After I Cut Off Contact From My Mother, I Was Shocked By The Brutal Move My Sisters Made
Eight years ago, I wrote my mother a letter saying I needed to break contact. At the time, I hadn’t intended it to last — I just knew I needed space. I needed a respite from her stealthy attacks that I still, after 50 years, never saw coming.
My mother had taught me that my body was disgusting, and my achievements were not only lacking, but suspect. When I was sexually assaulted, she accused me of lying. She had me fill out the Myers-Briggs personality test, as she did with all of her clients, then used the results to shame me. “I don’t know why you are so shy, I’m a people person,” she told me.
All my wounds were invisible: shame, doubt, second-guessing and mistrust — of myself as much as of anyone else. I cut contact with my mother because I needed a buffer between the voice in my head — hers, always questioning my choices, my motives — and the one that I should be listening to: my own.
After I broke contact, I realised how much time and energy I had spent unsuccessfully dodging and then recovering from her attacks. Distance gave me a new perspective: If any other mother treated any other daughter as mine had treated me, I would be horrified. I would tell that daughter to run. So I paid attention, finally, to my own good sense. And then I had to figure out how to navigate my way through this new land of estrangement.
Here are five things I wish I had known about what would happen after I broke contact:
1. Discussing family estrangement will be awkward, and many will question your decision.
“But she’s so wonderful,” a friend said when I told her I was considering going no-contact. My mother was a social worker who volunteered for a myriad of good causes. Nothing about her public persona said “monster,” but when no one else was looking, she wielded an emotional axe. Too often, I heard, “But she’s your mother. You only have one.” Or, “She gave birth to you — surely that counts for something.” People’s reactions to me took on a new wariness. What kind of person, they seemed to be wondering, would do such a thing?
I understand the inclination to preserve familial bonds at all costs. No one wants to believe that such a primal relationship could be irrevocably broken because that means there is no guarantee — anyone could be vulnerable to such a rupture.
As with any harmful relationship, pressure to forgive and reconcile can warp the healing process and pile more shame onto victims of abuse. I learned to avoid talking about estrangement, but we are at a cultural inflection point now, when the stigma is beginning to fade for the 27% ― or roughly 90 million — adults in the United States who report being estranged from a family member.
By choosing carefully, you can find people who you trust, who will support you rather than judge.
2. You will have to remind yourself that you made the right choice — over and over.
Many assumed my actions were taken out of anger, when in fact I had compassion for my mother. I also needed protection from her. The only way I could stay in a loving relationship was to go no-contact. I could hold onto good memories while not subjecting myself to continuing harm. That’s called “having boundaries.”
At first, my chest would cave in each time I thought about the cruelty implicit in my choice. To not be able to hear laughter, concern or excitement in my own grown children’s voices, to not be able to see the graceful curve of my daughter’s brow or the reassuring angle of my son’s jaw, to not know the contours of their lives would be unbearable to me. And here I had done exactly this to my mother — deprived her of all knowledge of me.
There was a crucial difference between her and me: I apologized to my children when I made mistakes. Whenever I tried to talk to my mother about our relationship, she dismissed me as too sensitive. It took years before I had the good sense to see that her treatment of me went beyond mistakes and landed far outside the bounds of “that’s just how it was done back then.” I didn’t do anything to my mother. I stood up — however wobbly — for myself. I uncurled from my defensive crouch and said “enough.”
When pressure from others or guilt comes calling, remind yourself that a healthy boundary is a good choice.
3. You may lose other family members.
Other members of your family may have had an entirely different experience with the person you are estranged from. They might not have seen the abuse, or they might have chosen to not see it. When one person steps away, it is easy to cast them as the breaker of the family, when in fact the family was broken already.
Scapegoating — the sacrifice of one for the sake of the rest — is an age-old response, even if it provides false refuge. My connection with my sisters was already fragile because my mother encouraged competition and distrust with her own put-downs and comparisons, and she never missed an opportunity to repeat someone else’s.
After I broke up with my mother — quietly and privately — she required the rest of the family to choose sides. They chose hers. While this saddened me, I had to respect their choice as I would wish them to respect mine. Harder to understand is learning, last year, of my mother’s death from my niece’s post on Instagram. My family’s silence hit me with concussive force, and while I was still reeling, my two sisters sent me a bill for a third of the cost of the funeral, to which I was not invited.
This was brutal and cold, but I paid anyway. I do not forgive my sisters, but I do not blame them, either. It took me 50 years to see that my mother was manipulating us all. In time, they, too, may figure that out. My door may be closed, but it isn’t locked.
You can preserve the possibility of future reconciliation — based on true growth — by honouring where each family member is in the process.
4. You will never stop yearning.
People ask me now if I wish I’d been able to have a deathbed conversation with my mother. Part of me wants to say, “And give her a final shot at my soft underbelly?”But here’s the thing: I’d already said the words. For 50 years, I said them over and over — I love you — always hoping that if I loved her hard enough, despite everything, she would love me back.
I spent the majority of my life trying to reconcile myself to her treatment. I rationalised: She’s just venting. I sympathised: Life hasn’t been easy for her. I internalised: I must have done something to deserve this. I finally realised that there can be no reconciliation with cruelty.
I had to choose between my mother and myself. For most of my life, I chose her. Until I didn’t. I do not regret this, but I do yearn — with a hurricane force that can bring me to my knees — for that which I will never have: a life in which I didn’t have to make this choice at all.
When you are ambushed by such complicated grief — and how could you not be? — supportive friends, people who will just sit or walk with you, can be a lifeline.
5. You will be free.
Breaking contact was the first step. I was no longer experiencing active abuse. Then came the reckoning. My healing began when I realised that forgiveness was no longer a priority. It was enough of a challenge to be a witness to my own life — to say these things happened. For me, clarity was the magic elixir.
There has been so much space in my life now that I am not occupied with parsing my mother’s insinuations, fending off her damaging words, and trying to repair relationships into which she had inserted wedges. I often say that I am completely different now, but truthfully, I am more myself than ever. I’m not the person my mother made me out to be. Even though it was heartbreaking, estrangement brought me the most necessary freedom.
I don’t advocate or condemn estrangement — but I think we need to talk about it. Family relationships matter, but so do safety and well-being. When I’m asked if I have regrets, I laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s the wrong question. What possibilities do I see for myself? For my family? What are my plans? My dreams? Those are questions my mother never asked, but they are the ones for which I now have answers.
Lea Page’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. She is the author of “Parenting in the Here and Now” (Floris Books, 2015) and is at work on a book about family estrangement.