The relief I felt when I stopped answering my mother's calls lasted exactly three weeks before it transformed into something I never expected—a grief more complicated than any argument we'd ever had.
Six years. That's how long the silence stretched between my mother and me before she passed away last spring.
I'm not writing this to justify my decision or to tell you what you should do. Every family story is different, every wound unique. But if you're standing at that crossroads, wondering whether to cut contact with a parent, maybe my experience can offer some perspective I wish I'd had.
The weight of silence is heavier than you think
When I first stopped answering her calls, I thought I'd feel free. Finally, no more guilt trips about my career choices, no more subtle jabs about my lifestyle, no more exhausting battles over boundaries I'd tried to set a hundred times before.
The relief did come, but it brought an unexpected companion: grief. Not just for the relationship we'd lost, but for the one we'd never had. Every birthday that passed, every holiday, every life milestone became a reminder of what wasn't there.
You might think cutting contact means cutting feelings, but emotions don't work that way. The anger might fade, sure, but it often leaves behind something more complex. A mix of sadness, guilt, and sometimes even nostalgia for moments that weren't actually as good as memory paints them.
Your healing matters, but timing matters too
My mother was a teacher, my father an engineer. Education was everything in our house, success measured in degrees and achievements. When I walked away from my corporate finance job to write, it was like I'd personally betrayed everything they'd worked for.
The conversations became unbearable. Every phone call circled back to my "wasted potential." Every visit home felt like defending my life choices in court. I'd spent years trying to set boundaries, asking her to respect my decisions, but nothing changed.
So I stopped trying.
Looking back, I needed that space to heal. To figure out who I was without the constant weight of disapproval. To learn that my worth wasn't tied to living up to someone else's expectations, even if that someone gave birth to me.
But here's what I didn't consider: parents age. Health fails. Time, despite what we tell ourselves, isn't infinite. When I got the call about her diagnosis, stage four pancreatic cancer, I had three months. Three months to wrestle with six years of silence.
Estrangement doesn't erase the past
During those years of no contact, I built myself a new life. Found peace. Developed healthy relationships. Learned to trust my own judgment without seeking approval.
But when she was dying, none of that mattered as much as I thought it would.
I went to see her, of course. We talked, carefully at first, then more honestly than we ever had when she was healthy. She told me about her own mother, about expectations she'd faced, disappointments she'd swallowed. I saw her not just as my mother but as a woman who'd carried her own wounds.
Did it heal everything? No. Did it change the past? Of course not.
But it gave me something I hadn't known I needed: the chance to say goodbye without the weight of unfinished business. Not everyone gets that chance. The timing worked out for me, but it easily might not have.
The questions you should ask yourself
If you're considering cutting contact, sit with these questions for a while:
Have you tried everything else first? I mean really tried. Therapy, boundaries, honest conversations, even family counseling if they're willing. Sometimes we think we've done everything when we've really just done the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.
What are you hoping to achieve? If it's punishment or revenge, that's different from needing space to heal. Neither is necessarily wrong, but knowing your real motivation helps you make a clearer decision.
Can you live with the worst-case scenario? Because that scenario might happen. Your parent might die during the estrangement. They might never acknowledge the harm they caused. They might tell everyone you're the villain. If you can genuinely accept these possibilities, you're making an informed choice.
Are you running from something or toward something? There's a difference between escaping pain and actively choosing health. Both might require distance, but one comes from fear while the other comes from self-love.
What I know now that I didn't know then
Estrangement isn't weakness or strength. It's just a choice, sometimes the only one that feels survivable at the time. But choices have consequences, and living with those consequences is part of the deal.
If I could go back, would I do things differently? Honestly, I don't know. I needed those years of silence to become who I am. To realize I couldn't live for my parents' approval. To understand that my need for control stemmed from childhood anxiety about meeting their expectations.
But I also wonder what might have happened if I'd found a different way. Maybe limited contact instead of none. Maybe one conversation a year. Maybe letters instead of calls.
There's no perfect answer, no guarantee you'll make the "right" choice because there might not be one. There's just the choice you can live with.
Final thoughts
If you're considering estrangement, know this: it's okay to protect yourself. It's okay to need space. It's okay to choose your mental health over family obligations.
But also know that estrangement is rarely a clean break. It's messy, complicated, and it changes you in ways you won't expect. The absence becomes a presence of its own.
I can't tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I learned: that silence has its own weight, that time moves faster than we think, and that sometimes the conversations we avoid are the ones we need most, even if we can only have them at the very end.
Whatever you choose, choose it consciously. Not from anger or hurt in the moment, but from a place of understanding what you're choosing and why. Because you'll be living with that choice long after the person you're estranged from is gone.
And maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get the chance I did: to find some kind of peace before it's too late. Not perfect peace, not movie-ending reconciliation, but something. Sometimes something is enough.
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