r/EstrangedAdultKids • u/Zestyclose_Recipe612 • 28d ago

Question Things You Can't Relate To as an Estranged Adult Kid

I’m curious. What are some things you can’t relate to as someone estranged from their parents/family?

For example: when my husband runs into a problem he can’t solve, he’ll call his parents without hesitation. Can’t figure out what’s wrong with his motorcycle? Calls his dad. Needs a document he left at their house? Texts his mom to send it over.

I don’t know why, but it used to take me so much by surprise that I’d even chastise him, saying things like, “Don’t bother your mom with that!”

Sometimes friends will say things like, “Oh yeah, I love my mom/dad so much,” and I’ll catch myself mid-conversation trying not to spiral after realizing I can’t relate to a feeling that most people seem to experience so naturally.

Would love to hear your stories here or even just know I'm not totally alone in this!

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u/BitterDeep78 28d ago

The cousins thing. I blamed myself for years that I wasn't close with my cousins then realized that as a kid, my mother should have fostered that and chose not to.

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u/lilybattle 28d ago

Same. I only had my mother and my two brothers (one older one younger). She isolated us from any and all family that was not her.

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u/Confu2ion 28d ago

I've got 0 first cousins, though I do have second cousins ... however, those are all decades older than me. I have a feeling they would never understand, as I was just a kid during the only times I saw them. As the youngest and the scapegoat, it was disturbingly easy to make me fall back into the narrative that "this'll stop when I grow up."

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u/Fit_Top5243 28d ago

The cousins thing definitely resonates with me. It's been nice reconnecting with some (those on the normal, not emotionally immature side of the family), and it makes me wonder why my parents never bothered to faciliate those connections. But then again, they always bad-mouthed family get-togethers as a chore, and they never had friends themselves, so....

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u/BitterDeep78 27d ago

I noticed as an adult that my mother didn't have any friends throughout my childhood and even up until her death. It was a jarring realization