Held Hostage By Hope

One of the accusations that has been particularly difficult for me to hear is that we got everyone “on our side.”

That somehow, after our estrangement, we rallied the troops.

Friends. Family. People in our community.

That we told our version of the story and everyone chose us.

From their perspective, I understand that it may feel that way.

When you look around and relationships that once felt comfortable suddenly aren’t, I imagine it would be easy to conclude that someone must have caused it.

That there was a campaign.

That people were asked to choose sides.

But that’s not what happened.

In fact, one of the things we’ve consistently told the people closest to us is the opposite:

Love on them.

Don’t punish them for what’s happening between us.

Don’t make our estrangement your estrangement.

If you have a relationship with them, have that relationship.

Love them.

Because despite everything that has happened, that’s still my son.

And the last thing I want is to see more relationships destroyed because ours is broken.

But I’ve learned something uncomfortable through all of this.

You can ask people not to choose sides. You cannot tell them how to feel.

And you cannot control the boundaries they choose for themselves.

My son and his wife established a boundary.

Whatever I think about that boundary—and whatever they think about the circumstances that led to it—they had the right to make that decision.

That’s part of what boundaries are.

You decide what you will accept.

You decide who has access to your life.

You decide what relationships you are willing to participate in.

But there’s another side of boundaries that I don’t think we talk about nearly as much.

Other people get to have them too.

When you make a significant decision about a relationship, that decision doesn’t exist in isolation.

It creates ripples.

Parents have siblings.

They have parents.

They have lifelong friends.

They have people who love them and who watch what happens to them.

Those people have emotions too.

They form opinions.

They experience hurt.

And sometimes they establish boundaries of their own.

That isn’t necessarily someone “taking a side.”

Sometimes it’s simply cause and effect.

Drop a stone into water and you don’t get to decide where every ripple travels.

I think that’s one of the hardest truths about estrangement.

We tend to imagine a boundary as a line drawn between two people:

You stay on that side. I’ll stay on this one.

But families don’t work like that.

Relationships overlap.

People love multiple people.

History is shared.

When one relationship changes dramatically, every relationship touching it feels something.

That’s collateral damage.

And I hate it.

I genuinely do.

Because I don’t want my son to lose people he loves because he doesn’t currently have a relationship with me.

I don’t want people withholding affection from him as some demonstration of loyalty to me.

I don’t need anyone proving that they’re on “my side.”

There are already enough casualties here.

But there’s also a limit to what I can control.

I can tell someone:

Please love him.

I can remind them:

He’s still my son.

I can ask them not to make decisions on my behalf.

What I cannot say is:

You’re not allowed to be hurt by this.

I can’t tell someone who loves me that they aren’t allowed to have feelings about watching me hurt.

And I certainly can’t demand that they maintain a relationship that they themselves no longer feel comfortable having.

Because then I’m doing exactly what I would criticize anyone else for doing.

I’m refusing to respect their boundary.

Maybe that’s the uncomfortable reality of boundaries:

We get to choose our own. We don’t get to choose everyone else’s response to them.

And responses aren’t always punishments.

Consequences aren’t always retaliation.

Sometimes they’re simply consequences.

That’s a distinction I’m still trying to understand myself.

I also have to leave room for something else.

From where my son and his wife stand, maybe it really does look like everyone ganged up on them.

Maybe when several relationships change at roughly the same time, intent doesn’t matter very much from the inside.

It probably feels lonely.

Maybe even cruel.

I can acknowledge that.

What I can’t accept is the idea that we engineered it.

Because I know the conversations we’ve had.

They haven’t been:

Choose us.

They’ve been:

Please don’t stop loving them because of us.

Sometimes people listen.

Sometimes hurt gets in the way.

Sometimes they make their own decisions.

And that’s painful, because estrangement already takes enough from everyone involved without spreading into relationships that weren’t originally part of the conflict.

Maybe someday some of those ripples will settle.

I hope they do.

Because if reconciliation ever happens, I don’t want there to be two armies standing behind us waiting to see who won.

I don’t want there to be a winner.

I want there to be fewer casualties.

And until then, I’ll keep saying the same thing I’ve been saying:

Love on them.

Even if they don’t believe that’s what I’m saying.

Even if other people ultimately make different choices.

Even if I can’t control where the ripples go.

Because he’s still my son.

And hope leaves very little room for sides.