Top Five Reasons Cutting Ties To Your Mom Or Dad Is Costing You Money

Our parents teach us many lessons but perhaps the most profound is that we can choose many things in life, but not the family we are born into. In some spiritual traditions one's parents are there to teach us the lessons we need in this lifetime. But this lack of guaranteed affinity means that often we can not only grow to disagree with our parents, but to dislike them, feel unsafe in their presence and decide that we are better off without them. What are the effects on the children who have cut their parents out of their lives?

“Not having a relationship with their parent(s) doesn’t mean they are free of whatever it is that broke the familial bond. They don’t just move on,” said Karla Downing, M.A., MFT (Marriage & Family Therapist) best-selling author and founder of ChangeMyRelationship.com “because they take the emotional and relational pain with them.”

“Emotional pain drives many to engage in addictions to escape. Often adult children leave their families and vow not to be like their parents and end up being just like them. Even when the effects are not as serious, there are still difficulties that arise such as a lack of trust and fear of vulnerability,” said Downing.

The effects of estrangement are not limited to emotional effects but also to financial ones:

1. Estranged children are more likely to be forced to be financially independent at a younger age, unable to live at home while building a career or getting an education. The inability to go to that parent for financial help can have a lifelong effect on a child’s earning potential.
2. Estrangement happens due to dysfunction in the family, a divorce, or an absent parent during the child’s formative years. This strongly impacts a child’s work ethic and interpersonal skills. This includes the ability to set goals and the ability to delay gratification.
3. Since an adult child learned to “solve” the relationship by leaving it, this will impact their ability to problem-solve and resolve conflict; the ability to work with a team of people, and the ability to intelligently manage emotions.
4. Low self-esteem and a poor self-image through a lack of self-confidence limits career choice and upward mobility resulting in lost potential. Emotional and interpersonal turmoil can negatively impact attendance, reliability, and consistency on the job.
5. Since a parent is an authority figure this can impact your relationship with your supervisor. This means that the adult child could be overly afraid to approach a supervisor; the child could be overly needy of the supervisor’s approval and fearful to take risks; the child could be sensitive and reactive to any criticisms offered, or the child could be rebellious and quick to challenge authority.

So how can an adult child heal this wound, especially when they don’t want to be in a relationship with their parent?

“One of the most important things the adult child can do is to understand the parent as a person who has experienced pain, brokenness, disappointment, and loss in their own life,” said Downing. “Talk to family members or good friends who knew the parent to gain further insight. Choosing to have understanding and compassion for their parent is the best way to begin a relationship. It also helps the child to forgive by recognizing it was less about the child and more about the parent’s own problems and limitations.”

“It is always helpful to talk to a therapist who can assess issues within the adult child that need to be resolved first,” said Downing. “Together, they can identify non-negotiable needs, and formulate a safe plan of action. The initial contact can be through a letter, email, or text if the child isn’t ready to speak over the phone or in person. Questions can be asked, feelings shared, messages relayed, and boundaries set regarding future contact. This way the child controls the speed and depth of the interactions.”

Sometimes an adult child who reaches out and investigates their estranged parent might be surprised by how much that parent has been grieving and trying to reconnect. This desperation might have caused them to seek help and learn new skills. This parent might be completely different from what they remember, either because the parent has changed or their memory might not reflect reality. Having a false perception of the parent is very common in children of divorce when they feel more loyalty to one parent then the other.

It is important that a parent respects the process of reconnection that the adult child wants to take and not try to justify what they did nor correct the child’s understanding. If that happens the child can remember that they are in control and request boundaries regarding communication.

Many adult children who reunite find that by focusing on the present and the future the relationship can grow more freely than focusing on the past.

By facing your parent you are back in control and the benefits will spread to other areas of your life.