Eight years ago Richard Carnaby handed his parents the set of door keys that gave him access to their Suffolk home. ‘I told them I wouldn’t be needing them any more,’ he says.
Then 42, the actor and writer also asked for the return of his graduation photograph, which his parents had proudly placed on display. ‘I made it clear I didn’t think they were in a position to celebrate any of my successes any more,’ he recalls.
And with that Richard walked away, having made the decision to completely sever contact with his mother and father – and his older brother – for the sake of his own well-being.
He felt so strongly about his decision that he even changed his surname.
It was a drastic move, but far from an isolated one: research conducted by Stand Alone – a UK organisation that supports estranged people – suggests that as many as 8 per cent of the population have actively chosen to cut contact with a family member in recent years, while almost one in five were no longer in contact with a former loved one.
A study by the online magazine Psychology Today found that one in ten had specifically cut contact with a parent or child or gone ‘no contact’, the term used in countless social media forums where hashtags referencing family estrangement have boomed in recent years.
Even celebrities aren’t immune to this phenomenon. The recent rift between David and Victoria Beckham and their eldest son Brooklyn has helped put parent-child estrangement into the spotlight.
Then there is the high-profile rift between Prince Harry and his father and brother, while a 2021 court battle launched by Britney Spears to remove her father’s conservatorship of her financial estate put her family problems in the public eye.
At 42, Richard made the decision to completely sever contact with his mother and father – and his older brother – for the sake of his own well-being
One TikTok thread called #NoContactFamily has garnered millions of views, with users sharing their personal journeys.
Some highlight the complexities of severing contact, but many others talk about the sense of freedom they felt after jettisoning ‘toxic’ family relationships.
That’s certainly the predominant emotion for Richard, who maintains that his decision to sever contact with both his parents and older brother Julian (not his real name) was ‘empowering’.
‘Without being dramatic, my life became instantly better without them all in it,’ he says.
Raised in Suffolk, Richard says he consistently felt played off against his brother Julian throughout their childhood.
‘By the time it got to my teens, it seemed my brother could do no wrong, and I could do no right,’ he says.
Nonetheless, his relationship with Julian worked well enough for the brothers to set up a buy-to-let property business, which Richard oversaw in tandem with pursuing a production career in television.
When Julian’s marriage broke up in 2016 leaving him homeless, his mother came to Richard in tears begging him to help, and Richard and his husband – who together had built their own £1 million house from scratch – purchased another house in which Julian and his new partner could live at a hugely reduced rent while he was navigating his divorce.
In her mid-twenties, Becca cut ties with her own family to escape what she calls their ‘dysfunctional dynamics’ – but only after trying to discuss her feelings
‘I did what was asked of me and more, but after one difficult chapter and another, Julian accused me of “shafting” him,’ Richard says.
Matters came to a head when Richard discovered his brother had tried to cut him out of a tenancy agreement only to find, at a subsequent get-together with his parents, that his parents blamed him for his brother’s financial woes.
‘Dad was really cold, and Mum turned to me and asked me what on earth I was doing. I said: “Hang on, I’m not the bad guy here.” But it was a case of my poor brother the victim again.’
When Julian lunged at him during a row and had to be pulled off him by their mother, something inside him snapped.
‘Even after all the lies and aggression they still took his side,’ he says. ‘I realised then that this dynamic would never change.’
He walked away, returning only to hand over his house keys two weeks later – a decision he says he has never regretted.
‘I did miss Mum, and I knew it would have broken her heart that her family was damaged. But both Mum and Dad were completely complicit in that – and I didn’t cause the damage.’
The estrangement was total – no phone calls, meet-ups or emails. The family Christmas became a long distant memory.
Natalie says having her own baby widened the gulf between her and her mother
‘I may have made the decision to stop contact, but they also allowed it to happen,’ Richard says. His only contact from his mother in the ensuing years was a call to say his grandmother was dying.
It is a dynamic that Stand Alone founder Dr Becca Bland recognises only too well.
‘Adult children may choose to walk away from their parents, but often their parents have a very big role in that, too, in that they do not work to change it,’ she says.
Now 42, Becca has personal experience of this after ending contact with her own family in her mid-20s to escape what she calls their ‘dysfunctional dynamics’ – but only after trying to discuss her feelings.
‘They basically then shut me out. So although I made the decision to walk away, they are still part of that process,’ she says.
She founded Stand Alone in 2012 to help those experiencing family estrangement. ‘There was still a taboo in talking about it,’ she says, recalling how, following her own decision to separate from her parents, she told people they lived in Australia to avoid social awkwardness.
‘For many people, their family unit is their stability and their safety, and as a society, we’ve always gained our social capital from family, so for a long time there was a lot of stigma in not conforming to that, even though for a lot of people it’s not the case. We just didn’t talk about it.’
Referring to the Royal Family’s troubles, she adds: ‘If our most treasured family in the UK are plagued by estrangement then it certainly helps normalise it.
‘It’s a reminder that this can happen to anyone.’
Many estrangements arise from issues that can affect all layers of society, from physical or sexual abuse to addiction.
Meanwhile, separation, divorce and remarriage are ‘huge predictors’ of estrangement, according to Dr Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and author who has written books on the subject.
He points out that while it’s tricky to obtain reliable statistics on the phenomenon – studies have only started tracking estrangement in the past 15 years – he believes that changing social mores have also played their part in helping people walk away from their families. ‘In my experience, a significant number of estrangements – and especially in the Trump and Brexit era – now happen because of politics,’ he says.
‘In our more individualistic Western societies, we’re also used to thinking about what is going to make the individual happy and not the larger family system.
‘Certainly, “protecting my mental health” has become the new moral framework, particularly for the younger generation; every single letter that I get from an estranged child about their parents says: “I need to protect my mental health, and I’m happier not being in contact.” ’
Dr Coleman also believes therapy has played its part in moving estrangement into the mainstream.
‘Therapists have become what the sociologist Allison Pugh calls “detachment brokers”, meaning they’ve helped people to detach from prior feelings of duty and obligation and responsibility to make their life more in line with their own ideals of personal growth, identity and pursuing happiness,’ he says.
‘The good news about this newer freedom is that it allows people to cut off truly abusive family members. The bad news is that it removes the safeguards that encouraged people to stay in contact with family and work through their issues.’
Debi Richens, a trauma recovery coach who has seen hundreds of parents bewildered by a sudden cut in contact from their grown-up children, also believes therapy has played its part in facilitating estrangement.
‘In many cases an adult child has seen a therapist who not only diagnoses a parent they have never met, but then encourages the adult child to walk away from that parent with no conversation,’ she says.
‘One of the biggest conversations I have is the fact that our adult children won’t take responsibility for their part in the breakdown of the relationship, and won’t enter into an adult conversation about their reasons.
‘If most parents had any idea of what their adult children were feeling that was making them want to walk away, they would be able to take steps to rectify their own behaviours and actions. But the lack of communication, or plain “ghosting”, is very distressing and also takes away any chance of addressing the problem.’
Dr Coleman can see it from both sides, believing that parents and children can both be guilty of getting trapped in their ‘positions of grievance’. In fact, he has personal experience of it: a father of three, his decision to specialise in estrangement derives from being on the receiving end of an aggrieved child who cut contact.
His now 43-year-old daughter walked away from their relationship when she was in her early 20s following Coleman’s divorce from her mother and subsequent remarriage.
‘I think she had legitimate grievances about feeling replaced by my younger children from my second marriage that I wasn’t ready to understand or empathise with at the time,’ he says.
‘It wasn’t until I was able to take responsibility and see the truth in her complaints that things began to turn around.’
The pair are now happily reconciled. ‘Not all adult children who cut off a parent really tell them why, and that’s very hard,’ he says. ‘But there are also plenty of adult parents who really don’t want to listen because it’s too painful to face the ways they failed or hurt their children; or they can accept that they were hurtful in some way, but don’t understand why that would necessitate an estrangement.’
That proved the case for Natalie Walker, a 32-year-old local government worker from West Yorkshire, who ceased all contact with her mother three years ago after trying for many years to explain her behaviour was hurtful.
The elder of two siblings, Natalie’s relationship with her ‘volatile’ mother has always been difficult. ‘She was emotionally cold and would often make a point of saying: “I’m not very maternal”,’ says Natalie.
‘Conflict was common with other family members, too, which had a profound impact on our family dynamics.’
It meant Natalie ‘lost count’ of the ways in which she felt let down by the woman who had given birth to her. ‘There are so many incidents, but one of the major things for me was her missing my wedding dress shopping,’ she recalls. ‘I had invited all my family to come but, as she wasn’t speaking to my auntie, she refused.’
While she managed to patch things up in time for the wedding, having a baby of her own three years ago only widened the gulf.
‘Even though she only lives an hour away, it took five weeks for her to come and visit, and only then because my grandparents brought her,’ Natalie says.
‘Once I became a mother myself, it helped me recognise how unacceptable her behaviour was, and it helped me come to the difficult decision to have no contact.’
Other than an ‘awkward’ accidental sighting at her maternal grandparents’ home, she has not seen her since, and does not intend to.
‘I don’t feel regret at all, because I feel like it took a long time for me to come to that decision,’ she says.
‘I have had therapy around this – both as a teen and then recently as an adult. I am still sad about the way things are. However, what I recognise is that it is the relationship I should have had that I crave, not necessarily her.’
And whatever the wider societal changes, Stand Alone’s Becca Bland believes cases of estrangement remain rooted in profoundly emotional issues.
‘People seem to think that hashtags on social media create estrangement, but in all my experience while there have been changes in society it doesn’t mean estrangement is more hastily done,’ she says. ‘People still labour intensely over those decisions, and they still think about them endlessly afterwards.
‘Ultimately, families break down for the same reasons they always have – from changes in family life to resentments from childhood. What has changed is there is more conversation around it.’
Moreover, estrangement isn’t always permanent.
‘A large study undertaken in the US . . . said around 80 per cent of mothers eventually reconcile with their kids, and roughly 70 per cent of fathers do so,’ says Dr Coleman. ‘In general, most estrangements are temporary. Some are on again and off again.’
That has – in part – proved the case for Richard, who has reinstated contact with his parents in the past year after discovering both were in ill health, although he remains ambivalent about their relationship.
‘It felt like the right thing to do,’ he says. ‘But I operate very much at a distance and only so they have the necessary attention and care as far as I can provide it.’
However many memes there may be on TikTok, it’s a reminder of the complexity that underpins these relationship breakdowns.
‘Some people find a lot of freedom and liberation from severing contact,’ says Bland.
‘But many people find a great deal of pain.’
