Lindsey Glass was in her mid-30s when she stopped speaking 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 topic of rehab after Lindsey became sober in her 20s.
“Here we were, writing dozens of articles about family dysfunction while we couldn’t manage our own relationship,” Leslie Glass, 79, told Business Insider.
They fought all the time, with tension reaching a breaking point during filming their second documentary about sobriety, “The Silent Majority,” in 2014. “There was a decade of angry stuff from childhood and from both sides that just went on set,” Lindsey Glass, 46, told BI.
Then, on the night their film was set to premiere on PBS, Lindsey left the business — and cut ties. “It was like she left me at the worst possible time because she was the star of the movie,” Leslie Glass said. “There couldn’t have been a more bitter breakup.”
For four years, the Glasses were among the 27% of Americans estranged from a family member. But then, they did something unusual for families who go no-contact: they reconnected.
The experience inspired them to co-author “The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover,” a book on how they reconciled and the tips they have for estranged family members who are ready to put in the work to get back in each other’s lives.
Communication issues 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 tragedy in my life,” she said. Her maternal grandfather and friends died, which deeply impacted her. At the same time, her mother was a successful mystery novelist, touring the country to promote her books. It was when her mother was gone that Lindsey said she started “getting into a lot of trouble” and becoming “very difficult” to deal with as a teenager.
In her junior year of college, Lindsey checked into 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 collaboration opened up old wounds. Leslie was the business’s primary owner, 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 through these tensions didn’t lead to any breakthroughs. “We had a family that had a fighting culture, and definitely we were quick to yell and blame,” Lindsey said.
Because Lindsey still struggled with her sobriety, her therapist at the time advised estrangement from her mom as a way to protect herself.
They kept things ‘light and polite’ at first
Estrangement wasn’t easy. Lindsey missed her mom on holidays. She missed cooking with her and talking about their dogs.
“We couldn’t be closer, my mom and I, and even when things were bad, they could be good,” she said.
From therapy and a few 12-step programs, Lindsey said she started to own her part in the relationship. “My mom, sometimes she was bad, 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 mom would feel about reconciliation. Then, Leslie wrote her daughter an email asking her to meet.
“I said, ”I’ll meet you anywhere in the country,'” Leslie said. “‘We won’t talk about what happened. We’ll just meet and have coffee and here are the boundaries.” Instead, they started talking on the phone once a week, catching up on all they missed.
Both women knew they needed to proceed carefully if they were going to rebuild their relationship. “I might’ve been super difficult, but she yelled at me sometimes, so I was scared of her yelling at me,” Lindsey said. It was crucial for them to establish trust before they dove into the crux of their issues.
“You keep it light and polite until people feel a little bit safe with you again,” Lindsey said.
Healing took work from both sides
The Glasses did a few things to repair their relationship. The first was having empathy for the other person’s perspective. In Lindsey’s case, she realized her mom coming off as overprotective came from “extreme fear that something was going to happen to me when I was drinking.” They felt enmeshed and codependent, while also unheard by the other person.
According to a 2015 report on family estrangement, some of the most common reasons for estrangement from parents were mismatched expectations and personality clashes. Lindsey said that understanding each other’s differences was a huge step to 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, like taking steps to apologize and reiterate 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, consistently put you down, or make you feel unsafe. In those cases, she said staying no-contact might be the best course of action.
At the same time, Lindsey feels that being estranged “is a very extreme thing” and that other solutions should be explored first. Leslie said that being estranged “leaves a hole in you” that can feel just as painful as staying in the relationship.
But whether reconnection is in the cards or not, Lindsey said the biggest part of healing is working on yourself. “How do you go and find some peace around this relationship, create a life that you love, and start to feel okay about what happened?” she said. “Because if you get better, the situation’s going to get better automatically.”
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