Estrangement Isn’t Cruel. Sometimes, It’s Clarity.

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

Subscribe to 1440 today.

By the time she landed in the ER with what felt like a heart attack, she had already tried everything else.

She’d gone to therapy. She’d read the books. She had rewritten her texts to her mother at least five times before sending. She told herself to breathe deeper. To not take things personally. To be more patient. To give it one more try.

But nothing changed. Every visit ended the same way — a conversation that spun into guilt, criticism, or silence. Her mother would sigh and say she was being too sensitive. Or remind her, again, how lucky she was to have a parent who “still cared.”

She left every phone call shaky. Every holiday drained. Until her body started speaking louder than her mind.

Panic. Fatigue. Stress symptoms that mimicked disease. And finally, the slow realization that love should not feel like a chronic illness.

Most people don’t consider estrangement until everything else has failed.

Not because they don’t feel the pain. But because the cultural narrative is louder than their instincts.

You only get one mother.
Family is forever.
You’ll regret this when they’re gone.

These phrases are often said with love — but they carry a dangerous message: that peace is found through endurance. That being a good child means learning to shrink. That even when your boundaries are crossed, you’re still the one who should apologize first.

It’s not that people want to walk away. It’s that they’ve walked in every other direction, and this is the only one left that still leads to themselves.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Lindsay Gibson, author of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, has worked with thousands of adults raised by caregivers who could not — or would not — meet them emotionally.

These parents often aren’t outwardly abusive. They may show up for birthdays. They might even say “I love you.” But in moments that require empathy, they disappear — or make it about themselves.

They downplay your pain. They deflect responsibility. They expect gratitude, not growth. They demand connection without offering repair.

Over time, their children learn to question their own emotional reality. And in adulthood, they often end up with a quiet, corrosive question: Why do I feel like I’m the parent in this relationship?

Gibson explains that emotional immaturity isn’t about flaws. It’s about a developmental gap — an inability to hold space for another person’s experience without turning it into a threat or rejection.

And when children of such parents try to speak up — to set boundaries, express hurt, or ask for change — they’re often met with blame, dismissal, or gaslighting.

Which means many adult children stop asking for respect. And start working harder for approval.

Until their bodies — or their therapists — tell them that surviving a family dynamic shouldn’t cost this much.

Contrary to popular belief, estrangement isn’t usually a spur-of-the-moment decision. It’s often the product of years of trying. Trying to talk. Trying to forgive. Trying to shrink yourself enough to finally feel safe.

And sometimes, the symptoms of staying — chronic anxiety, self-doubt, burnout, illness — become too loud to ignore.

In such moments, stepping away isn’t abandonment. It’s recognition.

Of what’s never been acknowledged. Of what won’t be changed. Of the self you’re no longer willing to betray.

But if estrangement isn’t cruel, what is it?

It’s grief without ceremony. It’s a kind of private exile — not always from people, but from the illusion that those people could be different.

It’s letting go of the fantasy that someday they’ll say the words you needed when you were 7, or 14, or 28.

It’s choosing peace over potential.

And, as Gibson suggests, it’s not about hate or revenge. It’s not even about forgiveness. It’s about neutrality. The kind that comes when you stop trying to fix a relationship that only breaks you.

Neutrality says: I see you for who you are — and I’m no longer organizing my life around it.

This doesn’t mean there’s no room for hope. Some parents grow. Some relationships mend.

But not all do. And expecting someone else to change as the condition for your healing is a recipe for disappointment.

So the question becomes: Can I still choose to grow, even if they don’t?

If you’re navigating this terrain, remember:

What part of you still believes that love means enduring — and what would it feel like to release that story?

Thanks for reading.

See you soon!

Team Rebuild

P.S. If you liked this newsletter, share it with your friends and colleagues Rebuild