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Key points
- Familial trauma can deepen rifts between family members if not addressed.
- Lack of empathy from parents during gray divorce may cause estrangement.
- Healing fractured relationships is possible through open communication and professional help.
Since 1990, the divorce rate for parents 50 and older has doubled. Researchers coined the phenomenon, the gray divorce revolution, and they predict it will triple by 2030. The damaged relationships of gray divorce can be decades long and affect several generations, from parents to adult children to grandchildren.
A colleague and family therapist referred me to a 28-year-old woman. Francesca was in family sessions with her 63-year-old mother but needed individual therapy to address her long-standing, strained relationship with her mother, in addition to her unresolved grief.
Here is her story from our session:
"I am 28 years old. I was almost 17 when my parents divorced, and I lost my dad. My dad was 54, and my mom was 52. He told my mom he was in love with Scott, a man who was a friend of our family and my soccer coach when I was young. My mom was so hurt and angry that she told me before my dad could tell me. She said, 'Dad is leaving us for Scott.' The next day, in as caring and loving a way as he could, Dad told me he had come to terms with the fact that he was a gay man, loved Scott, and was moving out to live with Scott.
"Though I was sad for myself because Dad was moving out, I was happy for Dad because I had sensed for a long time that he was unhappy. Mom had always been cold, aloof, and very critical of Dad. I was very close with Dad when I was growing up. I was okay with him realizing he was gay. I knew my mom wasn't okay with it because she always said she thought gay people were 'sick.' When Dad moved out, I was left to live with Mom. She forbade me to go to 'that sick house.' I felt I'd better do what Mom wanted: stay on her good side and have a place to live until I graduated from high school. I felt torn between them. It broke my heart not to see my dad.
"Honestly, Dad and I were always closer than Mom and me. We had more in common than Mom and I did. He taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow and we would go to the archery range. Mom usually volunteered for this or that organization when she had free time, so she didn't see many of my games or attend my school functions when I was growing up. But after Dad moved out and they were going through the divorce, she tried to turn into Super Mom and do everything Dad had done. She constantly derided Dad to me using denigrating names that I don't want to repeat. I told her she was hurting my feelings because he was my dad. Then she turned her anger on me and called me ugly names—names that I don't want to repeat either. Her "Super Mom" act felt disingenuous to me. My friends agreed and said they didn't want to be around her.
"Dad said he understood that I felt caught between Mom and him, so he didn't try to make me feel guilty for not spending time with Scott and him. I was sad, anxious, and somewhat depressed most of my senior year in high school, but I didn't tell Dad or Mom. When I turned 18, I moved in with Dad and Scott. My parents' divorce was still going on. Mom was furious, called me a selfish ingrate, and asked how I could abandon her as Dad had done. I tried to talk calmly with her, but she would not listen and continued to rage at me.
"Since I moved out, I have refused to see my mom, and I have not allowed her to see her grandson. I don't want her to hurt our son as she hurt Dad and me for so many years. It's been 10 years now. I can't stop asking myself, 'How could she be so selfish and uncaring about her daughter's feelings and berate Dad and me?' I recently read an article about something called unresolved grief. I think I have that. I want to deal with all the sadness and loss I have felt for years.
"The pain feels deep. After I moved in with Dad and Scott, I went on with my life and thought that saying time heals all things would be accurate. But when I read that unresolved grief is with us every day because we have just buried it, it made sense to me that was why I never felt free of the uneasiness, sadness, anxiety, and depression."
Francesca was wise to focus on her unresolved grief. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, she experienced the loss arising from her mother being cold, aloof, critical, and absent. Her significant losses multiplied with the knowledge that her dad was leaving, in addition to her mother's continual lack of understanding and support.
Francesca met with me for EMDR sessions during the following months while her mother participated in individual therapy, too. Eventually, they returned to family therapy with my colleague and repaired their fractured relationship.
If your parent-adult-child relationships have emotional rifts, a therapist, medical doctor, clergy member, or other healthcare provider could help you and your family heal.
© 2024 Carol R. Hughes, Ph.D.
*Names and details changed to protect patient confidentiality.
This post is part of a series. Read the previous one here.
References
Francine Shapiro, Getting Past your Past: Take Control of your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy. (Emmaus, PA: Rodale Books, 2013)
