Parents Whose Adult Children Cut Them Off For Good Often Did 12 Things Their Kids Can Never Forgive Them For
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock While parents are obligated to care for their kids in childhood, their connective bond can rupture once their kids grow up. The decision to go no-contact with a parent is never easy, yet oftentimes, parents whose adult children cut them off for good often did certain things their kids can never forgive them for. Unfortunately, a study published in the book "Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them" found that 27% of participants reported being estranged from a family member and 10% reported active estrangement with a parent or child.
Everyone has their own reasons for making the difficult decision to become estranged, as licensed family and marriage therapist Dan Neuharth explained. “It’s important to recognize that while family estrangements often have a discrete triggering event, they are rarely a short-term, overnight phenomenon. It’s usually been something that’s been brewing for a long time,” he said. These “final straw” moments are usually the result of incessant harmful behaviors that destroy the connection between adult children and their parents.
Parents whose adult children cut them off for good often did 12 things their kids can never forgive them for
1. Focusing on their flaws
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When parents always point out what their children are doing wrong instead of celebrating their achievements, they don’t stay close to them once they become adults. Everyone has imperfections, yet those "flaws" are the only thing critical parents can see. This behavior makes adult children feel inadequate, like nothing they do is good enough.
As clinical psychologist Mary Ann Little explained, "Affection is a key driver in most psychological operations. Children need parental affection to fuel self-liking, to facilitate risk-taking around developmentally appropriate tasks, and to restore the child's confidence in the face of inevitable disappointment and failure... Without affection, the child will struggle, as she lacks the mature skills and abilities to provide for herself.
2. Undermining their independence
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Parents whose adult children cut them off for good often undermined their children’s decisions, micromanaged their life path, or disapproved of their choices. Their parents were unable to see them as the independent individuals they were meant to become.
As adults, when their parents continue this toxic behavior, it makes them feel like their parents don’t trust their judgment or respect their autonomy. While they might be willing to overlook this behavior for a little while, their frustration builds up, and the bond between them and their parents will start to erode or even disappear completely.
3. Invalidating their emotions
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Being emotionally invalidated is an incredibly harmful behavior, and unfortunately, when parents act this way towards their children, it can create resentment. Emotional invalidation makes kids feel like their parents are dismissing their experiences, when all they really want to is be heard. If a parent tells their adult child to “just get over it already” or “it wasn’t that bad” in response to a painful memory, it shows an inability to hold space for their difficult emotions.
Psychologist Nick Wignall pointed out that emotional invalidation is a painfully bad habit that interferes with emotional maturity. “When you insist on always feeling good and happy, you invalidate feeling bad. And when you’re in the habit of invalidating your painful feelings, you end up feeling more and more miserable and more and more desperate to feel happy,” he said.
Wignall added that this can lead to emotional validation. Parents who invalidate their adult children’s emotions ultimately don’t allow them to feel their true feelings, which can lead to them getting cut off for good.
4. Offering only conditional love
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While supportive, unconditional parents make it clear that their kids are worthy of being loved for exactly who they are, parents who only offer conditional love put up guardrails around the care they give. According to therapist Vienna Pharaon the parental behavior of pushing kids toward perfection sets them up for self-destruction.
“What you probably learned as a kid is that, in order to get love, connection, presence, attention, validation, calm, peace in your family, in your home, you had to get the straight As, dress a certain way or [do] a hat trick on the field,” Pharaon explained.
Unfortunately, those well-meaning expectations teach kids that love and acceptance are conditional, which leads them to believe that making mistakes means they won’t be loved. As they grow up, kids with conditional parents hopefully learn that they deserve love that’s given freely, without them having to reach certain expectations.
5. Financially controlling them
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Money tends to be a fraught issue in many relationships, and it can prove to be an especially tense path to walk for parents and their adult children. Parents are expected to financially provide for their kids when they’re young, yet the line can become blurred upon reaching adulthood.
Trauma and relationship therapist Jordan Pickell described the various ways financial manipulation can present itself. Parents might threaten to cut kids off financially if they disagree with them, or give gifts and financial support as a way to control their decisions, like where they go to college or what career they enter.
“You do not ‘owe’ your parents for keeping you alive. That is a bare minimum of having children in their care... If your parent holds their financial support over your head, you might feel helpless to make decisions or set boundaries. You deserve support without feeling belittled,” Pickell explained.
6. Perpetuating drama
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All families have their ups and downs, but a drama-hungry parent leans into conflict, rather than working to diffuse it. So, it shouldn't be too surprising that parents whose adult children cut them off for good often made drama a priority, and now, their kids can never forgive them for it.
Parents might perpetuate drama by drawing on toxic dynamics within the family system. They might play favorites or spread gossip and talk behind people’s backs. Whatever form their drama takes, children often respond by going no-contact, in order to protect their well-being and inner peace.
Life coach Alex Mathers pointed out that people who have very little drama in their lives carefully choose where they put their energy, which includes how much energy they devote to their relationships. He shared that people with drama-free lives hold onto an essential truth: we can’t control anyone else’s behavior, we can only control our own reactions.
7. Leading with chronic negativity
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Having a tirelessly negative attitude can cause adult children to cut their parents off. Parents who complain to no end and rely on their adult children for their own emotional regulation rupture the relationship. Their chronic negativity puts their adult children in a role they never asked for, as they’re expected to pick up the pieces and make their parents feel better.
This leaves them feeling drained and devalued, like they only exist to serve as their parents’ sounding board for everything that’s wrong in their lives. It’s not easy to maintain a long-term connection with chronically negative people, even when those people are your parents, which is why adult children refuse to have that energy in their lives anymore.
8. Deflecting blame
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Parents who avoid taking accountability for their actions tend to have a victim mentality, which means they think nothing is ever their fault. Though blame-shifting is a defense mechanism, it can also be an indicator of narcissism. It can be incredibly toxic for adult children to tolerate this behavior from their parents.
Parents who insist that they’ve done nothing wrong and refuse to own up to their own behavior create resentment from their adult children, who want to protect their own energy. Dealing with a narcissist is draining enough, and it's only made worse when that person is a parent.
9. Acting entitled to their time
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Parents with adult children who tend to cut off communication with them sometimes act entitled to their time and attention, even if the dynamic is toxic. They might expect their adult children to always put their needs first, without considering the other aspects of their lives that need attention. They call constantly, expect immediate responses to texts, and just don’t understand why they're not coming home for the holidays.
Entitled parents put so much pressure on their adult children, it’s not surprising that their bond tends to collapse under the weight of all their demands. Parents should be able to recognize that their adult children have established lives of their own, without making them feel guilty for doing so.
10. Holding grudges
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Whenever there’s conflict, parents that tend to have limited or no contact with their kids will bring up the past, as though to define their adult children by mistakes they made when they were younger. They simmer and seethe in resentment, holding grudges for long periods of time, which pushes their kids away.
According to psychotherapist Diane Barth, holding a grudge is often accompanied by “the sense of victimization” that becomes a person’s whole identity, and “that identity brings along with it a sense of being the one who is right.”
Though Barth recommends that it's possible to make amends through apologies and accountability, “At some point, you may have to give up the hope that you can change things,” she concluded. While ending a relationship or putting a stop-gap in place is never simple, it can bring peace.
11. Forcing forgiveness
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When adult children call attention to ways their parents have let them down or hurt them, parents often pressure them to move on quickly, without actually addressing how they acted. They want to be forgiven, but they’re unwilling or unable to be self-reflective and consider the underlying issues at play.
"Toxic forgiveness is problematic because it bypasses the essential emotional work required for true reconciliation and healing. By forgiving too quickly or insincerely, the hurt party may suppress their true feelings, leading to unresolved anger, resentment, and even bitterness over time. This avoidance of conflict and true resolution can erode trust in the relationship, as the underlying issues are never properly addressed," clinical mental health counselor Dan Bates revealed.
12. Ignoring their personal growth
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By refusing to recognize the work they’ve done to become who they are, parents might overlook their identity and insist they’re the same as they’ve always been. They disregard their adult children’s changing worldview or the changes they’ve made over time as they've matured, and it makes their adult children feel like their parents don’t see them for who they really are.
Ignoring their adult children’s personal growth is a display of blatant disrespect, which can lead adult children to cut their parents off for good. If their parents can't support them, as good parents are meant to, they can flourish into their most authentic selves without that toxic background noise.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
