The Estrangement Standoff: Discourses of Denial and Deflection

How that stalemate is reflected and reinforced in the cultural narrative

Image credit: Adobestock_1029980761

[The November Educational Series article is in observation of Family Estrangement Awareness Month.]

The experience of family estrangement has uncanny parallels that are pervasive and inescapable in the world around us.

The United States has just experienced the longest government shut down in history. In simplest terms, one side withheld their votes as the line in the sand against repeated rollbacks of fundamental governmental programs.

The other, the side holding the balance of power within all three branches, used denial, misinformation and deflection to demonize the opposing side for “not coming to the table.”

Similarly, labor strikes — the refusal to perform work — are used by workers in labor disputes as an ultimate means to insist that their grievances of unfair treatment be heard and acted upon to a point of satisfaction. The side holding the power typically uses a variety of tactics, including the attempts to prevent workers from even having the ability to organize or strike, as tools to not hear or accommodate them.

Sound familiar?

These same types of dynamics are prominent within the discourse around estrangement. It is the progression of conflict to an active and ultimately entrenched standoff that is reflective of how estrangement occurs in the first place: a resistance by one side to progressive change and to every tool and tactic to reflect on what is needed in order to enact it.

A resistance that starts with the refusal to listen which then migrates to a myriad of obfuscation tactics.

The adult child wants and needs to be heard. The estranged parent, who is always in the position of power in the dynamic, wants and needs to not hear them.

The estranged parent and their apologists expect — nay, demand — that the detente and accommodation to break the stalemate come from the adult child. The adult child is initiating the distancing precisely because the parent, whose attitudes of expected parental deference are reflected in the culture at large, continues to refuse to hear them.

Denial of access becomes the only remaining tool for the adult child to both remain firm on their needs to be heard and to create the conditions for their own healing in the absence of that ever occurring.

It is a deadlock — an impossible impasse.

When one side is continually asking to be heard and the other actively refusing to do so, there is simply Nowhere. To. Go.

Except away.

There are consistent themes in how this refusal manifests — the persistent and never ending rotation of such obfuscating tactics being what ultimately leads to estrangement as the final end result.

Among the most common among those, in fact the number one deflection, is that of blame directed towards third parties. One of the primary targets of that are therapists for “convincing” the adult child that estrangement is a solution to their problems in the relationship.

As a component of that complaint, there are the accusations directed towards the adult child of “rewriting history.”

In the current cultural narrative, there is a clearly observed and expanding conversation around estrangement where those arguments are playing out. An expansion of coverage which also gets falsely positioned as indicative of a proclaimed yet unsubstantiated rise in incidence.

The “epidemic” of estrangement.

Those in the adult child community and allied network put forth content within shared platforms to characterize and illustrate the situation. The estranged parent community then twists and weaponizes those in a play on semantic reversal to deflect from what is being communicated. It is DARVO on a cultural level (the blame shifting tactic of Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).

Deflection, after all, is the number one consistently and pervasively used tactic of the estranged parent — one that can be, and is, applied in any manner of ways.

The echo chamber claims of “rewriting history” is a refusal by the estranged parent community to recognize that the experience on the receiving end of their parenting may be vastly different than what they think they delivered. Or what they claim to have been their intent.

It is a matter of perspective where both can be and often are true.

Without the curiosity and openness to try to understand what that experience actually was for the adult child trying to convey it, to understand impact and delivered experience over intent, there is simply no foundation to create anything different.

But it is much, much easier for the parent to say, “they didn’t/won’t tell me” followed by “I did the best I could to give them everything they could need or want” than to engage in deep, authentic reflection.

The cave they fear to enter is their own mind to authentically examine all the ways their children — whether during their youth, as an adult or both — made bids for a different type of relationship or tried to communicate their needs and feelings, in whatever language or methods they used among those varied instances of trying to do so.

Research consistently shows that estrangement unfolds over the span of years, not as a single, sudden decision, though there can often be a “last straw” event.

Throughout that time, adult children employ many different strategies to communicate whether directly or indirectly. Different approaches are taken to the interactions to try to convey the reality of their experience in ways their parent can hopefully, finally, understand.

Those efforts often progress via frustration to more directness and different language to try to communicate and then to eventually set boundaries upon recognition of repeated lack of receptivity. Or there is a simple cessation of attempts when it becomes clear that continuing to try will only result in receiving more harm.

An oft cited, foundational study on adult children’s processes along the path to estrangement found that “participants reported three core reasons for estrangement; (i) abuse, (ii) poor parenting and (iii) betrayal” as well as “cycles of estrangement and reunification across the lifespan, often using distance to manage the relationship when it became too difficult.”

Emotional maltreatment is often the leading reason cited along with other factors such as deeply mismatched values and beliefs as well as overall relational toxicity playing a primary role.

Parents, however, consistently cite external factors as being the reason, a refusal to validate their children’s reasons, or claims of not knowing the reasons why — though probing around the history of the relationship often reveals known longstanding patterns of conflict and tension. 

All are deflections.

The standoff is reflected even within the therapy community and the ways in which some of those prominent voices advocate on the topic.

On the side of those most loudly and visibly beating the drums in support of the estranged parent perspective are those that ironically blame “therapy culture” and “therapy language” for steering adult children astray. There is the familiar refrain of blaming an “individualistic” society over one that emphasizes the importance of family loyalty and obligation over all else, no matter the detriment to that individual.

The problem is not just at the individual level, they say. It is cultural and our poor, impressionable adult children are getting caught up in it, resulting in a breakdown of society as a whole. The condescension and belittling that is inherent in that perspective is apparently unrecognized to them even while they advocate for adult to adult dialogue.

Then there is the side representing their work with estranged adult children and who are facing backlash and blame from not only estranged parents, but also those other therapists and the media for “persuading” adult children to estrange. Those therapists may advocate and some even “beg” adult children to NOT use the language they have learned or are learning along their journey to recognize and articulate the dysfunction within the relationship.

The contention and warning within that advice being that the estranged parent lacks the emotional agility, maturity or regulation skills to be able to receive that language, thereby only serving to further inflame the tensions.

While there is certainly ample merit to that caution, there is also the reality that such an emotionally limited parent will have already demonstrated that incapacity throughout the years of attempts to address the dysfunction. Given that such limitation is, in fact, a core component of the problem itself, placing further burden on the adult child to police their language is unlikely to materially improve the outcome.

It becomes more or less a “which door do you choose” situation.

Whatever method of relaying the issues, whichever door chosen, they all ultimately lead to the same place when dealing with someone who is wholly and entirely committed to not listening.

It is quite likely that the early stages of the distancing process were in fact limited or devoid of such “therapy speak” before the adult child learned or adopted it themselves. It can often be a eureka moment of clarity and validation when that adult child finds the language that speaks so directly to what they have long struggled to identify and name.

Applying psychological reactance theory, emotionally immature parents display what researchers call “high trait reactance” — a chronic sensitivity to perceived criticism that manifests as resistance to efforts to be influenced by what they believe to be attempts to try to control them.

The further along that reactance scale an individual is, the more aggressive and vociferous tends to be the resistance to listen or to process what is being communicated.

The authoritarian parent for whom control and hierarchy are paramount can be presumed to fall at that high end. The behaviors they manifest, and often escalate in intensity in the efforts to avoid accountability, will confirm it.

In asking to change the dynamics of the relationship, such a parent perceives that the adult child is continually presenting them with what they deem to be demands, regardless of how they are presented. Whether they believe those “demands” to be directly coming from their child or perceive them to be coming from an external source (therapists, social media, spouse/partner), all serve to challenge their parental authority in ways that are threatening — albeit at potentially an unconscious level.

In any crucial conversation, particularly those that are highly contentious and emotional, message framing is naturally important. Certain types of messaging, such as “therapy language” do have potential to increase that aversion with those who are at the high end of the reactivity scale. 

However, whether the language is simple, complex or controversial, there is a resistance loop that is engaged from the get go that is unlikely to be reversed.

Ultimately, demonization and weaponization specifically of “therapy speak” is but one more of the many facets of the estranged parents’ priceless crown jewel of deflection. It keeps the paralysis of productive discourse around estrangement firmly in place.

We are not going to talk about the problem, we are going to focus on the language we use to talk about the problem.

While language is indeed incredibly important, the intensity of the push back to that language is very informative about the problem itself.

Dysfunction is terrified of the light of exposure and naming. Regardless of the vernacular employed to do so. Complaining about a certain type of language effectively reveals the shield that has been raised against letting any of it in. 

The fact is, learning to untangle relational dysfunction — to find and shed light on the truth in the situation — is indeed a learning process. On all sides of the equation.

If parents, or the communities that are supporting either side of estrangement, aren’t willing to be uncomfortable in that learning process, there is no learning to be had. There are going to be mistakes along the way. There are going to be occasions where the language used is off putting and maybe even applied incorrectly.

That is simply the nature of messy conversations. They are exactly that: messy.

Estranged parents adamantly want adult children to know that they are fallible. The cries of “parents are humans too,” and “children don’t come with instruction manuals” are themes repeated ad nauseum within the estranged parent community. Yet their defensive reactivity does not allow them to offer the same accommodation they are asking to receive for themselves.

Instead, again, it is used as another weapon of deflection.

The issue is not and never has been an expectation of perfection, but an expectation of accountability, change and repair.

In order to get to repair, there must first be understanding on what it is that needs repairing.

Whether it is estranged parents rejecting “therapy speak” by vilifying adult children for applying them, focusing on their application in the conversation goes nowhere, exactly as any previously applied non-therapy words also went nowhere. It is the consistency of resistance no matter the progression of language or strategies employed, that becomes instructive as to the futility of continuing dialogue.

The reality is that terms get adopted by a community because they resonate and come to have common understanding for how they apply within that community. Finding fault with those words is just one more form of rejection of effort to understand what they mean and what they are trying to convey.

For many estranged adult children, there ultimately comes the realization and acceptance that nothing will change. No matter what is said, how it is said or what is done to try to change it.

In the cultural conversations around estrangement, “begging” those within the adult child community to avoid that language as they move through the journey of estrangement, is really just a form of capitulation to the deflection tactic. It serves the parents’ need to keep the conversation away from where it should be and where the adult child needs it to be: the refusal of the estranged parent to authentically examine the relational dynamic itself and their responsibility for its dysfunction.

Estrangement is most prevalently initiated by adult children because of that dysfunction which, due to being ongoing, unchanging and unacknowledged by the parent, causes deep and compounding harm from which they need to escape.

Adult children are asking to be heard. Estranged parents and the communities involved need to hear them. No matter the language used to do so. Shifting the discourse to be around the specifics of the messaging is nothing more than deliberate distraction and another form of victim blaming. IE: If you use this language, you are going about the conversation the wrong way.

To move into productive conversation, it is important to not only be receptive to whatever way the conversation is being presented, but to also honor the deep and painful work involved in desperately trying to find a way to do so. Whether or not the recipients deem them to be the exact right words or are offended by the use of them.

In most cases, the estranged adult child has done an incredible depth of work — on themselves and on understanding the situation — that is reflected via the “therapy speak” that is deemed so objectionable.

The level of understanding the adult child achieves through that work, and which the language represents, is a threat to the authoritarian parent’s control. A control they deny they both hold and demand even while pretending that not to be the case by accusing their child of not “coming to the table” as an adult.

Another deflection. Another refusal of accountability. 

Power structures are able to benefit their side of the standoff by denying the structure exists and further diverting the conversation in the process of doing so.

It will be up to the culture at large and the estranged parent community within it, to begin to accept that there are valid perspectives that need to be heard, regardless of how hard and uncomfortable it is to hear it. Or how it is being said.

There can be no end to a standoff without movement by one side. It can either be an authentically open step forward by the side being asked to listen, or a permanent detour to new, more productive destinations by the other that leaves the willfully deaf forever behind.

The more the intractability to take that step forward is apparent and reinforced — in all the ways that are employed to do so — the more it is clear there is no solution. Except extrication from the relationship altogether. 

Learning to become curious about the experiences of the estranged adult child and comfortable with their language to describe it is a vital tool in being able to take that step — whether in any one individual situation of estrangement or the cultural conversation at large.

The language used by the estranged adult child community can either be viewed as a barrier or a bridge in that process.

To end a standoff requires a first step. The direction of that step and by whom is what remains in balance in the estrangement conversation.

Image credit: AdobeStock_300658665

[Please note: The educational series columnist is not a licensed mental health professional. The articles under this series are written from a peer to peer perspective.]