I have a health condition for which I received treatment in November 2005. Recently I met with my doctor and asked him when the treatment would have full effect. He told me that no one knows because each person’s body reacts in their own individual way. The condition of estrangement is like that.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to its course. No one has all
the answers. No one can know for sure what will resolve someone else’s
estrangement or whether it makes sense to resolve the estrangement.
Sometimes resolution is not a good idea even though others might think
it is the way that things should go.

People who visit my website and blog are each in different stages of
estrangement. At the beginning the feelings can be the strongest,
especially for those who didn’t want an estrangement and who miss the
other person. In the beginning of an estrangement feelings can be all
over the place. All sorts of feelings come up: anger, denial, guilt,
fear, depression (clinical depression particularly which can be
triggered by any loss), rage, obsession, grief. Over time, which can be
years, the feelings become more manageable. Some people never go
through this process and seem to be able to handle estrangements with
more equanimity. Women seem to be more likely to verbalize their
feelings than men.

I don’t see as many men agonizing about their estrangements online
as women. While I have heard from many women by email in five years, I
have heard from only one man. I think that more women than men have
written books on the topic, usually inspired by their own estrangement.
It may be that men just aren’t used to expressing themselves verbally
in the way that women are. Consequently, there is the appearance that
estrangements bother women more than men but it may not be the reality.

If the estrangement can’t be resolved, it is possible to accept the
situation and go on and enjoy life. In the early stages of being
estranged, this idea doesn’t feel like an acceptable option. However,
after all losses, whatever the cause, life does go on and it makes
sense to go on and get back to living life with enjoyment.

While I am never comfortable with giving advice on what will work
for everyone, I can offer general guidelines on what to do to maximize
your own ability to go on with your life, regardless of whether your
estrangement ends or not. They are pretty much common sense things to
do but worth mentioning anyway. It is easy to lose our common sense
when we are estranged.

So here are some guidelines:

1. Get involved in something you enjoy.

2. If you can’t enjoy anything, get involved in something anyway. If
it is a non-profit organization, you will be doing something productive
and helping other people too. This is good stuff all around. It can
help you take your mind off of your own problems.

3. If your personal sun fails to shine and all of life has taken on
the deep gray of depression, see a mental health professional and get
treatment. There are several options for treatment and some do work.

4. Respect the boundaries of the person from whom you are estranged. This goes for both estrangers and estrangees.

5. Do not verbally or physically abuse anyone, not the person from
whom you are estranged or anyone else. Calling someone names, telling
them why they did this or that, beating someone up, sending police to
their house to find out how they are, damaging their property, lying
about them and to them, acting as though non-abusive people are abusive
— that is all abusive. Don’t do it. If you can’t stop acting in a
manner that is abusive to others, then see a professional to get help
for yourself so that you can stop doing this. If you are this kind of
abusive and can’t control it, then you are doing the other person a
favor by estranging yourself … even if they don’t recognize the favor
right away.

6. Mind your own business. This doesn’t mean that you can’t know
anything about the person who is lost to you. Relatives and friends may
share news with you and it is understandable that you would be
interested in how a lost loved one is doing. That is not a problem.

What minding your own business means here is that you recognize that
what they are doing in their life is their own decision. If they are
choosing to deal with estrangement by going hang gliding, then that is
their choice. If they choose to write a book, interview 400 people,
draw cartoons, see a mental health professional, write on the internet
on message boards, that is their choice. If they choose not to get
treatment for an obvious mental health problem, that is their choice,
as unfortunate as that choice may seem. As adults we are all free to
lead our individual lives and deal with our problems in our own way.

The exception to the guideline of minding our own business is if you
know that someone is going to harm someone else’s person or property.
Then we are obligated to notify authorities to protect ourselves or
whomever is at risk of being harmed.

7. The more you involve yourself in productive activities that you
enjoy and especially activities that help others, the less you will
obsess about the person who is gone from your life.

8. Do something healthy to express the most painful feelings. Talk
to someone about them. Write them down in a journal. Beat up a pillow.
Find some place to scream where you won’t scare anyone and scream.
Write letters with all your feelings and your worst most unacceptable
thoughts in them and DON’T send them. Choose something ceremonial to do
with the letters but DON’T send them. Release your feelings in a way
that hurts no one.

9. Think about the quality of the relationship if you had one with
the other person. If there is no possibility of a loving caring
relationship, think about that and the implications of having a
relationship of that sort in your life. Think about finding other
relationships instead.

10. Work on the relationships in your life where you are valued for
who you are. Spend time with people who care about you, who you are
interested in, who are in good places mentally, who are honest, who are
interested in you. If you don’t have anyone like that in your life, go
out and get involved in productive projects and find these
relationships.

11. Work on being the mentally healthiest person that you can
personally be, do the best that you can, be kind to people, gentle with
yourself, and get involved with other people in ways that better the
world. Eventually whatever stage of estrangement you are in, the
situation will become more bearable. You will find other people to
appreciate who appreciate you. You will gain a different perspective.
You may always feel pain over the losses but the pain can make you a
better person in a relationship with others. It all takes time.