CHAPTER 5: When Closeness Feels Like Distance

As the yoke begins to shift from the parent to the child, most parents expect one of two outcomes. Either: “This will get easier now. We raised them well. They’ll start thriving.”
Or: “Now that they’re adults, we’ll finally enjoy each other like friends.”

But for many parents, what actually happens is a different kind of weight shows up. Not the weight of responsibility. You’ve already begun transferring that. This is a different weight: The weight of closeness that doesn’t match the dream.

As children move into adulthood, you’re not carrying their schedule anymore. You’re not managing their decisions. You’re not trying to regulate their emotional weather as much. But something still presses on you.

You start thinking things you never expected to think: “Why don’t they text or call as much as we want? Do they not enjoy being with us?” “Why does it feel like they tolerate us?” “Why do they give everyone else their best energy and we get scraps?” “What did we miss?” “Was our relationship ever what we thought it was?”

That weight has a name too. It’s the “soulmates myth.” The soulmate myth is this quiet expectation that if you parented well, the adult relationship would feel naturally warm, easy, and emotionally paired. In other words: best friends for life!

The Soulmate Myth Parents Carry Without Realizing

Most parents don’t say, “I need my kids to be my soulmates.” But many parents live as if something like that should be true. Not romantically, obviously. But emotionally the parents expected a connection, conversation, mutual enjoyment, shared humor, and the parent can expect this when adulthood arrives.

And when it doesn’t, it feels like failure. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Childhood closeness often came from dependence, not compatibility. When a child is small, connection is baked into life: you are their safety, you are their structure, you are their access to the world, you are their primary relationship, you are the source of food, rhythm, comfort, and identity.

That is real closeness. But it’s also a closeness formed by necessity. When adulthood arrives, necessity fades. Choice takes over. And choice exposes something many parents weren’t prepared for: Your adult child’s personality, social rhythm, relational preferences, and emotional wiring may not “pair” with yours the way you hoped.

That doesn’t mean there’s no love. It means there is a new kind of work. Not the work of carrying. The work of relating. But this transition can be shocking to parents and children. This particular yoke hurts because it attacks something deeper than parenting strategies.

It touches your sense of worth. For years, your identity wasn’t just “provider.” It was also “relational home.” You didn’t just raise a child. You built a world where love lived. So, when the adult child doesn’t seem to want that world, it feels like they’re rejecting your whole life.

But often, what they’re rejecting isn’t love. They’re rejecting the emotional role they had in that world. Because adulthood forces them to answer a question every generation answers, “Who am I if I’m not the version of myself my parents know?” That question produces distance even in healthy families. Distance doesn’t always mean your child is angry. Sometimes it means your child is trying to become a self. That’s a good and healthy step into adulthood as they learn to carry their own yoke.

The Closeness Parents Put on Adult Children

Here is one of the most common mistakes parents make after the children move into adulthood. They transfer responsibility, but they keep demanding closeness. Not explicitly. Subtly. Parents can say things like: “We just miss you.” “You never call.” “It would mean a lot if you made more effort.” “Why are you so distant?” “We just want the relationship we used to have.”

All of those sentences sound reasonable. But to a young adult trying to build identity, those sentences can feel like a new form of control: “You’re not meeting my emotional expectations.” “Your independence is hurting me.” “Your adulthood is a problem for me.” And then, in an ironic twist, the attempt to restore closeness becomes one of the main reason’s closeness becomes harder. Not because parents are wrong for wanting connection. But because pressure in any relationship is always going to hinder enjoyment.

One time in a conversation with one of my adult children I said to them, “You don’t have to stay connected to us. We love you more than we love the relationship with you, therefore, if you need to create distance between us as your family, that’s okay. We want you to do what you need to do to chase after the things you want in life.”

It was like a lightbulb moment for our adult child. I could even see it on her face when the words came out of my mouth. On my end, nothing really changed. I knew we felt that way, but it was never expressed, because we didn’t think it was necessary. But like any adult child who loves their family, they are going to feel pressure to stay connected to their family because they don’t want to create disappointment.

But, In our relationships, we can’t demand warmth. We can’t manage affection. We can’t guilt someone into delight. That creates the very thing we fear: a relationship that feels like an obligation but overtime that will wear-down any relationship.

The Reality: Love Is Unconditional. Chemistry Is Conditional.

We can love our child deeply and still feel a mismatch in how we connect. We can be committed, faithful, generous, consistent, and still not have the closeness we expected with our children and / or a child expected with their parent.

That doesn’t make our families broken. It makes our families normal. Adult relationships don’t automatically “pair.” They are built over time, and sometimes that building takes more effort than we anticipated and goes slower than what we might see in the lives of other families.

Human relationships, even family ones, are not mechanically guaranteed just because the people involved share DNA. Decades of developmental research (from Chess & Thomas onward) show that temperament differences are often the #1 predictor of felt closeness, more than parenting style.

introverted child / extroverted parent
sensitive child / pragmatic parent
highly structured parent / spontaneous child
achievement-driven parent / relationally-driven child

No injury is required. Just difference. And if a sibling’s temperament matches the parent more closely, the contrast becomes even clearer. The reality is some parents and children share a natural rhythm and some don’t. Some click with ease, and some take effort. Emotional chemistry between a child and parent is a gift, not a moral achievement.

In addition, cognitive style between parent and child and how they process the world also has a huge influence. If one child processes the world more intellectually and the parent processes emotionally, it is going to create relational dissonance. Both might be healthy. The parent and child just don’t harmonize.

Then, you tie in some American Idealism with a splash of Disney and then it creates this expectation of constant closeness and “best friend” energy that was never realistic. In fact, studies show when parents give birth to a child they have a 60% chance they won’t have personality / processing similarity with their children, thus creating a disconnect in their relationship with one another.

What You Can Control in This Season

Here is what we can control: We can become the kind of presence our adult child does not have to manage. We can become the kind of presence they don’t have to perform for. We can become the kind of presence they don’t have to protect themselves from. A presence that says:

“You can be yourself around me.”

“I won’t interpret every boundary as rejection.”

“I won’t make your adulthood about my pain.”

“I will be steady even if you are inconsistent.”

“I’ll be here without hovering.”

That is the emotional environment where adult children eventually relax. And relaxed adults are more capable of warmth. As a parent, if you only have hope, you’ll become anxious and controlling, but if a parent can become content in where they are in relationship with their adult children they can begin to find hope.

Contentment says: “This season is not proof of failure.” “This distance is not the final chapter.” “I will not live emotionally crushed by what I can’t control.”

Hope says: “Connection can grow.” “Enjoyment can return.” “Maturity takes time.” “The story is longer than this moment.”

Hope without contentment becomes pressure. Contentment without hope becomes detachment, but when we become content with our experiences as parents and the relationship we have with our children, both parties can begin to take steps forward.

Chapter 5 Action Step: Replace Pressure with Presence

Set aside ten minutes. Answer these three prompts honestly.

Name the soulmate expectation you’ve been carrying. Complete this sentence:
“I assumed that by adulthood, our relationship would feel like __________________.”
Name how that expectation has leaked out. Complete this sentence:
“When I feel that distance, I tend to respond by __________________.” Examples: withdrawing, lecturing, guilt, over-texting, probing, staying silent but resentful.

Choose one “presence practice” for the next 30 days. (Pick one, not five.)

“I will initiate one contact per week with no expectation of response.”
“I will stop making comments about how often they call or visit.”
“I will create one low-pressure invitation per month and let it sit.”
“I will send one affirmation that contains zero advice.”
“I will stop interrogating silence and start treating it as neutral.”

Write your one practice as a single sentence: For the next 30 days, I will _____________________________, so I stop placing the weight of closeness on my adult child.You’re not trying to win them back. You’re trying to remove pressure from the relationship so enjoyment can become possible again. That’s not weakness. That’s growth!

Share this:

Related