Harry* couldn’t bring himself to speak to his dad for a year and a half after he had walked out of their family home to live with his mistress, all when his son was just 14. He was too angry to talk, too protective of his mother. “I thought about him a lot during that time, as you might expect,” Harry reflects. “I often had feelings of doubt as to whether I should be so hard in my stance. Particularly, because I had a lot of voices in my ear telling me not to – friends and family. So, a lot of feelings of doubt crept in, but I tried to keep myself really distracted.”
Periods of estrangement like Harry’s are markedly common. While only 6 per cent of adults report spells of separation from their mothers, more than one in four say they’ve been estranged from their fathers at some point in time, according to a long-term study into family relationships by Ohio State University. Other studies indicate that this is due to fathers being less likely to co-habit or foster emotional connection with their children after marriage break-ups, less likely to initiate contact with their children in adulthood, and more likely to be perpetrators of physical and sexual violence, as well as substance use and abuse.
Regardless of the circumstances, even partial estrangement can provoke feelings of shame for a child due to conditioning that it’s deeply abnormal to go no-contact with someone you share DNA with. As such, “profound moments” like Father’s Day, weddings, welcoming children and birthdays can make reconnection more likely, according to researchers, as these markers signify the importance of fatherhood in our society and reinforce an idea of “compulsory kinship” where family members should have a relationship – no matter the difficult context.
Read: Royal estrangement: How it really feels to cut off your parents
Sociologist and author of Families We Lose: Estrangement in the Democratization of Kinship, Rin Reczek, says cycling “in and out of no contact” is therefore common for estranged fathers and adult children, who get caught in a loop of hope and disappointment without development. “We go through the same cycle over and over again and they keep failing,” she says. “It can have really negative consequences for psychological wellbeing and for other relationships in their lives.”
“My dad attempted to keep in contact with loads of calls and texts, but they faded out and became more irregular over time, so the cadence changed,” says Harry. “I didn’t like ignoring the messages; I actually didn’t like receiving them at all. I would have much rather had a clean break – but he was within his rights to try and keep in contact.”
Sarah* – now 64 – was four years old when her dad left her, her mum, her three-year-old sister and six-month-old brother behind, to start a new life without them. “We were in regular contact for quite some time after that,” she says of the initial readjustment. “But it just seemed to dwindle and he wasn’t reliable so sometimes he just didn’t turn up.”
When Sarah was around nine or 10 she stopped seeing her dad altogether. Then, her sister “went off the rails” and her mum reached out to her dad for help – but none came. “My opinion of him was a bit poor really, that he’d abandoned the family and didn’t provide any support of any sort,” says Sarah. “My loyalties were definitely with my mum.”
After decades of no contact, when Sarah’s father was dying of cancer, his fourth wife reached out to their family on Facebook. “My sister had some contact but it didn’t end well,” Sarah says. “I felt no particular interest because he was like a stranger to me. We never had any direct contact. He told my sister, ‘Sarah knows where I am if she wants to contact me’, which I thought was really poor because it was putting the ball in my court. I wasn’t the one who left, who had no contact with my children.”
Now Sarah’s father is dead; she acknowledges this perspective might come across as harsh. “He definitely hasn’t been a father to me, so I had no regrets really,” she explains. “I just didn’t see the point in putting myself out there for somebody who appeared not to care for me at all since I was four… I think I’ve tried to protect myself from the sadness.”
Estrangement, despite its prevalence, is an under-researched area and even less is known about reconciliation, says Dr Lucy Blake, an academic specialising in family estrangement and the author of Home Truths: The Facts and Fictions of Family Life. “People have shared that they feel like the estrangement from their fathers has been minimised,” she adds. “Like the gravity of the depth of grief and pain isn’t acknowledged as much by therapists and friends as if they were estranged from their mother.”
Blake, however, notes that therapy can be useful when attempting reconnection to give adult children the space to reflect on what’s happened to them, what it means, and where they want to go next. There’s even specialised reconciliation counselling: “I bring them into a mediated conversation,” says Dr Becca Bland PhD, a coach and researcher who is a leading expert on family estrangement. “Everyone has to own their part in how the dynamic was created, apologise, share their truth, and then move forward with agreed boundaries.”
Treading carefully is important, experts agree. “Wariness and trust have to be rebuilt slowly. So, I would be very, very careful about someone bouncing back into your life saying that they’ll do absolutely anything,” says Blake. “It’s not a matter of rushing anything. Rather than looking at the words people are saying, look at their actions.”
Lauren Ashton, a BACP-accredited psychotherapist and therapist who specialises in family estrangement and trauma, often advises clients to take note of their body’s reaction when confronted with conversations or thoughts involving their father. “If that gut feeling is nervous or their body tenses up, what are their nerves telling them?” she says. “How would those feelings come up if you saw them? What would be the knock-on effects for you as a person, your relationships and the life you’ve built around you in the days after?”
Some clients might find the mere thought of being near their father so overwhelming that Ashton recommends they undertake further therapy before allowing contact. In other instances, a time-limited meeting might work. “Can you go to a family dinner and politely leave after you’ve done one hour?” she asks. “There are so many options away from the polarised no-contact or full-contact approach that we’ve come to know.”
Harry agreed to meet his dad at a cafe after one of his friends’ parents died. “It really served as a reminder that life is precious,” he says. “I initially remember our first few meetings being extremely awkward and we sort of skirted around the topic. It wasn’t the same as when you’re away from a friend for ages and have a nice long catch-up.” This unease, he notes a decade later, subsided the more time they spent together.
Now, Harry and his dad have a different type of relationship. It feels less like a father-son dynamic and more like two adults who’ve decided to be in each other’s lives. “I would say I’m a lot more honest with my feelings and emotions than I was previously,” he says. “I’m also treated more on a level footing than I was before; My strong stance and morals have made it abundantly clear that we need to be equal – and honest with each other.”
*Names have been changed
