Dear Eric: I would love to hear from you and your readers if anyone has this experience and advice on how to manage the repercussions. Our daughter was recently wed to a great guy. The two of them decided on the wedding invite list. They knew exactly which family and friends they wanted to share their spectacular day with. Well, my sister did not receive an invite, and now my family has completely disowned me. I had fairly decent relationships, and now it’s all gone. I tried to explain to them (including my mother) that it’s not my wedding and not my invite list. Is this a common occurrence? How do people manage in order to move on?
—Sad in Seattle
Dear Sad: I’m very sorry to hear about this. While estrangement impacts many families, each situation and each family are different. The circumstances around your family disowning you are, to put it mildly, odd. Yes, it hurts to be left off a guest list, but completely disowning a sister/daughter is extreme behavior. Sometimes these events are the tip of an iceberg that extends into the depths of a toxic relationship. So, your family members may have older resentments that acted as kindling. Add to that the spark of your daughter’s invite drama, and you’ve got a blaze.
Karl Pillemer’s book “Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them” has helpful guidance for understanding, addressing, and mending familial estrangement. I would strongly suggest you have a conversation with your family in which you ask a few questions and listen a lot. It’s hard to not defend yourself, especially in the face of such cruel capriciousness, but it may be educational for you to hear where they’re coming from in all this. Hopefully, what you glean will help you move forward.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
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