How to avoid becoming estranged from a loved one

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. How can you avoid becoming estranged from someone you love? I’ve been asked this by many readers recently after I wrote about parents who are estranged from their adult children. It’s a valid worry.

About 10% of the population is estranged from a parent or child at any given time, research shows. And with rising rates of depression and mental illness, plus increasing social tensions, therapists and researchers believe that the problem is becoming even more widespread. To help families avoid a rift, I reached out to Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and senior fellow at the Council on Contemporary Families and an expert on how to avoid and repair estrangements.

He has written two books on the subject, including “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties & How to Heal the Conflict." He also speaks from personal experience: He has weathered, and repaired, an estrangement with one of his own adult daughters. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation. It is primarily the adult child.

For the parents, there is no upside, unless the child is very mentally ill or abusive. For the adult child, there can be all sorts of benefits. From their perspective, an estrangement can help them protect their mental health.

Or it can allow them to express their personal identity—such as gender or sexuality—if that is at odds with their parents. There are many reasons. Take political differences.

Fifteen years ago, you didn’t care if your kid married a Democrat or a Republican, as long as they loved each other. But now the way people view the opposite party has become very harsh. Therapy is a cause, too.