"Done With the Crying" by Sheri McGregor

[BusynMember]

Somebody gave me this book. It's REALLY good. I am over most of the horror of estrangement after ten plus years, but I think t his book could help anyone who feels used/abused/basically tossed to the side of the road unless needed for monetary uses...for anyone without a real meaningful relationship with an adult child.It talks a lot about how society blames us for our estranement and how to move on with those loved ones who want us in their lives in meaningful ways. Good investment in my opinion.

She started out with a blog which is:


www.RejectedParents.net

She also has a Facebook page at facebook.com/rejected.parents

"As a caring mother to whom the unthinkable happened, Sheri McGregor, M.A. has become a powerful voice for the parents of estranged adult children." One of her five kids sat her down one day, with his wife (this is so often the scenario...the husband the wife....and told her she no longer would be babysitting their children...they had hired somebody else. So the estrangement began rather slowly and like many adult kids, after a marriage.

Seriously, if your kid hooks up with a partner who decides she wants your child to herself/himself or just doesn't like you, many adult children tend to side with the spouse or partner. But our adult children are equally culpable because they allowed it to happen.

I wish I had had this book ten years ago, when the estrangement shocked me. This would have made it easier with Goneboy. And I think it could help anyone struggling with an adult child relationship, even if t he child isn't really completely gone, but is still gone...and if it affects your relationship with your grandchildren because struggling relationships a nd restricted access to grands go hand in hand.

It is a hopeful book. Again, I wish I had read it way before now, when I'd figured most of this out for myself and have moved on. But it was validating anyway.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Very nice site, SWOT. The sites seem decent and kind, like this one.

Thanks for posting for us. I am sorry Gone Boy put you through that.

Cedar

 

[Tanya M]

Thanks for sharing SWOT.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Except. While I don't question the other parents on THIS site who have been dumped by their kids. I have the shoe on the other foot. When there are serious mental issues in the grandparents, there may be no way to allow "normal" access to the grands without seriously compromising their development. I had to choose between my kids or my parents.

 

[BusynMember]

Insane, correct. This book is not geared towards that though. Certainly there are situations when this is done for realistic reasons. This book is geared toward parents who are basically normal and loving and dumped.

It happens a lot.these days. Family is much.less important.these.days, unfortunately.

 

[InsaneCdn]

But if you were to ask my parents, they would say that they ARE, in fact,

parents who are basically normal and loving and dumped.

They don't understand their own toxicity. "We" are the problem, not them. They did all the normal things, were "good" parents, etc. Except... there is way more to the story.

 

[BusynMember]

I had a mother like that, insane. You're right. She was not in my children's lives. I didn't make the choice. She did. I was such a wimp back then that I would have allowed her in their lives. I'm so grateful she chose to stay away. Looking back I see it as good. She hated me and was unstable and no good would have come from her being Grandma to my kids. I shudder at the thought. I get it. Before our final estrangement, she had nothing good to say about me OR the three kids of mine that she barely knew. She was scary mean to me. She knew Bart, gone boy and princess very minimally...Yet she knew them, in her mind, and they were flawed. Glad she never met Sonic and Jumper. By then, we had no contact.

However I was not similarly toxic to my son and he basically left because of a hostile girlfriend/wife and religious differences. I have good relationships with my four other kids.

Then again...Goneboy was adopted at 6 and that's a long time to live in an orphanage in another country. It's not nurturing. A hot bed for attachment problems. Even though I know that...it was still very hard. He did not really accept me as Mom, but I loved him like all my kids.

This book would have been useful then. There are good parents here who are basically estranged from their adult kids, other than being abused . That's why I posted the book. It is for them.