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Ann thank you for posting! I am past the point of the tears and the worry and have moved on to a more centered place with the estrangement with my son that is more based on fact and reality than emotion. I love him and miss the person he once was or at mimimum could be when he was not in an epispode of multiple mental illness issues. I realize my life has much less drama and is much quieter. I am calmer and the anxiety level has gone down. I am also free to have more time with my other two adult children and feel they missed out since the lion's share of the time went to dealing with one child's issues. At first they were not that serious and he was treated as a child but in the past 15 years it has grown to be a major battle with an angry adult who will not cooperate or even take part in his treatment so all of us had to deal with it. He has not been home in almost four years now and we have had little contact most of which was either filled with attitude or very superficial. Even then it would be up to a year before we heard anything. His grandfather died recently and I did send him a copy of the death notice via e-mail. He wrote his father a short note but was very distant and then a second saying he would call but would not discuss the issues and informed us the discussion topics in order for the call to happen. If it was not on his terms he was not going to do it. His father wrote back and said thanks but no thanks. At first I was a bit upset but then I realized that we were being manipulated and after a week of being beat up by his family his father did not need this on top of all else. Our son wants life on his terms or he will not enter the game. He has failed to see it is an adult/adult realtionship and that means give or take. I know if his father did take the call than he would have ended up feeling worse than he already did. He tried to e-mail him last weekend and tell him his feelings and five days later no response. I told him to just let it go and concentrate on what we can control and let this one live his life, as dysfunctional as it is, on his own terms as he would have to live with the results. We both agreed no more bailing him out of self induced messes and no more money. He tells us he has all the answers so we are no longer needed. Once we got to the point of excepting that life has been calm and even dare I say peaceful. We still love him and still miss him but also are not that young and realize after raising three adult sons that we have this time to live our own lives. While his father and I are no longer together as a married couple we still stand together on this issue. Thank you for posting the poem. That one goes above my desk! Estrangement, while very difficult, in some cases can be for the best sad to say. I feel in my heart that my son is the one who will suffer the most. I also know there is not a thing that I can do as I have tried it all and reached no results. Time to move on and get back to quiet and peaceful w/o all the drama and pain that goes with it. My best to you all.

I too struggle with this. My relationship hasn't quite reached the level of detachment, but I have only seen my son once since Christmas, and communicating with him is like walking through a mine field. I try so hard to watch what I say and how I say it so I won't offend him in any way yet he always manages to "put words in my mouth" implying I have said something derogatory. I end every conversation feeling sad and disappointed by where we are at this moment. He rarely responds to my attempt at communication and when he does it is when he needs something. I feel used and degraded and I know part of the reason is that I have allowed it for so long. Frankly I am tired, and at least for now I'm ready to let him have hs way and stop trying so hard to build a better relationship. I love him so much and think about him at all times but I'm losing hope he will ever want to be part of our family. Detaching myself is the only avenue I haven't tried, but how do I do this without appearing as if I don't care?

I would also like to see such a blog. I have personally done work to heal my own personal issues around abandonment. Now as the divorced mother of two estranged adult children I would like to know how to detach without abandoning my children.