Why Family Rifts Happen

You may have thought it would never happen to you: the estrangement between you and a family member. Maybe the rift is between you and an adult child, parent, or sibling. Family rifts can leave you feeling anxious, depressed, sad, unwanted, and unloved.

What causes family rifts?

In one large-scale survey, 27% of Americans admitted to being estranged from a family member. One in ten reported that family rifts were with a parent or child. Family rifts can develop gradually over time as circumstances and disagreements accumulate. However, family rifts can also occur suddenly when situations, personalities, and events come to a head.

Disagreements about religion, politics, and sexual identity can lead to estrangement. Cases of past abuse, trauma, neglect, substance abuse, or betrayal can lead to family rifts with adult children.

Signs That Your Family is Headed Toward Estrangement

How do you know if your family is headed toward estrangement? You may notice an emotional distancing with your family member first. Perhaps they don’t visit or call as often. They do not speak much when they are around and rarely make any physical contact. When you talk to one another, there may be an undercurrent of anger, resentment, or discontentment.

If the family member typically falls into a role expectation, they may balk at the expectation. For example, if an adult child should care for an aging parent, they may walk away from that responsibility.

How Family Rifts Can Impact Mental Health

Family rifts take a toll on mental health. A relationship you spent years building has unraveled, and this detachment leads to chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and feelings of unworthiness. Low self-esteem and harmful coping mechanisms can also form from estrangement. The resulting stress can result in physical illnesses and lower immunity.

How to Cope

Sometimes family rifts are beyond your control. The pain of rejection and feeling unwanted and unloved can impact other areas of your life. To protect your mental health, it is imperative to learn how to cope during estrangement.

The following are several ways to cope and protect your mental health while remaining open to reconciliation.

Journey Through the Grieving Process

Estrangement is a loss: the death of a relationship. Although you may reconcile later, you need to grieve the loss for now. The grieving process consists of five stages:

• Denial (shock)
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

With denial, you may not realize that your family member has cut you off or initiated the rift. You might be in shock over their behavior. You might reach out to them only to receive radio silence.

In the anger phase, you may rationalize the estrangement by being mad and holding a grudge. You might tell others why you no longer speak to your family member. You may even feel justified in your decision. If the family member decides to estrange, you might find yourself angry that they cannot “just get over it.”

The bargaining phase may have you compromising on your values or beliefs to try to save the relationship. You might reach out to them, or they may reach out to you, although one of you is still upset. You may blame yourself and offer to be better in the future. Often, the bargaining phase is not a long-term workable solution. If you compromise on your values or beliefs to appease another person, you will end up feeling empty and stressed.

The depression phase can last longer than the other stages, and you may cycle through it repeatedly. You mourn the loss of the relationship, and you may not know what to tell people, especially if the estranged family member is a parent or adult child.

You exhibit the common signs of depression: pervasive sadness, loss of interest in enjoyable activities, lethargy, sleep changes, weight and appetite changes, irritability, crying spells, inability to focus, obsessing over what could be different, and intrusive thoughts.

The acceptance phase means you accept things for what they are right now. This does not mean that reconciliation is not possible in the future. With God, all things are possible. When experiencing estrangement, acceptance is recognizing that right now, your relationship is estranged or strained and will take time and trust to repair. This stage allows you to move forward with your life while still loving and praying for your family member.

Forgive

Forgiveness is critical for your mental health. Even if you cannot look past what the other person has done or said, forgiving them in your heart opens the door to unexplainable peace, the type of peace Jesus spoke of in the Bible. This does not mean that forgiveness comes easily, especially if the estrangement was the result of a long-term buildup based on past offenses. It takes relying on God for forgiveness to happen.

Ask God to soften your heart to forgive your family member for past offenses or for initiating the estrangement. Ask God to open the door for reconciliation in His timing. He will do it. Remember the story of Jacob and Esau? The brothers had an estranged relationship for decades, but God brought them back together once they were older and more mature. You can keep the hope by surrendering the situation to God’s timing and forgiving now.

Focus on your health and goals

To keep your mind busy and reduce depression symptoms, focus on your health and goals. Grief has a way of making us ignore ourselves. By centering on what is best for your physical health, you are more likely to be in a better headspace.

Start with taking a daily walk to lift your spirits. Getting out into the sunshine is a good mood booster. If it is overcast, notice the wind on your face and the view from the neighborhood. Try to walk in a green area if possible.

Set health goals such as time walked, miles covered, or amount of weight lifted. Keep workout streaks. For every day that you work out or walk, draw an X on a calendar and keep your streak going for as long as you can. Try not to miss more than two days in a row.

Discuss whether reconciliation would be healthy

Not all reconciliations can be considered healthy. If you were in an abusive relationship with a family member, then it may be best to forgive them but to move on. A counselor can help you clarify what is best for you and your mental health.

Sometimes, reconciliation needs to happen after a cool-down period. Emotions might run high, and you both need time to calm down and distance yourselves from the issues. Prayer and counsel can help you make the right decision for you and the relationship.

Do not bash your family member to others

When you move through the anger phase of the grieving process, it is tempting to blast your family member to other people or online. Refrain from making derogatory statements or airing private family information. The problem is that people remember, and they make assumptions about others. Although this may be a temporary falling out with your family member, you may cost them friendships with others they have had for decades.

When you post rants online, they never truly disappear, even after you hit delete. More people have screenshot features on their phones, and your words can live on forever. Those words, public comments, lost friendships, and grievances may become an obstacle when you desire reconciliation.

Swallow your pride and hold your tongue. Do not let your anger cause you to sin by gossiping about loved ones.

Counseling for Family Rifts

If possible, seek counseling for family rifts. If you struggle with reconciliation or what you should say, reach out to our office today to speak with a counselor. Your counselor can walk you through the steps to get you started, or if your family member is willing, you can seek family therapy together. Complete the contact form or call us today.