Families going ‘no contact’ doesn’t always mean the end

Introspection and accountability are key steps for members of families to take after deciding to go "no contact." (Jacob Wackerhausen/iStockphoto/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Two of Liza Ginette’s kids don’t speak to her, and she is proud of them for it.

From the outside, it might have looked like they had fairly normal parent-child issues, she said. She had a tumultuous marriage to their father and difficult divorce. She feels that she forced a new romantic relationship on her kids while tending to dismiss their feelings and sometimes having emotional outbursts, she said.

By 2021, her elder daughter had had enough and went “no contact.” Two years later, her younger daughter cut off communication as well, said Liza Ginette, who lives near Raleigh, North Carolina.

She does not want to use her last name to protect her children’s privacy but uses her first and middle name online. She makes social media content to coach other families who have gone no contact.

“For everything that I might have done wrong, I kind of feel like I did something right, because I always taught them not to take bull from anybody,” Liza Ginette said.

There has been a lot of talk about families going no contact –– it has been described as a rising trend of ungrateful adult children being cruel to aging parents or a younger generation setting boundaries with parents unwilling to treat their children with respect. But the truth is more nuanced, experts say. The decision to go no contact is often difficult, but there can be growth that comes out of it.

At first, Liza Ginette was distraught and confused at her children’s silence. Everyone told her she was a good mother, she said. But then she started intensive therapy, and the introspection made her realize that she needed to take accountability for some things in her relationship with her children. She had more understanding about why her daughters made their decisions and realized that all she could do was put in hard work to grow as a person.

“I think that parents get stuck in this idea that they’re being punished when it’s not,” she said. “It’s really that these kids need to heal from something that they’ve gone through.”

Is no contact just a trend?

People talk a lot more about families who go no contact –— take the Beckhams or the Royal family –– but there isn’t data to indicate that this dynamic is the growing trend the public often describes it as, said Dr. Lucy Blake, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of the West of England.

This kind of disconnect between parents and children is often talked about as rare and unusual, but data shows that 1 in 5 people will become estranged from their fathers, Blake said. About 6% or people lacked a relationship with their mother, a 2018 study showed.

It isn’t just extreme circumstances –– abuse, crimes or abandonment –– that lead to no contact. Often, it is the accumulation of difficult dynamics, she added.

“My research and my understanding is it’s very everyday, common events in family life that can lead to periods of tension and distance and strain,” she said.

Not all periods of no contact are the final word on a relationship, she said. Sometimes they are breaks to establish feelings of safety or to step away and reflect before reengaging.

The experience might also be cyclical, with people reestablishing contact and breaking it several times, Blake added.

For some, the reason behind such estrangements might seem clear to both parties. But in many cases, children ending the contact feel the problems are clear, leaving their parents feeling confused, she added.

How do you rebuild relationships?

For some, going no contact is the breaking of a relationship that can’t or won’t be put back together. But doing so isn’t always the end of the story.

Going separate ways was the impetus for rebuilding a stronger relationship for one mother, Leslie Glass, and her daughter, Lindsey Glass.

In her teenage years, Lindsey Glass struggled with addiction. That experience and the process of getting sober left the mother and daughter clinging to one another in an unhealthy way, they said.

“If you’re a caretaker of a teen or a young adult who’s having problems, you become overinvolved with every single thing that’s going on,” Leslie Glass said. “You worry about every expression on her face. When she goes out, where is she going? What is she doing?” And it was the same with Lindsey, who said she was obsessed with her mom’s life.

But the enmeshment they say they felt with each other also left them with a lot of tension. They fought and frequently said nasty things to each other. Lindsey said she recognized her mental health and sobriety were in a shaky place. So, after an argument over whether she could stay in her mom’s apartment, Lindsey decided she was done.

Without making a grand final statement, she decided that she wouldn’t speak to her mother anymore and left the East Coast for California, Lindsey said.

They didn’t speak for four years.

Now, mother and daughter wish it had gone differently and that they had utilized more resources to get to a healthy place before they exploded, they both said. But they agree that the time they took away from each other was important.

Leslie learned who she was on her own. At first, it felt like her life was over, but then she had to find ways to reconnect with herself as an individual — she dated, took up new hobbies and reflected on the life she wanted outside of being just Lindsey’s mom.

Lindsey threw herself into therapy, recovery and trauma work. Eventually, she wasn’t so angry anymore and started to see her own part in her relationship with her mother that didn’t work, she said. Then she saw hope for rebuilding.

After Lindsey reached out, it took some time for Leslie to see her daughter’s perspective, but they worked together to get there.

Just as Lindsey took accountability for moments in which she was difficult or hurtful, Leslie started to see how some of her attempts at being a good mother might have felt controlling, Leslie said. Lindsey’s departure to live independently, growing and coming back to her mother with compassion also helped Leslie see something that can get lost in mother-daughter relationships that experience addiction: She gained a tremendous amount of respect for Lindsey and her ability to take care of herself.

Now, they have a relationship that is stronger than the one they left, with more compassion and understanding, and they work together to help teach other mothers and daughter how they can rebuild, too.

The path forward

The advice that Liza Ginette and Leslie and Lindsey Glass all share from the no contact experience is to look inward and take accountability rather than cross your arms and scorn the other side.

“Stay in your own lane, not really be talking about her, pointing the finger at her, but kind of like, how do I take care of myself right now? How do I work on myself?” Lindsey Glass said.

“If somebody gets to the point where they’re really struggling with you or don’t want to see you, you probably have something to do with it.”

The pain of the loss of a relationship with a child is difficult, but it’s vital to remember that because you love them, the goal is for them to have the best life, Liza Ginette said. Instead of digging your heels in over whether their absence is right or wrong, she recommends throwing your energy into building a safer, happier environment for their eventual return.

For adult children who have cut off contact, Blake said that the experience can be isolating, and that it is important to rally more community around you as you navigate it.

And even if you work toward reconciliation, it may not look like the fairy-tale ending you hope for, Leslie and Lindsey Glass said.

The Glasses agree that there may be things you never see eye to eye on and limitations your family members can’t overcome. You may need to change your expectations and find a new definition of your relationship together that works for both of you.

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN