‘Going No Contact’: How Can We Counter the Trend of Family Estrangement?

Family estrangement is becoming more common, but it carries long-term emotional costs for everyone involved.

Estrangement increasingly defines modern family life, even among relatives who share the same space. seb_ra/Getty Images

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

That’s the opening line in Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” It’s an eye-catcher, but one wonders if he’d write those words if he were living in 21st-century America. Distinctions marking unhappy families may still apply, but more and more of those families share one thing in common: estrangement.

This phenomenon—siblings breaking all contact with siblings, adult children turning their backs on parents and grandparents, or vice versa—is growing, and growing fast. A 2025 YouGov poll found that 38 percent of American adults are estranged from at least one family member. North Carolina writer and therapist Paula Rinehart wrote that “about 1 in 4 adult kids has reportedly gone ‘no contact’ with a parent.”

Columnist Mirinda Kossoff shared the heart-wrenching story of her estrangement from her two middle-aged sons, who apparently sided with their father during a divorce many years earlier. Psychologist and writer Andrea Gurney noted that, in her practice and all around the country, “A growing cultural phenomenon known as ‘going no contact,’ in which an individual severs ties with a family member, has become increasingly common.”

Why the Walls Go Up

These same commentators and others identify a multitude of causes for this trend. Physical and mental abuse craters some relationships. With divorce, a child who identifies more closely with a mom or dad may cut off the other completely when reaching adulthood.

Additional toxins are now poisoning family relationships. A major shift in American culture emphasizing individual happiness and fulfillment over family obligations has created tensions that finally snap. Some critics point as well to helicopter parenting as a cause. This widespread practice of closely monitoring and guiding children was rare 50 years ago, and it consequently drives some young adults to rebellion and going “no contact.” Because of helicopter parenting, some young adults also lack the resilience to meet life’s challenges, which can involve taking a stand against their parents’ intrusions and directives.

Estrangement can begin with dramatic arguments or quiet withdrawals. DjelicS/Getty Images

That’s when it seems easier just to walk out the door and not look back.

“Love is a labor of love,” therapist Annie Lefler told The Epoch Times. “There is no way you’re going to have a relationship without working at it. And because of our culture, where everything is made so easy for us, as soon as anything is difficult, we just want to give up.”

Is Going It Alone Now Part of Our Culture?

Married for 20 years and the mother of two teens and an adolescent, Lefler works in a group practice in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although she’s practiced family and adolescent therapy for only three years, she brings some unusual gifts and insights to her profession.

For one, although she has lived in the United States for almost 30 years, Lefler is a native of Benin in West Africa. In that country and around most of the continent, the idea of “no contact” is practically nonexistent.

“Family ties are much stronger than they are here,” she said. “There’s no uncle that nobody talks to anymore. It’s very pro-community, very pro-peacemaking, trying to include everyone.”

Even today, when she visits relatives in Benin, she sees an extended family in action rather than the nuclear family more typical of the United States. There’s also a sort of organization to family interactions.

“Often, there is one person in the family, usually the oldest, usually a woman, who has the job of gathering everybody, the one who organizes parties, the one who lets people know when somebody has a problem,“ she said. ”It’s very communal. It’s not obviously organized, but after a while, you realize there are some people that are key people, the people that you go to for different things.”

Lefler recognizes the good that comes from American culture, imbued in the values of individualism and personal liberties.

“Americans are very hard-working people, so in that sense, they’re tough,“ she said. ”But when it comes to social work, that’s harder, and it may be partly because America’s more of an introverted culture. It’s a more do-it-yourself culture, which really goes against ‘let’s all be together.’”

Reconciliation is rarely quick, but openness can make space for a new beginning. August de Richelieu/Pexels

Aristotle as Therapist

In addition to insights brought by her lived education in comparative cultures, Lefler brings one more special tool to her practice: a doctorate in philosophy and 15 years of teaching at Scranton University. This academic training and time spent with young adults who, at times, have used her class to sort out their lives have helped broaden her views regarding therapy.

“Aristotle’s big point is that we are able, as human beings, to build habits, either for the bad or for the good,“ she said. ”One of the main things he talks about is the golden mean: that you don’t want too much and you don’t want too little. That protects us from extremism, like this idea that ‘oh, I’m just done with this person.’

“It also protects us from too little, which is to let someone walk all over us. So virtue is somewhere in the mean where both of us can flourish to the best of our ability.”

Good Boundaries, Bad Boundaries

Aristotle’s golden mean comes into play in an increasingly popular concept in therapy: boundaries. An adult child—or anyone else in a stressful relationship—can set limits that will allow a relationship to survive and even thrive.

As an example, Lefler uses a holiday visit between parents and their grown children. Instead of coming for a 10-day visit, when tensions are sure to rise, either party can opt for the boundary of a two-day visit.

“The idea that good fences make good neighbors is paradoxical, because you would think fences separate, but they make good neighbors when they protect the dignity of people,” Lefler said.

Healthy boundaries are meant to preserve relationships, not erase them. Halfpoint Images/Getty Images

These positive boundaries aim at improving relationships, not diminishing them.

“People from both sides of the boundary have to change their idea of what a boundary is,“ Lefler said. ”Somebody on the one side, where something just got fenced in, feels hurt, but they have to understand this could allow this other person to become an equal.

“And the person who’s erected the boundary needs to understand that this is for the sake of more relationship, not for the sake of less relationship. It’s for the sake of eventually being able to meet on an equal footing. And I think we lose sight of that on both sides of the boundaries.”

It’s then that boundaries can become borders with walls, barbed wire, and “No Trespassing” signs.

Repairs and Healing

Many therapists, including Lefler, are aware of the power of online influencers and their contributions to the “going no contact” movement.

“I think influencers are very, very dangerous, and I try to warn my clients away from TikTok,“ she said. ”The people on YouTube are not necessarily the same people if you met them in real life. They have these personas, but it’s all buffed, and if you met them, you might have all these other nonverbal cues that this person is not trustworthy. So that’s a problem.”

Besides shying away from most advice given online, anyone seeking to repair a “no contact” relationship might consider the steps recommended by Gurney at the Institute for Family Studies. Having witnessed such estrangement among my own acquaintances and family members, Gurney’s advice seems right on target for a restoration of harmony. Here’s an annotated list of her suggestions:

Turn Inward

We begin with self-reflection. According to Gurney, we find and acknowledge “the ‘ruined’ places within us—our distorted thinking, reactive emotions, unhealthy patterns, and relational blind spots.”

Own Your Part

Gurney wrote that once we’ve realized and accepted “where we’ve missed the mark—moments when we’ve been impatient, unkind, distracted, or simply not the parent or child we hoped to be—we move toward humility and lay the groundwork for rebuilding trust.”

This acceptance of responsibility allows us to move “into a place where we can respond with greater thoughtfulness and intention,” she wrote.

Listen to Understand

Most of us listen to respond rather than to really hear what another is saying. When we truly listen to a child or a parent who has either cut us out from his or her life or limited our involvement, we grow in compassion and see the relationship in a broader frame.

Healing begins with a willingness to listen and self-reflect. jacoblund/Getty Images

Embrace ‘Both/And’

We become more fully and more powerfully human when we try to balance “both/and” with humility and insight, according to Gurney.

“In family relationships, this often sounds like: ‘I feel both grateful and frustrated by how my parents handled conflict,’“ Gurney wrote. ”Both can be true. One does not cancel out the other.

“And when it comes to love—especially love strained by distance or estrangement—this capacity for ‘both/and’ is not optional. It is the very skill that allows relationships to heal, deepen, and begin again.”

Reflection, patience, work: These are the essentials if we’re to reestablish a broken relationship. As Lefler said, “Love is a labor of love.”