I was listening to a podcast interview this week with estrangement and family researchers and therapists Joshua Coleman and Judith R Smith. The interview was about estrangement and the particular impact of estrangement on mothers when their adult children pull away or cut ties. It was the first time I had heard the term “chronic sorrow” to describe what many mothers feel. It really resonated with what I see in my practice.
It’s a particular kind of grief that many mothers carry in silence.
It’s not the grief of death.
Not the grief society gathers around with casseroles and condolence cards.
But the grief of an adult child who no longer calls, no longer visits, no longer reaches back.
Sometimes the estrangement is explicit.
Sometimes it is a slow fading.
A text unanswered.
A grandchild never introduced.
A holiday chair that remains painfully empty.
Eventually, news of a wedding, birth or graduation ceremony that you couldn’t attend.
For many mothers, this creates what researchers and clinicians call chronic sorrow — a recurring, ongoing grief that resurfaces again and again across the lifespan. Judith R. Smith’s work on mothers of struggling adult children highlights how maternal grief is often cyclical, ambiguous, and deeply misunderstood.
Unlike traditional grief, there is no funeral. No social ritual. No clear ending.
Instead, mothers often live in a suspended emotional state:
• hoping and grieving simultaneously,
• loving while feeling rejected,
• longing while trying to protect themselves from more pain.
This is what Pauline Boss describes as ambiguous loss — a loss without closure, where the person is physically alive but psychologically or emotionally absent. Estrangement can create a profound destabilization of identity, attachment, and meaning. Parents may question:
• Am I still a mother if my child no longer speaks to me?
• How did we get here?
• Will I ever see them again?
These questions can haunt mothers for years.
The Invisible Weight Mothers Carry
Many women were raised with the belief that motherhood is forever sacrificial. Good mothers endure. Good mothers keep trying. Good mothers never give up. These are hard enough beliefs at the best of times in our mothering experience.
Dr. Judith Smith’s research found (and Coleman agrees) that mothers of troubled or estranged adult children often experience shame, self-blame, exhaustion, and depression that interfere with their own self-care.
Some mothers become emotionally trapped between:
• wanting to help,
• fearing conflict,
• feeling responsible,
• and desperately needing boundaries.
This becomes especially painful when adult children struggle with:
• mental illness,
• addiction,
• personality disorders,
• unresolved trauma,
• emotional dysregulation,
• aggression,
• chronic dependency,
• or abusive behaviour toward parents.
In therapy, some mothers share the same painful sentence:
“I love my child, but I’m afraid of them.” or “I’m afraid to upset them further.”
This reality alone remains deeply stigmatized.
A feminist lens reminds us that mothers are still disproportionately expected to absorb emotional labour within families. When adult children struggle, society often asks:
“What did the mother do wrong?”
Rarely do we ask:
• Who supported the mother?
• What trauma did she carry?
• How exhausted has she become?
• What systems failed this family?
Estrangement Is Complex — and Often Layered
According to the research, some estrangements emerge from histories of genuine abuse, neglect, or trauma. Some are necessary for safety.
Others emerge from accumulated misunderstandings, rigid family roles, untreated mental illness, intergenerational trauma, or escalating cycles of conflict and cutoff.
Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist specializing in family estrangement, notes that modern family culture increasingly emphasizes personal (individual) emotional fulfillment and psychological safety within relationships. Adult children today may cut ties not only because of severe abuse, but because relationships feel emotionally unsafe, invalidating, or chronically distressing.
At the same time, not every parent is narcissistic, abusive, or intentionally harmful.
Some mothers are grieving relationships that became overwhelmed by:
• untreated anxiety,
• generational communication patterns,
• divorce,
• loyalty conflicts,
• trauma responses,
• or emotional immaturity on both sides.
Therapy must hold complexity without collapsing into blame. Not always easy to hold.
The Trauma of Disenfranchised Grief
Estranged mothers often experience disenfranchised grief — grief that society minimizes or invalidates.
Friends and family may say:
• “Just move on.”
• “At least they’re alive.”
• “You must have done something.”
• “Kids don’t cut parents off for no reason.”
These responses deepen isolation.
Karl Pillemer’s research on family estrangement suggests that reconciliation is more possible than many families believe, but shame and entrenched narratives often prevent repair attempts. Many parents become immobilized by fear, humiliation, or hopelessness. Others over-pursue reconciliation in ways that unintentionally increase distance.
The nervous system of an estranged parent can begin functioning in chronic threat mode:
• hypervigilance around phones and holidays,
• difficulty sleeping,
• intrusive thoughts,
• depressive symptoms,
• shame spirals,
• emotional numbness,
• and profound loneliness.
This is not “dramatic.”
It is attachment trauma.
Therapy for Mothers Living With Estrangement
Therapy cannot promise reconciliation (though we can try).
Not every estrangement is repairable.
Not every relationship is safe to continue.
And some adult children may never return.
But therapy may help mothers work to:
• process grief without drowning in it,
• reduce shame and self-erasure,
• rebuild identity beyond caregiving,
• strengthen emotional regulation,
• explore accountability without collapsing into self-hatred,
• reconnect with neglected parts of themselves, and connect with others who can offer support
• and create boundaries rooted in dignity rather than fear.
I take a trauma-informed, attachment informed approach that which may include psychoeducation around estrangement, and ambiguous loss, self compassion work, emotionally focused work.
Mothers may also need help learning that boundaries are not abandonment.
Sometimes the first step is very small, which can feel excruciating for mothers conditioned to believe love must equal endless self-sacrifice.
Reclaiming the Self Beyond Maternal Pain
One of the deepest wounds estrangement creates is identity collapse.
Many women organized decades of their lives around caregiving. When the relationship fractures, they may feel emotionally untethered.
Part of healing involves slowly reconnecting to:
• creativity,
• friendships,
• meaning making
• purpose,
• embodied self-care,
• pleasure,
• rest,
• and parts of themselves that existed before motherhood consumed everything.
Post-traumatic growth does not mean “getting over it.”
It means learning how to carry grief without allowing it to erase your entire self.
Sometimes healing looks like reconciliation.
Sometimes healing looks like acceptance.
Sometimes healing looks like grieving the child you hoped for while still loving the child who exists.
And sometimes healing begins with finally being allowed to say out loud:
“This hurts more than anyone understands.”
Looking for Support?
I offer trauma-informed psychotherapy for mothers, parents and adult children navigating estrangement, chronic sorrow, ambiguous loss, complicated family relationships, and midlife grief. I offer in-person therapy in Hamilton and surrounding region and online therapy across Ontario. I offer free, 15 minute phone consultations.
You do not have to carry this alone.
Disclaimer
This blog is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical or psychological advice or establish a therapeutic relationship. If you are in crisis or experiencing immediate safety concerns, please contact emergency services or a local crisis support line.
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