Apology or Not!?! Do Therapists Help?

Demanding/Angry Letter Received

 A friend recently wrote about whether or not giving a requested apology changes anything. I'm not sure where I weigh in on this. I have chosen to stay silent after some fitful communication through texts 19 months ago.

She wrote that any pain that our kids have felt, or feel, causes them to identify as a victim and describes the victim mentality as mired in their blame and anger. I personally have never heard a list of grievances from my daughters beyond being told that I am overbearing.

My friend believes that our estranged children believe they are the victims of:

• Toxic parents. 
• Narcissistic parents. 
• Overbearing mothering. 
• Neglectful mothering. 

That parent was told by her daughter that according to her younger daughter's therapist, who has never met her, that she has borderline personality disorder. She actually does not. After hearing this lashing out, it rattled her and she sought out a behavior specialist because of the self doubt created by the accusation.

These estranged children believe they are victims that must identify the source of their pain, label it, blame it, and walk away from it for their own mental health. They feel that we must own THEIR pain, apologize for our transgressions (real or imagined) and then maybe we can be forgiven.

That parent wondered how does that help them, or us, when we enable them in this way? Isn't this more of the coddling behavior that got us here? I am sitting with these questions. I personally have not written a letter of amends and find it questionable to do so. Wouldn't that only add fuel?

My friend has not written a letter of amends either but she did receive a letter from her daughter written at the direction of her daughter's therapist. She described it as a letter from an angry stranger. In the letter she wrote that if she denies any accusation that she would never speak to her again.This is a kid at a top college and an A student. This kid is smart cookie. So my friend believes that her daughter means it.

So, my friend stands with a gun against her head and a pen in her hand in a frozen state. In this scenario, her daughters have all the power and she has none, if she wants a relationship with them. She wants to apologize for hurting them, but how in those circumstances?. This seems manipulative, cruel, and wrong.

Thoughts to ponder...

I'm not sure that writing an apology will result in reconciliation. I gave a true, heart felt apology and owned my failures along the way. This just resulted in the deployment of "no contact" from both of my daughters. (I am past the point of hoping for a reconciliation and have reclaimed my life. I'm much happier for it.)

My gut feeling is that with any kind of ultimatum, when you feel some or all of the accusations are not valid or accurate, if you own things that you did not do or say, it may result in raising the bar to the next hurdle. I did that in the brunch with my daughters and it left me with a sick feeling to become the whipping boy. I couldn't believe that I allowed myself to be cowed and live that dynamic again - making the peace at all costs. It was humiliating, which is probably what they wanted.

I was okay with owning my failures and I did feel good about that part of that meeting with my daughters. The price of taking accountability for the false accusations, though, was too much. I did not express it then and have had no substantial contact with them since. I wouldn't bring it up if I do ever talk to them again. Why bother. When discussing estrangement with a therapist I have seen off and on for many years, she was no help. That's the fundamental problem. This is uncharted territory even for the professionals. Unless you've experienced the pain and humiliation of the loss of a living child, it's impossible to understand.

Do you write?

Another parent suggested that my friend could write a letter expressing that they were sorry for anything ever said or done that resulted in hurting her daughters. Most of us that are parents whether or not there is estrangement feel that way anyway. 

This other parent suggested that it can also be a test from the parental side. If it softens the daughter and all is better moving towards reconnecting, then it was sincere on her end. But if she raises the bar higher, giving more hurdles to climb, or if there is another excuse for estrangements such as, "It took you so long to reply that I don't believe that you're really sorry," or any other barrier thrown up, then the "test" revealed it all to be based on a power play.

When an individual is engaging in power plays it's impossible to win and gain ground. They are then going on the premise that they must have all the power... that if they yield or compromise in any way that they will have no power. In reality in any healthy relationship there is balance and that dynamic does not exist.

This other parent says that the only way to know which situation you're in is to do that test. I suppose that suggestion in framing the response is owning yourself in the situation. It seems much healthier than the therapist's advice I received.

I think if a parent is going to write a response, it is important to not be invested in the outcome. It needs to be without the thought that "if I write this, we'll reconcile." That self protection needs to be there - beyond hope.

It's not that different from having a situation where one suspects a child has been stealing from us. So, we do a test and leave a dollar bill out when we know nobody else will have access but them. If the bill is still there, then we are relieved. If it's gone, we know they have failed the test.

The stakes are now much higher with estrangement. We literally have to NOT allow our lives and desires to be stolen. We've already been through too much and grieved too much.

For now, I'm staying in my lane with inaction. I don't know how I would respond if I received a letter like that since I have grieved the loss and let them go.