the guide
Cutting ties with your adult son or daughter?
People talk a lot about children who drift away from their parents. Much less about parents who can't take any more, or who don't understand what happened. If that's where you are, you probably carry a mix of grief, anger and shame. Here's something to help you lay things out, without anyone telling you what kind of parent you should be.
First, say what's really happening
"It's not working anymore" can cover very different realities. Does your child hurt you every time you talk? Constantly ask you for money? Cut contact without explanation? Is an addiction, an illness or their partner weighing on the relationship?
Write down the concrete facts, with recent examples, rather than an overall feeling. What you decide about a child who is suffering has nothing to do with what you decide about someone who treats you with contempt. What comes next depends entirely on what you're living.
Look at your part, without crushing yourself
This is the hard part, and it deserves to be said gently. Sometimes an adult child's distance comes from old wounds we didn't see, or didn't understand the way they lived them. Asking "what might they have felt?" isn't blaming yourself, it's trying to understand.
But looking at your part doesn't mean carrying everything. You may have made mistakes and still be mistreated today. Both can be true at once. The goal isn't to name a culprit, it's to know what can still be repaired.
Separate what depends on you from what no longer does
Your child is an adult. You can no longer decide for them, force them to come back, or fix their life. What still depends on you is what you offer, how you respond, and what you will or won't accept.
Many parents wear themselves out trying to control what's out of their hands, and end up trying nothing at all. Sorting the two often gives you some air back, whatever the final decision.
A closed door isn't necessarily a locked one
Many parents in your situation choose a middle position: stop chasing, without slamming the door. For example, sending a message once a year, saying clearly once "I'm here if you want", then letting the silence be without filling it.
It's neither giving up nor clinging. It's protecting yourself from a wait that wears you down, while leaving a possibility open. Family relationships sometimes reopen years later, often once the pressure has eased on both sides.
this guide's question
What can't you forgive them for, and what can't you forgive yourself for?
Don't know what to do with your child anymore?
Tell Dessille your situation. It won't tell you to cut ties or to keep trying, and it won't judge you as a parent. It helps you untangle what's at play.
Untangle mine, for freeThe questions people often ask
My son or daughter won't talk to me. What should I do?
Start by trying to understand rather than convince. A short message, with no reproach or justification, simply saying you're available and ready to listen, opens more doors than a long letter of explanations. If the silence continues, insisting daily often has the opposite effect. Leaving space, without disappearing, usually works better.
Does a parent have the right to cut ties with an adult child?
Yes. Being family doesn't oblige anyone to accept being humiliated, threatened or exploited, even by their own child. It's a painful decision and often taboo, because parents are expected to take everything. Protecting yourself is legitimate, at any age and in both directions of the relationship.
How do I live with the guilt of being estranged from my child?
Guilt rarely eases on its own, especially when you ruminate alone. Talking about it, with someone close or a professional, helps you tell real responsibility from an impossible standard. No parent has ever been perfect, and being perfect was never the condition for deserving a relationship.