Are You Estranged from Someone You Love?

One of life’s most difficult situations is when someone you love is no longer present in your life. It’s a given thing that sometime as a family member, a good friend or a parent, you are going to have a major disagreement. This so frequently happens with life transitions and as we approach retirement. Often Baby Boomers and those 50+ experience this as their adult children sometimes move back home.

Many times, as children grow into adulthood, they go in a direction that their parent’s don’t agree with. Are you retiring from one career and wanting to start your own business? Are your family members and friends seeing a shift in financial allocations and time; the focus is away from them and the things they think should be important are different for you? Possibly the thought of moving away to have a different life is in the picture or the “empty nest” syndrome is finally hitting everyone. Life is going to be different and change is hard. Being disconnected from someone you love only adds to the challenges of change; it is a very difficult, complicated and emotional situation. It can be draining, frustrating and hurtful on a daily basis.

The challenge is not to let this be fatal to the relationships that are important to you. How many times have I heard a client say “Well, if he doesn’t do this, then he can forget asking me for anything!” “If she thinks I’m going to stand for that, then she can just go her own way, make her own mistakes and live with them!” “They obviously don’t appreciate all that I have done for them.” “Can’t they see that it’s my life now and I’m going to live it, with or without them?” These are “closing” statements that usually come from fear, frustration and anger. What’s being discounted is that the person really loves and cares about the relationship, but they are allowing these negative emotions to direct it. Clarity and calm communication is needed to allow for healthy change.

I know you have heard the therapy buzz words “unconditional love”. My personal belief is that there is no such thing as “unconditional love” in relationships, except maybe between a parent and a child. Respect for each other’s desires and opinions, healthy boundaries, allowing for life’s inevitable changes, these are some of the important keys to maintaining good relationships. Often, if you dig down past the complicating emotions of fear, frustration and anger, you’ll usually find that in relationships that are important to you, you do truly love and care about the other person and, probably, at some level they love and care about you.

Again, what usually confuses the situation are these three major emotions.

Fear = fear that someone will be making a serious mistake; fear that they will get hurt in some way.
Frustration = frustration that you’re opinion isn’t being heard or considered, much less followed.
Anger = anger that comes from the fear and frustration. Anger that you are being discounted and, especially, the thought that you might have to fix or pay for something that you don’t agree with.

To repair a broken relationship, first decide and learn to believe that the love you want to share with another is the main goal. Remember this with every decision and every opportunity you have to communicate with each other. Understand and learn to deal with the fear, frustration and anger felt by you and everyone involved. Try to stay emotionally and physically balanced, while you are making good decisions for yourself. Stay focused on the main goal of healthy connection, be patient and let time heal.