When your adult child cuts contact: Grief, boundaries & healing

For many, parenthood comes with a deep sense of love, sacrifice and commitment. You do your best. You show up. You worry, even when they’re grown. And so, when an adult child chooses to cut contact, it can feel like a kind of living grief. The loss is invisible yet consuming. The relationship might still exist in your mind and heart, but in practice, it’s a closed door.

Estrangement from a child isn’t talked about enough. It carries layers of shame, confusion and judgement. And when that estrangement is accompanied by manipulation, coercive behaviour or rewriting of history, it becomes even more difficult to navigate. This article is for those parents—often mothers—who are quietly carrying the pain of being cut off, and who may be questioning everything about their role, worth and choices.

Let’s sit with that experience together, without shame. Let’s explore what’s happening, why it’s not always your fault, and how healthy boundaries, though painful, can offer clarity, dignity, and sometimes even healing.

The pain of estrangement: A grief with no name

When a child you raised no longer wants contact, the emotional impact can be profound. It may feel like rejection, abandonment, even betrayal. There’s often a relentless “What did I do wrong?” loop that plays in your mind, especially if your adult child accuses you of being harmful or controlling.

You might look back over years of parenting with a forensic lens, trying to work out the exact moment it all broke. You remember the scraped knees, the bedtime stories, the battles fought on their behalf. And yet, here you are—uninvited.

Grief is natural. This kind of loss is ambiguous and ongoing. Unlike bereavement, there is no finality—just a painful uncertainty that can make it hard to move forward. Therapy can help name and hold that grief, offering a space where your pain doesn’t need to be minimised or rationalised away.

Coercive control can go both ways

We often associate coercive control with romantic partners or domestic abuse situations, but it can also show up in family dynamics, including from adult children to parents.

Sometimes, the estrangement itself becomes a form of control. You may be told: “Unless you cut off your sister, I won’t speak to you again.” Or: “If you don’t agree you abused me, I’ll keep the grandchildren away.”

It’s complicated. Some adult children have experienced genuine harm and are setting vital boundaries for their own healing. But in other cases, especially where personality difficulties, trauma or external influence is involved, estrangement may be used to punish, manipulate or rewrite the past in a way that leaves no room for nuance or repair.

In these situations, parents often feel powerless and gaslit. The story being told doesn’t match the one you lived. There’s little space for dialogue, only demands and conditions.

Naming coercive behaviour for what it is doesn’t make you a bad parent. It doesn’t erase the possibility of regret or your willingness to reflect. But it does give you permission to protect your well-being, too.

The danger of shame and the myth of perfect parenting

Estrangement feeds shame. It’s easy to internalise the belief that if your child walked away, it must be your fault. That you failed in the one job that mattered most.

But parenting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Families are complex ecosystems. Our children don’t always see us as we are but through the lens of their own unmet needs, wounds, and developmental stages. Adult children, like all humans, are capable of distortion, defensiveness and projection.

It’s possible to have done your best and still be misunderstood. It’s possible to have made mistakes and still not deserve to be erased. It’s also possible to hold both: regret and self-compassion, sorrow and boundaries, love and distance.

Therapy can help you challenge the internalised shame. It offers a space where you are not judged or labelled but gently invited to reclaim your own truth.

When love becomes enabling

Many estranged parents continue to hope for reconciliation. That’s natural. But hope can sometimes morph into self-abandonment. If you’re constantly apologising for things you didn’t do, accepting distorted narratives, or walking on eggshells to maintain the slightest contact—you might be crossing the line from love into self-erasure.

Setting a boundary doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means you’ve learned to protect your dignity.

Healthy boundaries might look like:

• Saying, “I’m willing to talk if it’s a two-way conversation.”
• Refusing to accept abuse, threats or manipulation.
• Holding space for their truth without erasing your own.
• Recognising when their demands come at the cost of your well-being.

Boundaries don’t always bring reconciliation. But they do bring self-respect. And sometimes, paradoxically, they create the conditions where reconnection becomes more possible because the dynamic is no longer driven by guilt and fear.

Therapy as a space for healing - not fixing

Therapists cannot “fix” estrangement. But we can walk with you through it.

In therapy, you can:

• Grieve without censorship
• make sense of mixed emotions: love, guilt, rage, relief, hope
• reclaim your own story from the one you’ve been handed
• learn to hold your adult child with compassion and limits
• rebuild your identity outside of being “mum” or “dad

You are not just the parent of someone who left. You are a whole person with your history, patterns, dreams and wounds. Therapy helps you reconnect with that.

What if reconciliation never comes?

That’s a heartbreaking possibility—and one worth preparing for.

It may not be what you wanted. But it doesn’t mean your life is over. Many clients find that, with time and support, they learn to live alongside the pain rather than inside it. New relationships deepen. Self-worth becomes rooted in something other than their child’s approval. The grief remains, but it stops defining them.

Some even come to realise that the space created by the estrangement, painful as it was, gave them room to rediscover parts of themselves that had been lost in people-pleasing or parenting from fear.

Moving forward: With love and boundaries

If you’re reading this as a parent who has been estranged by an adult child, know that you are not alone. You are not beyond repair. You are allowed to grieve, rage, reflect and rebuild.

Estrangement doesn’t always mean permanent disconnection, but it does call for clarity, honesty and courage. Therapy can be a vital part of that journey, helping you hold the love without losing yourself in it.

Whether your adult child returns one day or not, your healing is not dependent on their choices. Your life still matters. Your story is still unfolding. And you? You are still worthy of being heard, held, and honoured.