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.
