10/13/2025
I know this is taboo, but not all estranged adults miss their parents or regret the estrangement when their parents pass away. In fact, for many, the relationship was so toxic, so fundamentally damaging, that stepping away was not just a choice—it was a necessary act of self-preservation. These adults have often carried the weight of emotional abuse, neglect, manipulation, or outright harm for years, sometimes decades, and the decision to sever ties was a way to reclaim their own lives, their sanity, and their sense of self.
They have already grieved the loss of the parent they wished they had while that parent was still alive. They mourn not the actual person, but the endless “what ifs”—the small, fragile hope that things could have been different, that love could have been genuine, that respect and care might have existed. They miss the idea of a parent, the potential of what could have been, but they do not miss the reality of what was—the cruelty, the disappointment, the repeated betrayals.
Sometimes, when these parents die, estranged adults feel something unexpected: relief. Relief that they no longer have to navigate toxic interactions, relief that they are free from the emotional chains that bound them, relief that they can fully live their own lives without fear of manipulation, guilt, or judgment. This relief is not callousness; it is the recognition that preserving one’s mental and emotional health often requires boundaries that society struggles to understand.
Estrangement is often misunderstood. Outsiders see it as abandonment, as unforgiveness, as a moral failing, but for those who have lived it, it is survival. It is the courageous act of protecting oneself when love was absent, when harm was constant, and when the healthiest choice is to let go. Mourning the parent who was never truly there, yet being at peace with the distance, is a quiet, complicated, and profoundly human truth.
