Family and relationships

Not on Speaking Terms

For most of the twentieth century, sociologists who studied the family had a great deal to say about marriage, divorce and the raising of children, and remarkably little about what happens when adult relatives simply stop talking to one another. Estrangement was treated, if it was mentioned at all, as a private misfortune rather than a pattern worth investigating. That has begun to change. Researchers who have interviewed estranged adults report that very few can point to a single dramatic quarrel or bone of [1]. Far more often, a relationship has been worn away over years by small disappointments until the two people no longer speak at all, and neither can say precisely when the silence began. What struck several researchers most was how reluctant participants were to discuss the matter with anyone else: in a culture that expects families to endure, admitting that one no longer speaks to a parent or a brother can feel like confessing to a personal failure.