impossible and difficult situation. I think for those people, it's kind of important to get out of the middle and to encourage those people to work on this themselves and to come back together when they're ready.

Because sometimes that person in the middle can actually do more harm than good by playing telephone and trying to be a mediator when they may not actually have all the information, or they're trying to play both sides and then they intensify the rift.

John Yang:

So they shouldn't try to play peacemaker and try to bring them together.

Whitney Goodman:

I have not seen that really work successfully except in a case where they say, you know what, let's try to get the two of you into therapy together or maybe set up a time for the two of them to speak. But when information starts passing through a third party and they're inserting their opinion, I find that it tends to just get even crazier.

John Yang:

We cited the results of a survey in the introduction. But from your experience, from your practice, how common is this?

Whitney Goodman:

I am a firm believer that this has actually been happening for a very long time. We're just hearing a lot more about it. And I don't have a good handle on what is the actual percentage here because as you've said, we've heard a lot of different stats thrown out there, but I see estrangement following a similar pattern to divorce, where people are talking about it a lot more. They're seeing it as an option. And so it appears to be rising when I think it just might be that the discourse about it is increasing.

John Yang:

Family therapist Whitney Goodman. Thank you very much.

Whitney Goodman:

Thank you.