Carolyn Hax: He’s estranged from his son but wants to meet his granddaughter

[conuly]

Hi, Carolyn: I have been estranged from my son for about 12 years; he refuses to have any contact with me. It was his decision soon after I divorced his mother.

Ironically, a few years after that, my son was divorced from his first wife. He is now remarried. I learned recently he and his second wife just had a baby, my granddaughter.

I am thinking of corresponding with his wife to convince her that I should be able to see my granddaughter. Such attempts could create friction in my son's marriage.

Should I try to convince my daughter-in-law that I should be able to see my granddaughter or just wait for a time my son might seek reconciliation?

— L.

L.: Oh my goodness, no, no, no. It would be bad enough if you tried to get access to your son through this emotional back door — but trying it to gain access to your granddaughter? Because you think you “should” have access? That would be an inexcusable invasion of your son’s household for your own emotional ends.

I take your pain seriously. If any of my kids cut me off, a part of me would die.

But even pain that profound doesn’t justify undermining your son’s rightful authority to decide who has access to his family.

That you would consider doing so is the second thing in your letter to say, “Please get therapy,” if at all possible.

The first is the estrangement itself. The endless variations on the countless possibilities for what can go haywire in a family actually fit pretty well into three boxes: 1. You did something to estrange your son and you know it but won’t give him the satisfaction of owning it; 2. You did something to estrange your son and lack the self-awareness to see and understand it; 3. You did nothing to your son to justify estrangement, making your current torment the equivalent of prison for a crime you didn’t commit. All of these are the kind of serious, complicated problems therapy exists to address.

And backdoor contact is the kind of boundary violation it exists to prevent.

You sound past due to run your estrangement problem, whichever one it happens to be, by a practitioner trained to help you figure it out.

So start looking for someone today, please, before you do something three generations regret.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-hes-estranged-from-his-son-but-wants-to-meet-his-granddaughter/2020/07/30/466f033c-c856-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html

Comments

[conuly]

Carolyn is obviously better at this gig than most of them, and this advice is actually pretty sound.

Just going to note that LW cleverly tried to make it sound like Son's divorce and LW's divorce are morally equivalent, without actually saying anything substantive about either of them. I'm sure LW thought this was super sneaky, but actually it's incredibly obvious that LW's divorce (that LW clearly initiated) was shitty and LW was at fault, whereas Son has a bit of higher ground.

[redbird]

That's plausible, though it assumes a bit of self-awareness on the LW's part.

If Carolyn's main goal is to get the letter writer, and anyone else who sees themself in his shoes, to take the good advice, skipping past any questions of fault in the divorce is good tactics as well as kinder than "it sure looks like you know what you did, now get help in living with the consequences."

[neotoma]

There is *so* much missing information here. But yes, the advice of "therapy, so much therapy" is good.

Of course, it's only going to help if the LW wants to actually change; if they just want to be justified in their behavior, it's not. And even if they do work on themselves and changes, that doesn't mean their estranged son owes them a reconciliation.

[cereta]

Sadly, neither LW's actions nor the letter exactly scream "I want to examine my past behavior to see if/where I went wrong and go about changing my present behavior to fix that." Eesh.

[neotoma]

Yeah, I don't think the LW is wants to work on themself to be a better parent and reconcile with their son. They just want to do what they want to do without having to apologize for their past behavior or improve their behavior going forward.

But maybe some of the readers of the column will get a clue before their own relationships with their kids get this bad. Maybe.

[green_grrl]

This one has toxic narcissist written all over it.

Carolyn’s count of three is a great summary that should be provided to all estranged parents. Along with her, “Do NOT violate boundaries.”

[sara]

Yeah, I was once the daughter in law in this scenario, and the estranged relatives did exactly what this guy is proposing, and...well, in the long term, it worked out very badly for every non-narcissist in the situation. The narcissists got to bathe in a lot of everyone else's misery, of course.

[shirou]

I take your pain seriously. If any of my kids cut me off, a part of me would die.

There are other columnists who would also have stressed the importance of boundaries and recommended therapy, but I'm not sure any would have done so with as much sympathy and kindness as Carolyn.