Why the Backlash Against Family Estrangement Gets It Wrong
Matthew Hussey
Matthew Hussey, who says he has spent more than 18 years coaching people on confidence, healing from the past, and what he calls relational intelligence, argues that the recent wave of criticism aimed at people who cut ties with family misreads what estrangement usually is. His claim is that for most people, going no contact is not an act of fragility or cruelty. It is a painful last resort, often taken too late, and it leaves grief behind rather than a sense of triumph.
The backlash he is responding to
Hussey says that over the past year he has noticed a "troubling trend": growing backlash against people who separate from family members. He describes several versions of it. One frames estrangement as the oversensitive product of a "woke culture" in which people break up with their families over differences in values or beliefs. Another casts it as running away from the work needed to handle or resolve differences, suggesting that the spiritually whole path is to meet the difficult relative with new equanimity, or to find peace and forgiveness within the relationship.
He sorts the people delivering these messages into three groups. Some are truly well-meaning. Some, in his words, have "a dangerous lack of experience" in what they are talking about. And some, he suggests, have a personal interest in shaming estranged people because they are "the very kind of person one would wish to become estranged from." His stated purpose is to argue that the notion of estrangement as an extreme response by people unable to cope with difference is not just a distraction but dangerous.
The concession: not every estrangement is justified
Before making his case, Hussey acknowledges the exceptions. Some people cut off parents or family for reasons that defy rationality and will later regret it. Others do it because of a genuine personality disorder, where the intention is at best ignorant and lacking empathy and at worst malicious or sadistic. His example is using estrangement as punishment, such as freezing family members out or preventing parents from seeing their grandchildren.
He returns to this point later in the video. He says there are "obviously many people" who cut ties not out of necessity but out of a reactiveness that doesn't serve them, and that these people may one day benefit from reconciliation and from moving past their own judgment and anger. His argument is not that estrangement is always right. It is about who makes up the majority.
The profile he believes fits most estranged people
Hussey believes most people who become estranged from someone as foundational as a parent fit a very different profile. In his view they do it at an extraordinary pain threshold, when they realize that having the person in their life is incompatible with a happy, peaceful life. Many pay a significant social cost to do so. He describes these people as having reached the ceiling of their pain tolerance, and calls that merciful, because in his view many, perhaps most, people never reach it, and the consequences of staying are long and tragic.
For this group, he says, the motives have nothing to do with malice or wielding power. Many never felt they had any power in the relationship at all; many felt powerless, and sometimes afraid, for most or all of it. Many cannot bring themselves to hate the person they have separated from, no matter how badly or how long they were hurt. They may not wish that person ill and may, "against all odds," still want the best for them. What they have concluded is that they cannot keep someone capable of that level of destruction or abuse close, because doing so would be a betrayal of themselves. He uses the phrase "their human," which he says is how they put it on his retreat.
Hussey describes this shift as waking up from "a trance of misplaced familial responsibility" into a new responsibility to take care of a self they have started paying attention to. Typically, he says, these people have spent a considerable portion of their lives, perhaps most of it, trying to maintain the relationship. At some point the question changes from "how do I keep this person in my life" to "how do I make sure this person, who remains a malignant presence, no longer has access to someone I care about: myself."
From connection to protection
He stresses that this shift does not always mean cutting off contact entirely. For some, it means accepting they will never be close while staying in contact, because life circumstances sometimes make that necessary. For others, there is no arm's-length version of the relationship that doesn't still destroy their peace, so contact has to end. In both cases, he says, "the goal post shifts from connection to protection."
When people do stay in contact with someone like this, Hussey says there is usually a very specific set of calculations behind it. The calculation is not about catharsis, working things through, or treating the relationship as a growth lesson.
Abuse that doesn't leave visible marks
Hussey calls it "a fatal misunderstanding" to assume that estrangement is only warranted for victims of sexual or physical abuse. That view, he argues, underestimates what psychological and emotional abuse can do, and misunderstands coercive control. He describes coercive control as silent, capable of extreme psychological, emotional, financial, and even physical damage, and as something that can take years, sometimes a lifetime, to recover from.
He also says people who reach this point have usually discovered, "to their utter devastation," that closure and catharsis are a fantasy for them. They may sometimes feel a blind hope for catharsis, but with a clear head they know there is none to be found. The only closure available to them, in his framing, is the peace they find in the person's absence.
This is why he calls the idea that estranged people are "snowflakes who cannot handle a minor disagreement" an "incredible straw man." For most people, he says, letting go of family members is the most unnatural thing they will ever have to do, especially when it is a parent.
"Too late," not "too soon"
One of Hussey's central claims is that the problem for most people fitting this profile is not that they created distance too soon but that they did it too late. He adds that estrangement is often intensely private rather than done for attention. Many people don't feel able to talk about it, either because it is too painful or because they don't know how to begin explaining why they cannot have this person in their life.
That silence, he says, is why it hurts so much when an outsider says, "But they're still your mom," or "your dad, your brother, your sister." He notes that people say this about siblings and even children as well as parents, and calls estrangement from a child a uniquely complicated tragedy for some parents. He groups these remarks, along with sayings like "Blood is thicker than water," as stock phrases that shame people who have already done one of the hardest things there is.
Outsiders who don't see the whole picture
Hussey reminds estranged viewers that the people saying such things are generally outside the relationship, and that by shaming people for going no contact they are preaching "something fundamentally dangerous." Even when critics know the person you have broken contact with, he says, that doesn't mean they have experienced what you have. In his view, some of the most pernicious narcissists are undetectable even to their friends while their families suffer under the same roof.
He cites this as the reason therapists like his friend Dr. Ramani recommend that victims of narcissistic abuse find a therapist specifically trained in narcissism. Even well-meaning people who haven't learned about the true nature of such individuals, he says, can be "truly dangerous" when helping someone decide what to do next.
He also points to physical consequences. People inside these systems who try to "reconcile the irreconcilable," he argues, harm their bodies as well as their minds. He describes destructive people as a form of chronic stress, which first causes problems in the mind and then, if nothing is done, in the body. He calls chronic stress a cause of disease and "ultimately a killer for so many."
What to ask instead
Rather than rushing in with platitudes about making peace with family, Hussey suggests that when dealing with an otherwise loving, caring person, it might be worth asking what has led them to feel they had to do something so difficult. He puts it plainly: what's better than being out of contact with your mom is being in contact with your mom, and what's better than breaking up with your dad is not having to. The real question, he says, is how and why the person got to this point.
Grief mistaken for anger
Hussey says the resolve estranged people show about their decision is often mistaken for anger or hatred, when what is actually there is devastation and "true grief": grief for the relationship they wish they had. He tells estranged viewers that the core of what they feel is most likely heartbreak.
He says this is harder when the person is still alive. There is the worry of one day regretting not having spoken to them while they were here, alongside the knowledge that having a relationship with them doesn't work. The result is going round in circles between "two impossible positions."
Estrangement, in his description, does not feel like victory. It is "bittersweet relief," a deep sadness that often leaves people in a perpetual cycle of guilt and grief that has to be worked through repeatedly, with progress that is anything but linear. He lists what gets grieved: the vision of what the relationship could have been, along with the "internal death" of realizing it never could have been, because that's not who the person is; the memories and landmark life moments that will never be shared; the hope of ever being seen by them while they are still alive; and in some cases even the history one thought one had with them. Whatever peace comes from distance, he says, may always feel bittersweet, because "it's not the peace you asked for" but the only peace available.
Healing, but not from the source
Hussey closes by quoting psychiatrist Judith Herman's observation that recovery can take place only within the context of relationships and cannot occur in isolation. His own addition is that "our deepest pain and ultimately our salvation" is that, in these cases, healing cannot and will not come from the same relationship that caused the break in the first place. He invites viewers to comment if they want a follow-up video on dealing with the guilt and pain of estrangement.
In the last year, I have noticed a troubling trend. A wave of backlash against those who have decided to cut ties with their family. In some cases, separating from family members is being billed as the oversensitive product of a woke culture that made people break up with their families over a difference in values or beliefs.
Others have positioned it as running away from doing the work that we need to do in order to be able to handle or even resolve our differences. That the spiritually whole path lies in negotiating the difficulties with that person with a new level of equanimity or even in discovering newfound peace and forgiveness within that relationship.
Some of these messages are from truly well-meaning people. Some are from people who have a dangerous lack of experience in the area they're talking about. And I think sometimes it comes from people who have a personal interest in shaming those who become estranged from their family because they are the very kind of person one would wish to become estranged from.
I'm Matthew Hussey. I have been a coach for over 18 years of my life helping people build confidence, heal from the past, and develop relational intelligence. Please subscribe to this channel if you want to see more content from me and like this video so that other people who need it will see it.
Today, I want to talk about the virtues of estrangement and why the notion that this is simply an extreme response by people who have a stunted ability to deal with differences in relationships is not just a distraction, but dangerous.
Let's first get this out of the way. Are there some people who cut off their parents or their families for reasons that defy rationality and will later regret it? Of course. There are also those who do it because of a genuine personality disorder where the intention behind it is at best ignorant and devoid of empathy, and in some cases even malicious or sadistic. A way to punish family members by freezing them out or making it so that parents don't get to see their grandchildren. But I believe the majority of people who decide to become estranged from someone as foundational as their own parent fit a very different profile.
Most who do become estranged do so at an extraordinary pain threshold, at the point of realizing that having that person in their life is incompatible with living a happy, peaceful life. And many do so at great social cost to themselves. These people have reached the ceiling of their pain tolerance, which is merciful because many, maybe even most, never do, and the consequences are long and tragic.
In these situations, the intentions behind estrangement are totally different. They have nothing to do with malice or wielding some kind of power over the family member in question. Most never even feel they've had power in that relationship at all. In fact, with the relationship in question, many have felt totally powerless, sometimes even afraid for most, if not all, of the relationship.
Many cannot bring themselves to hate the person they're separating from, regardless of how deeply they've been hurt by them and for how long. They don't wish them ill. They may, even against all odds, still want the best for the person they no longer have contact with. But they have come to realize that they cannot have someone capable of this level of destruction or abuse close to them anymore. Because to do so would be a terrible betrayal of themselves, of their human, as we put it on my retreat.
It is a feeling of waking up out of a trance of misplaced familial responsibility into a newfound responsibility to take care of a self that they are now paying attention to and have realized they are responsible for.
Usually, these same people have attempted for some considerable portion of their lives, perhaps the majority of their lives, to have a relationship with the person in question. But at some point the directive had to change. It's no longer how do I keep this person in my life, but how do I ensure that this person who continues to be a malignant presence in my life no longer has access to this person that I care about, myself.
For some, that means that while I accept we will never be close, I will stay in contact with this person. Life circumstances sometimes make that necessary. In other cases, it means I can't be in contact with this person at all, because there is no version of being at arm's length with them that doesn't still destroy my peace in life. Either way, the goalpost shifts from connection to protection.
And the gross oversimplification that this idea only applies to victims of sexual and physical abuse is a fatal misunderstanding of what psychological and emotional abuse can do to a person, and also of the nature of coercive control. Coercive control is silent. It can do extreme psychological, emotional, financial, and even physical damage, and take many years, sometimes a lifetime of recovery.
People who reach this point are usually people who have found, to their utter devastation, that the concept of closure and catharsis is nothing but a fantasy for them. They may, in certain moments, harbor a blind hope for catharsis, but with a clear head they know, deep down, that there is no catharsis to be found anywhere in these situations. The only closure they have access to is the peace that they find in this person's absence.
And when people do remain in contact with a person like this in their life, there is often a very specific set of calculations they make for doing so, and it isn't about catharsis or working through something with this person or using it as a growth lesson for oneself.
The people who leave these situations aren't simply snowflakes who cannot handle a minor disagreement. And to suggest that that is what is going on is an incredible straw man. Letting go of family members is for most people the most unnatural thing in the world they will ever have to do, especially when it comes to someone as foundational as a parent.
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The problem for most people who fit this profile is not that they created distance too soon. It's that they did it too late. And it is often an intensely private thing. Far from something that's done for attention, many don't even feel they can talk about it, either because it's too painful or because they don't even know how to begin to explain the complexities behind why it is they cannot have this person in their lives.
Which is why it is so intensely painful when someone who doesn't know the inner workings of this relationship says something like, "But they're still your mom. But they're still your dad, your brother, your sister." People may say this about parents, siblings, even children, which of course is a uniquely complicated tragedy for some parents. These are the kinds of stock phrases that shame people who have already had to do one of the hardest things to do, including phrases like, "Blood is thicker than water."
If you are someone who at great pain and great cost have had to distance yourself from someone in your life, never forget that people who say things like this are generally sitting on the outside of the relationship. And by shaming people for going no contact, they are preaching something fundamentally dangerous.
And by the way, sometimes they even know the person you have broken contact with, but that doesn't mean they have had any experience with them. Some of life's most pernicious narcissists are undetectable even to their friends, while the family at home suffer by being under the same roof as them. This is the reason that highly trained therapists like my friend Dr. Ramani suggest that victims of narcissistic abuse find a therapist who is trained in narcissism. Even well-meaning people who have not educated themselves on the true nature of these kinds of people can be truly dangerous in helping you to decide your next move.
People inside these systems who attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable do harm not just to their minds, but to their bodies. Destructive people, let's remember, are a form of chronic stress, and chronic stress will create problems first in your mind, and then if you do nothing to alleviate it, your body. Chronic stress is a cause of disease and is ultimately a killer for so many.
I want to be clear about something. There are obviously many people who cut ties with certain members of their family, not out of necessity, but out of a level of reactiveness that doesn't serve them. These people may one day benefit from reconciliation, from moving past their own judgment and anger. But we should be very careful when dealing with an otherwise loving, caring individual not to rush in with platitudes about the value of making peace with family.
Instead, it might be worth asking first, "What is going on here that has this person feeling they had to do one of the most impossibly difficult things to do?" Because you know what's better than being out of contact with your mom? Being in contact with your mom. You know what's better than having to break up with your dad? Not having to break up with your dad. So, how and why has this person got to this point?
For so many who become estranged, their resolution about that decision will be mistaken for anger or even hatred. But what there is in fact is devastation. Grief. True grief. And that grief is about the relationship they wish they had with that person.
If you are estranged from someone, remind yourself that the core of what you're feeling is most likely heartbreak. And that is even harder when the person that you have become estranged from is still alive, because you worry about how one day you will regret not having spoken to them while they are still here. But you also know that having a relationship with them doesn't work. So, you go round and round in circles between what feels like two impossible positions.
The truth of estrangement is that it does not feel like some kind of victory. It is bittersweet relief. It is not the feeling of having won. It is deep, deep sadness that often leaves people in a perpetual state of guilt and grief that they have to continuously work through, where the progress made is anything but linear.
Grieving is messy. Bit by bit you grieve the vision you had for what the relationship could have been. There's an internal death in realizing that in fact it couldn't have been because that's not who they are. You grieve the memories you'll never create together, the landmark life moments you'll never share. You grieve the idea of ever being seen by them while they're still around and in some cases you even grieve the history you thought you had with that person.
While you may find a greater peace in your life of distance from this person, there may always be something bittersweet about that peace because it's not the peace you asked for. Rather it was the only peace that was available to you. As the psychiatrist Judith Herman observed, recovery can take place only within the context of relationships. It cannot occur in isolation. But our deepest pain and ultimately our salvation is that in our particular case our healing cannot, will not come from the same relationship that caused us to break in the first place.
If you would like to see a follow-up video where I dive deeper into how to deal with the guilt and the pain of these situations, two things. One, leave me a comment below letting me know and I will get to work on making that video for you. I promise. But two, you are exactly the kind of person that would benefit profoundly from joining me on my retreat in October. That is the deepest work I do. It is so relevant to what we are talking about here and I genuinely hope to see you there. I will leave a link to the retreat tickets page below in the description. Check that out. And as always, I will see you next week.
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