Estrangement Is Not a Boundary

 Estrangement is not a boundary - it is a form of extraction.

Boundaries require proximity. They exist to navigate the shared spaces between people, ideas, or properties. Extraction severs that proximity.

When I move to a new city - or even to another part of town - the property lines I once shared with my neighbors cease to matter. I've removed myself from the shared space where boundaries once had meaning. We might remain friendly, but we no longer share the same boundaries.

Boundaries are tools for coexisting in liminal space.

Estrangement, by contrast, ends the need for such tools. It removes the shared ground entirely.

If boundaries are mechanisms for sustaining proximity, then mass estrangement - often mislabeled as boundary setting - is a symptom of something larger: social breakdown, disconnection, and institutional failure.

We are losing the ability to remain in relationships across discomfort. And with that, we lose the practice of building real boundaries - the kind that hold space, not just walls.

If you want boundaries within your family, begin relating. Stay close enough to need boundaries. When something arises that feels difficult, speak it aloud. Bridge the discomfort with actual boundaries: limits on time, on topics, on tone. Boundaries that let you remain present, instead of disappearing.

Furthermore...

Estrangement is not a boundary. Boundaries are clear and intentional—lines drawn to define what we will and won’t accept, often born from self-respect and a desire for healthier dynamics. Estrangement, on the other hand, is murkier. It doesn’t declare “I need space”; it whispers “I don’t know if connection is still possible.”

Where boundaries communicate, estrangement silences. Where boundaries make room for respect, estrangement often breeds ambiguity. Boundaries ask for understanding. Estrangement gives no explanations.

In truth, estrangement rarely feels like a choice. It can emerge like fog—quiet, creeping, and hard to pin down. Sometimes it comes after too many unresolved hurts, a gradual erosion of trust that wasn’t marked by a single event but a thousand paper cuts of unmet needs and misunderstandings. Other times, it explodes—abrupt and raw—leaving all parties reeling, unsure how to rebuild or whether rebuilding is even desired.

Yet calling estrangement a “boundary” minimizes its depth. It glosses over the grief, the unanswered questions, the complexity of deciding not to decide. When someone says, “I’m estranged from my parent,” they’re not just describing distance—they’re conveying a history too painful or tangled to revisit.

So why do we try to reframe it as a boundary?

Because boundaries sound healthy. Empowered. Resolved. Estrangement sounds broken. Vulnerable. Unfinished.

But recognizing the difference matters. If we treat estrangement like a boundary, we might miss the real healing needed: not just permission to say no, but space to mourn the “yes” that never came. The “yes” to being heard. To being safe. To being loved without conditions.

That kind of grief demands more than neat language. It needs patience, compassion, and the acknowledgment that some connections are too fractured to mend—but also too significant to ignore.

Estrangement isn’t a boundary. It’s a status. A silence. A scar that tells a story still being written, whether or not reconciliation is ever part of it.

#estrangement #nocontact #silence #boundaries