Let Me Count The Ways

Along with more than one way to skin a cat - (With apologies to all cat lovers out there - it is NOT MY expression lol), we know now that there is more than one type of estrangement. I read once that there were 3 main causes of estrangement from an adult child - usually centering upon their being victimized in some way. These include: 1- Faulty parenting that has caused the child to rebel against once they became adults. 2- An adult child's lifestyle became so unacceptable use of alcohol or drugs or physical abuse. that the parents had to separate themselves. 3- The adult child married a very controlling spouse and if they do not follow the spouses' directives, there will be marital discord. Hmm - Three types - no waiting. But then, what happens to those of us who don't have children who fall into those categories? Are we caught up in estrangement limbo? The three aforementioned excuses seem to place blame on everyone and everything BUT the EC. It is either OUR Fault (EC are poor victims of our dubious and abusive parenting), Demon rum, coke, marijuana or gambling's is to blame (EC are caught in a web of addiction - victimized again ) or our EC have been the dupes of manipulative spouses with no free will or balls of their own - Again the victim. Lord help the poor parent who has an EC that has experienced all three - someone call adult child services! Take my husband and me for instance.. Our children married very passive individuals who wouldn't say sh_t with a mouthful. Our children were given every possible advantage in life, which they took and squandered or shunned outright . Our children considered themselves victims of divorce and decided to take out their hurt on a father who supported them financially and emotionally for all of their child and adulthood. Our children were raised in a very dysfunctional home environment with a biological mother who I would consider to have been experiencing psychosis spurred on by – dare I say just a tad of alcoholism? Our children manipulated, betrayed, lied and excluded their father and me with extreme prejudice - on and off - for almost 40 years. One day they would claim to “love” us and the next, we were treated like dog shit. What gives? When confronted, our children would often profess to not knowing why they had behaved the way they did...perhaps the devil made them do it - but oops, I digress! So from this, we would have to conclude that the reason they behave the way they do is NOT because have been victimized. Perhaps there is another reason - like the fact that they are extremely dysfunctional and mentally unbalanced. So guess I am going to add estrangement type number 4 to the aforementioned list of causes. 4- OUR EC's ATE A BIG BOWL OF CRAZY AND IT WENT RIGHT TO THEIR DYSFUNCTIONAL HEADS! I guess what I am trying to say is that even though there may be a bunch of reasons why these estrangements occurs – it always seems to come back to center on the fact that there has been extreme familial dysfunction – on either or both sides. This dysfunction causes such discord that there can be no other remedy than the estrangement.