Reflections on Accepting Estrangement versus Understanding It

I read this quote recently and pondered, can there be recovery without understanding.

“Understanding is the first step to acceptance and only with acceptance can there be recovery.” ― J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

As a parent that has been estranged, I constantly battle with the questions of how my children could have grown up to be the kind of adults that they are.

I thought I had taught them the values I have for communication, for resolving and working through issues.  

I thought I had shared with them my belief that it is important to be kind, to not ridicule others for their failings, to have empathy. 

I thought I had raised them to be compassionate and caring and forgiving people.

And I think I was successful.  

My son is a kind of person who reflects my values.  My younger daughter is reevaluating her concept of what family means.  And my other daughter treat others in her life with kindness and compassion.   So in that sense I did not fail to pass on my values.

I did not raise my children to be hard hearted people.

I did not teach them that shunning is an acceptable way to handle difficult relationships.

I did not teach them to be judgmental and critical and without compassion for the mistakes of others.

And yet this is exactly how my estranging daughter treats me.  Toward me she bears a grudge and her heart is hardened against me.   It is me she shuns and she truly believes she has chosen the best way to handle the situation.  It is me she is judging, and me she is critical of and it is my mistakes for which she finds no compassion. 

In the course of my healing journey, I may have come to the place of “accepting” that she is who she is.  I do not however accept that her actions are acceptable.  No matter how much I offer her the right to choose her actions, it does not make the choice of action (silent treatment) the correct action.  She has chosen this action as her preferred way of handling a disagreement.  She has chosen this way of treating me to try to coerce me into agreeing with her on an issue which I see quite differently.   I accept her right to choose, but I do not condone nor accept that she has made the right choice.  I see a very clear distinction between those two thoughts. I also doubt I will ever understand it; simply because it is in my nature to try to resolve issues not to run away from them.  I am also very patient in that I give time for people to work out their own feelings before working on conflict resolution. 

Another thing that I cannot understand is;  how she can live at peace with what she has done. Her actions destroyed not just our mother daughter relationship but the whole family. Also her actions are a complete contradiction to everything I believe in and everything I thought I had taught her.  That we communicate to work out differences, that we accept that it is not necessary to agree to get along etc.

I know I taught my children the golden rule “do onto others as you would have them do onto you”.  And I wonder is this how she wishes others to treat her?

I taught my children to speak kindly of others “if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all”.   And yet she says horrible things about me behind my back.

I know I taught my children that love is unconditional and means accepting a person as they are.  And yet she feels she has the right to tell me how I need to change before she will find me acceptable.  (I am under no delusion whatsoever, the silent treatment is a tactic used to coerce the victim of the shunning to conform.  The silent treatment says in effect "until you conform to what I want you will be punished".) 

I also know I taught my children that you stand by your friends when they are in need or in trouble.  And yet she feels that rejecting me when I needed her help was acceptable. 

By her actions toward me, and the subsequent destruction of the family, she shows that she feels the rules do not apply to her relationship with me.

She somehow feels it is acceptable to be judgmental of my failings, and she feels she has the right to be critical and to withhold her time, to shun me, to prove her point.  She feels that it is acceptable to break up a family to show her disapproval.  There is no compassion in her heart towards me.  She has no empathy for how I am feeling. There is no forgiving and no acceptance and no unconditional love  in her vocabulary about our relationship. 

These are not the values that I taught.  These actions make her a virtual stranger to me.

So while I accept what she has chosen to do and while I accept her right to make her own choices, I have no understanding of how she could have made those choices, or how she can possibly feel that she has chosen correctly and how she can in good conscience live with those choices.

And yet she does! 

• She lives her life with her “new adopted family” and pretends we don’t exist. 
• She smiles and laughs and lives and celebrates as if her actions have no consequences.
• She turns a blind eye to the suffering she has caused to all the members of the family 
• And worse, she doesn't see her actions as inappropriate or extreme.

She baffles me. 

And so yes, I accept the situation I find myself in as a consequence of what she has done, not because I want to, but because I must in order to heal.   I face the reality of what is.

Facing it, always facing it.  That's the way to get through.  Face it. -- Joseph Conrad

However, I don’t think I will ever understand why she felt this was the right choice for her.  It is like my daughter has become a stranger that I no longer understand.  It is like she has taken on the values of the others that now influence her. 

So after much reflection and soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that it is possible to accept a situation even though there is no way to understand the choices made by another. 

When I choose to be very clear within myself about categorizing wrong behaviour as wrong; when I instead focus on accepting a situation I have now power to change; I can find a way towards healing and recovery.

There are other questions that I sometimes ponder:

• What other influences were in her life to teach her this type of behavior?
• When and where was she exposed to this estrangement concept?
• Who taught her this style of conflict resolution?
• Where is this type of action against family found to be acceptable?

However as more and more time passes I realize; not only do I have no answers but that answers no longer really matter. The answers to those questions are her burdens to bear at some future time.  We all sooner or later come face to face with past choices that we made.  

I truly believe that is the nature of Karma, when at some future time we have to face the consequences of our past choices.  My beloved daughter will some day have to face the choice she made to destroy her family.  That will be a difficult time for her and I feel compassion for what she will have to experience in that moment of confrontation with her past.                           

Renate Dundys Marrello
updated 2016 - 11 - 04 

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