I Chose to Estrange Myself From a Parent and Had to Live With That Choice

My father and I had a relationship through my early twenties that I maintained out of a combination of obligation and hope - the hope that the specific patterns that had defined my childhood would change now that I was an adult and the dynamic between us could be renegotiated on different terms.

The patterns did not change. What changed at 26 was my assessment of how likely they were to, and my calculation of what continuing cost me relative to what it provided.

I grew up in Reykjavik and my family is small in the way that Icelandic families often are, which means that choosing to step away from a parent carries a particular visibility and a particular social weight that a larger family might absorb differently.

I told my father, clearly and in person, that I was stepping back from regular contact and the reasons why. He did not respond in a way that produced any movement toward what I had described. The estrangement has now been in place for four years.

I want to be honest about what I had expected and what the reality has been, because the expectation and the reality are different in ways I think are worth naming. I had expected that the clarity of the decision would produce clarity of feeling.

The decision was the right one - I have not had a moment of doubt about that in four years. What I had not anticipated was the ongoing and somewhat complex emotional landscape of living with it. There is grief, which is not the same as regret but is real.

There is the specific experience of cultural events and family gatherings that acquire a complicated texture when a parent is absent by your choice rather than circumstance. There is the occasional social question about family that requires a response I have not always known how to calibrate.

There is also, genuinely and consistently, a relief and a groundedness that I had not had before, and a self-respect that the continuation of the relationship had been costing me without my full acknowledgment. The decision was right. The right decision can still be difficult to live with.

Both things are true and I think it is important to say so.