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If the same conversation keeps failing, a third person in the room changes it.
Counselling for couples, families and individuals, in person and online.
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Resources
Worth your time on this question
Everything worth your time on the question: Do I want contact? On what terms?
Five things on this subject: four things to read and one free service or course. Practical support sits first, before anything written to be interesting. If the same conversation keeps failing, a third person in the room changes it.
This page is for going further on your own. If you would rather work the question out with somebody asking, that is the conversation.
Estrangement: talk it throughREAD · BOOK
Boundaries
Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Best for the ownership question, if you can set aside the framing.
The book that put the word into general use, and it carries a strong prescriptive tone that will not suit everybody. Take the part that lasts: the distinction between what is genuinely yours to carry and what you have taken on because nobody else would. That question does more work than any amount of language about limits.
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READ · BOOK
Family Estrangement: A Matter of Perspective
Kylie Agllias
A social work account of estrangement written without assuming reconciliation is the goal. It takes seriously the person who has decided distance is the safer arrangement.
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READ · BOOK
Fault Lines
Karl Pillemer
Pillemer's research on family estrangement and repair, based on interviews with hundreds of families rather than on theory.
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READ · RESEARCH
Making Meaning of Family Estrangement
Kristina Scharp
Scharp's work shows estrangement as an ongoing process of distancing rather than a single break, which is why contact can resume without anything being resolved.
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