It’s a common adage that “family is everything.” But for some, distancing themselves from family members is a painful — and often necessary — decision they’re forced to make.When someone walks away from a relationship in this way, as Nari Jeter, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told HuffPost, it’s because they believe they’ve provided many chances for change, and nothing has happened.If their expectations for communicating and respecting boundaries aren’t being met and the family member seems unwilling to work to save the relationship, Jeter said, they can reach a point where something just has to change.“Essentially, the tipping point is when the pain of staying in the relationship is greater than the pain of leaving,” Jeter explained — adding that even though cutting off a family member can feel final and irreversible, going no-contact doesn’t always have to be permanent. Sometimes it really is just the necessary decision at the time. HuffPost spoke with people who actually experienced what it’s like to go no-contact and eventually come back from that estrangement in their families — and they shared what they wished more people in their situation (and outside it) could understand. Vilin Visuals via Getty ImagesWhile painful, estrangement can be the right decision for someone who needs time and space from a relationship that has become painful. Estrangement is rarely an easy decision to make — and it’s often a last resort, after a lot of pain.When people go no contact with loved ones, the most common criticism is: “How could you do such a thing to your family?” But the decision isn’t so cut-and-dried for the person making it, according to Jeter. “Most of my clients who go no-contact feel complicated and conflicting feelings, including confusion, grief, longing, sadness, anger and doubt,” she said. “When people choose no-contact, they are choosing their own mental and emotional well-being, even knowing it may disappoint others.”For Karen, 63, the decision to cut off her mom was decades in the making. Growing up, her mother’s relationship with her stepfather was marked by substance abuse and violence, and the emotional toll on Karen, who asked to go by her first name to speak more candidly about her family, was significant. “I didn’t know who I was separate from my mother,” she said. “She controlled and manipulated me well into adulthood.” Karen kept the peace until 2010, when her mother sent her an email expressing disappointment in the person Karen had become. “That really opened my eyes in a way they hadn’t been before,” she said. She replied to her mom, saying she never wanted to see her or speak to her again.Resolutions to estrangement can look different. And, unsurprisingly, they can still be messy.For Karen, that door has opened and closed more than once. More than a decade later, she and her mother remain in touch — albeit carefully.Cutting ties with family isn’t a decision you make once and move on from, Jeter said. Life happens — a family member gets sick, a crisis emerges — and suddenly you’re reevaluating everything all over again.Since Karen first went no-contact with her mother in 2010, the two have cycled in and out of estrangement. At one point, Karen tried to repair things but realized she was putting all her energy into changing her mother rather than herself. “Once I gave that up,” she said, “I developed a whole framework — not to fix the relationship, but to help me be who I wanted to be in the relationship.”The two went off again in August 2023, until Karen’s mother reached out in early 2026, expressing a desire to move closer to where she lived. While they’re on speaking terms, Karen said, she’s very much focused on protecting her boundaries. “[My mom] doesn’t like that,” she admits.An estrangement can strain your other relationships, too.When a family member cuts off contact, it doesn’t only affect the two people in conflict — others get pulled into the fallout, whether they want to or not.Anne, 29, who asked to use only her first name to speak openly about her family’s situation, said she decided to cut contact with her father after years of a tense relationship. “He was on heavy-duty medications for MS that deeply affected his mood,” she told HuffPost. “Although it was not entirely his fault, his behavior was erratic and unsafe ... to be constantly exposed to.”The final straw happened after Anne’s dad berated her friend for being late on a boat trip. “I was used to him screaming at me without justification, but it was different to see him do that to someone I cared deeply about,” Anne said. “It made me also realize how unacceptable it was that he’d treated me that way so frequently that I’d normalized it until it happened to someone else.”““It made me also realize how unacceptable it was that he’d treated me that way so frequently that I’d normalized it until it happened to someone else.”After she cut off contact with her dad, Anne’s relationship with her mother grew tense, and it extended to other family members.“It definitely made my grandmother think less of me,” she said. “But that’s something we worked through.”While outside family members’ opinions come from a good place, they might not truly understand the complexity of your family dynamics. “I suggest clients have a short but firm response, like ‘This is what’s best for me right now,’” Jeter said. “I don’t advise offering long explanations, as it’s not necessary and often invites more conversation and pressure.”Eventually, Anne realized her mother had never stepped in to protect her from her father’s behaviors, either, and that affected their dynamic too. “I had always blamed my father for how I grew up,” she said. “But that situation forced me to recognize my mother’s inaction and her role in the dynamic she allowed to continue.”Sometimes, stepping away can prompt family members to reassess their behavior.Sometimes a period of distance can force the other person to get to the root of what caused the estrangement.For Anne, that’s exactly what happened. Her father spent years in treatment with a psychiatrist who, without knowing the full picture, had been unknowingly enabling his worst behaviors. “The thing about therapy is that if you are not fully honest with the person who is working with you, it becomes an exercise in excuses,” Anne said. “It doesn’t actually help you or the people in your life.”Once Anne was able to speak directly to his psychiatrist and share her experience, everything shifted. The psychiatrist realized she had been working with an incomplete version of the truth — and fired him as a client. He found a new doctor, got honest and started doing the real work. “For me, it wasn’t the amount of time that had passed,” Anne said. “It was that I was able to get him away from the person who was justifying and enabling his behavior.”lucigerma via Getty ImagesThere are no guarantees that estrangement will end in a harmonious resolution, but it can put all parties in the best position to prioritize and address their issues. Taking space could even heal your relationship in the long run.As painful as estrangement is, it doesn’t always end in permanent separation. For some families, the distance becomes the very thing that kick-starts real change.“When my father reached out to me while I was no-contact, I would just tell him repeatedly what he needed to do in order to speak to me again,” Anne recalls. “That way, he had actionable steps he could take to rectify the situation, and he knew it was his responsibility to do so.”And, for them, it worked. After working with a new doctor, Anne said, her father slowly began to change.“My relationship with my father has greatly improved, and he has even apologized,” Anne said. “Which is something he’d never done before.”Jeter said this kind of outcome —while never guaranteed — is possible if all parties are willing to work on the relationship and make the most out of the space they’re giving one another.“Going no-contact doesn’t have to be forever,” she said. “No-contact can become fertile ground for future reconciliation.”