Lindsey Glass was in her mid-30s when she stopped talking to her mother.
Glass and her mother, Leslie Glass, ran a business together called Reach Out Recovery, where they both wrote books and created documentaries on the subject of rehab after Lindsey got sober in her 20s.
“Here we were, writing dozens of articles about family dysfunction while we couldn’t manage our relationship,” Leslie Glass, 79, told Business Insider.
They fought all the time, with the tension reaching breaking point during the filming of their second sobriety documentary, The Silent Majority, in 2014. “There was a decade of angry things from childhood and both sides that just went to the shooting.” Lindsey Glass, 46, told BI.
Then, on the night their movie was to premiere on PBS, Lindsey left the business — and cut ties. “It was like he left me at the worst possible time because he was the star of the movie,” Leslie Glass said. “There could not have been a more bitter parting.”
For four years, Glasses were among 27% of Americans estranged from a family member. But then, they did something unusual for families who don’t have contact: they reconnected.
The experience inspired them to co-author “The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover,” a book about how they reconciled and the advice they have for estranged family members who are ready to do the work to get back into each other’s lives. the other.
Communication problems led to no contact
While the glasses conflicts came to a head when they worked together, the issues started much earlier, when Lindsey was in high school.
I started having a lot of tragedies in my life,” she said. Her maternal grandfather and friends died, which affected her deeply. At the same time, her mother was a successful mystery novelist who traveled the country to promote her books. It was when her mother left that Lindsey said she started “getting into a lot of trouble” and becoming “very difficult” to deal with as a teenager.
Leslie Glass with Lindsey as a child. Lindsey and Leslie Glass
In her junior year of college, Lindsey was sent to rehab. She wanted to share her experience with treatment and sobriety, and Leslie encouraged her to write. Leslie also gave up drinking in solidarity with her daughter. Soon, they became business partners, creating resources such as workbooks for people in recovery.
But the cooperation opened old wounds. Leslie was the primary owner of the business, which she now realizes made the relationship unequal. “I didn’t think she was responsible and I didn’t think she had the experience to have more responsibility,” Leslie said.
Talking over these tensions did not lead to any progress. “We had a family that had a fighting culture, and obviously we were quick to yell and blame,” Lindsey said.
Because Lindsey still struggled with her sobriety, her therapist at the time advised moving away from her mom as a way to protect herself.
They kept things ‘light and polite’ at first
Foreigners were not easy. Lindsey missed her mom over the holidays. She missed cooking with him and talking about their dogs.
“We couldn’t be closer, me and my mom, and even when things were bad, they could be good,” she said.
Through therapy and several 12-step programs, Lindsey said she began to own her part in the relationship. “My mom, sometimes she was mean, but sometimes she got a raw deal,” she said. As she recovered, she felt the need to reach out.
With the guidance of her therapist and AA sponsor, she went to her brother first to get a gauge of how her mother would feel about the reconciliation. Afterwards, Leslie wrote her daughter an email asking them to meet.
“I said, ‘I’ll meet you anywhere in the country,'” Leslie said. “‘We’re not going to talk about what happened. We’ll meet and have coffee and that’s the boundaries.” Instead, they started talking on the phone once a week, catching up on everything they missed.
Both women knew they had to proceed with caution if they were to rebuild their relationship. “I could have been really hard, but she would yell at me sometimes, so I was afraid she would yell at me,” Lindsey said. It was crucial for them to build trust before getting to the heart of their issues.
“You keep it light and polite until people feel a little safe with you again,” Lindsey said.
Healing took work on both sides
The glasses did several things to repair their relationship. The first was to have empathy for the other person’s point of view. In Lindsey’s case, she realized that her mother’s overprotectiveness came from her “extreme fear that something would happen to me when I drank.” They felt confused and interdependent, while not being heard by the other person.
According to a 2015 report on family alienation, some of the most common reasons for alienation from parents were mismatched expectations and personality clashes. Lindsey said understanding each other’s differences was a big step in getting along again.
They also looked at their biggest triggers and worked through ways to communicate better. “We have a different process for dealing with each other,” Lindsey said, both taking steps to apologize and restate the other person’s point of view.
Lindsey acknowledged that reconciliation isn’t for everyone, such as when emotionally immature family members repeatedly don’t listen to boundaries, constantly put you down or make you feel unsafe. In those cases, she said going no contact may be the best course of action.
At the same time, Lindsey thinks that being estranged “is a very extreme thing” and that other solutions should be explored first. Leslie said being separated “leaves a hole in you” that can feel just as painful as staying in the relationship.
But whether a reunion is in the cards or not, Lindsey said a big part of healing is working on yourself. “How can you go and find some peace around this relationship, create a life that you like, and start to feel good about what happened?” she said. “Because if you improve, the situation will automatically improve.”