“What happened?” Scott, 82, asked his 78-year-old brother Bruce when they spoke for the first time in 15 years.
“I grew up,” Bruce replied. “I’ve been stupid, and I really miss you.”
The brothers had missed over a decade of birthdays, milestones, and shared memories—yet when they reconnected, it was as if no time had passed.
Research by Karl Pillemer, a professor at Cornell University and author of Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, shows that a quarter of adults say they’re estranged from a relative—10% from a parent and 8% from a sibling. But what makes people like Scott and Bruce—or, more famously, the Gallagher brothers—repair long-broken relationships after so many years?
Growing up in California’s San Fernando Valley, Scott and Bruce were close. “He was protective and a great storyteller,” Bruce recalls. “We’d go to the movies together—I remember hiding behind a seat during The Blob, waiting for Scott to tell me when it was safe to come out. We got along well.”
Scott had dyslexia and struggled in school, receiving less affection from their emotionally distant parents. “He was undervalued,” Bruce says. “Our parents never acknowledged his achievements.”
As teenagers, their differences drove them apart. “We started having issues when I began forming my own opinions,” says Bruce, now living in Santa Fe. “I was—and still am—a know-it-all. I was thin-skinned and lacked self-awareness.”
Bruce earned a PhD and worked as a substitute teacher near Berkeley, while Scott became a screenwriter, married, raised two daughters, and moved to Nevada City. They saw each other a few times a year, but Bruce remembers, “He’d always say really hurtful things.”
The tension built until 2005, when Bruce finally snapped during a visit. “I’d bought seafood for everyone,” he says. “After dinner, Scott said, ‘This kitchen was clean—now it’s dirty. You should clean it up.’ It might seem small, but being belittled in front of my girlfriend felt awful.”
Bruce cut ties. When Scott sent him his share of residuals from their late father’s screenwriting work, Bruce returned the check. “I didn’t want any connection. It was too painful.”
Scott wasn’t deeply hurt. “I didn’t have time to dwell on it—I had a family to support,” he says. Still, he wondered occasionally if Bruce was okay. Bruce, meanwhile, was just relieved to be “out of the line of fire.”
But in 2020, Bruce had a change of heart. Years earlier, he’d ignored Scott’s daughter’s suggestion that they reconcile, but during lockdown, he reflected on his relationships. “I realized I’d been too judgmental,” he admits. “I never understood Scott’s struggles. He lashed out because I was being difficult. I was the jerk in this story.”
After getting advice from a therapist friend, Bruce called Scott. To Scott, it felt seamless. “We picked up right where we left off—no anger, no guilt. We haven’t argued since.”
They started talking every two weeks. “We had a hard time hanging up,” Bruce says. Six months later, he visited Scott—and has done so several times since. “We’ve talked a lot…”Scott reflects on their parents: “They were kind and intelligent people, but not affectionate. Neither of us can remember ever being hugged or kissed. Talking about this has helped us reconnect with each other and ourselves.”
Their separation actually brought unexpected benefits. Bruce notes, “We’ve discovered how alike we are – we think similarly and even use the same expressions. When we sit together at a bar, anyone can tell we’re brothers.” He feels much happier now: “I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything. If anything, we’re closer than before.” Scott agrees: “It’s been nothing but positive.”
Pillemer explains that Bruce and Scott’s experience is common. “Most estrangements follow a pattern – tensions build up until one final incident triggers the break, often after years of unresolved conflicts or communication issues. Understanding this pattern helps people make sense of what happened.” He adds that reconciliation typically involves self-reflection: “People usually examine their own role in the conflict before reaching out.” This is followed by what he calls “anticipatory regret” – the fear that it might be too late to reconnect.
For 62-year-old Oliver, a family death made him reconsider his 28-year estrangement from his twin brother Henry (names changed). “I kept thinking: what if he died suddenly and I never got to speak to him again? When I finally picked up the phone, I counted down from 10, hesitating with each number.”
The twins had always been different. Oliver explains, “People assume twins are identical in every way, but Henry was bookish and quiet while I was more outgoing and flamboyant. We had separate friends and interests.” By their teens, they were just “two brothers sharing a house” with little connection. When Oliver moved abroad at 21, he always initiated contact during visits home, but felt Henry made excuses to avoid meeting. At Henry’s wedding, Oliver felt like “just another guest” rather than a best man.
After one particularly painful rejection in the early 90s, Oliver gave up trying. For nearly thirty years, their family never discussed the rift. “My parents knew but never intervened – I wish they had,” Oliver says. He often wanted to reach out but feared rejection, though he heard through relatives that Henry was struggling with his own issues.
Everything changed in 2009 when their brother-in-law died. At the funeral, Henry’s wife encouraged Oliver to call her husband. Reflecting on life’s brevity – “we don’t get to choose our family” – Oliver called Henry days later. “It felt like a first date,” he recalls. “I realized we needed to focus on the present and future, not dwell on the past.”Here’s the rewritten text in fluent, natural English while preserving the original meaning:
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Oliver decided not to dwell on past conflicts with his brother Henry. Instead, he chose to focus on their present and future relationship. He made a point of calling Henry every month, explaining: “I realized I needed to accept him as he is, not who I wanted him to be. Henry isn’t emotionally expressive like I am, but I still reach out because I want him in my life.”
Their relationship improved over time. Henry visited Oliver, and now when Oliver returns to the UK, he stays with his brother and has built relationships with his niece and nephew too. “There’s not much emotional expression between us, but I’m at peace with that,” Oliver said. “We shared a womb and have 62 years of connection – that bond can’t be ignored.”
Family estrangement is painful in any form, but cutting ties with a parent or child is particularly difficult. As researcher Pillemer notes: “We feel less obligation to stay connected with siblings than with parents. Saying ‘I never want to speak to you again’ to a parent is a major decision.”
This was the situation for Choi, a 45-year-old digital marketer and DJ from a strict Korean immigrant family in Buenos Aires. Growing up, he feared his physically abusive father. “My sister and I would count the peaceful days between his outbursts,” Choi recalled. “I felt like I was in prison.” After a suicide attempt at 17 and being locked out at 18 for missing curfew, Choi left home with nothing. “Staying would have destroyed me,” he said.
While relieved to escape his father’s control, Choi missed his mother. For twenty years, they only saw each other briefly at family events, always under his father’s watchful eye. “We’d have a few minutes together,” Choi said. “She’d ask me to apologize to my dad, which made me angry with her.” Eventually, he stopped visiting altogether – they didn’t see each other for a decade.
In 2022, after supporting his girlfriend through cancer during the pandemic, Choi felt grateful and wanted to reconnect with his parents. He drove four hours to their home unannounced. “When my father saw me, he asked my mother ‘Who is this?'” Choi remembered. Though his father initially yelled at him, assuming Choi wanted something, the visit ended positively. “I told him I just wanted to see them,” Choi said.
Choi began weekly phone calls. The conversations were practical at first, though his father occasionally apologized. “I admitted I hadn’t been a perfect son either,” Choi said. “I suggested we focus on building a new relationship.” But during a later visit, his father became angry again and stopped taking his calls.
Then in February 2023, Choi received persistent calls from an unknown number. It was the police in his parents’ town – his mother had left his father and needed Choi to come get her. “Our relationship is complex and still challenging,” Choi reflected, “but I’m grateful to have her in my life. This is a second chance.”Here’s the rewritten text in fluent, natural English while preserving the original meaning:
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Choi brought his mother to live with him. “She cooked for us, and we ate together. I got her a phone so she could call family in Korea—she’d been cut off from them too. She told me how my father treated her, controlling everything, his outbursts, and how hard it was.”
A month later, the unknown number appeared again. “I knew,” Choi said. “He’d killed himself.”
“It’s hard to grieve someone like my father,” he admits. But his death marked a moment of “deep change,” allowing Choi to rebuild his relationship with his mother. She moved back into the family home, but they still visit and talk three times a week. “Our relationship is complicated and still difficult. I want to protect her, but I’m still angry about the past. She tells me, ‘You have to let go,’ but it’s not easy.” He admires her for leaving and, above all, is grateful to have her in his life. “This is a second chance.”
Reconciliation isn’t the right choice for everyone, Pillemer cautions: “Some relationships are too dangerous or damaging, and cutting ties may be better.” Not everyone gets the immediate response they hope for. “The most successful strategies involve not giving up entirely and leaving the door open.”
When reconciliation becomes possible, learning about the person from family members can help. Showing up unannounced is riskier and “not always the best approach,” but for Grace (not her real name), 55, who hadn’t seen or heard from her father in 35 years, it changed her life.
Grace was 10 when her father had an affair and left. “He started a new life, and I never saw him again. He didn’t seem interested in me, and we weren’t close. My mom, who was loving, resented him deeply, and I felt I should hate him too—but I didn’t.” She stayed close to relatives on his side, who “went out of their way to avoid mentioning him so I wouldn’t be hurt.” Their paths never crossed. It was “a strange situation,” and the weight of being the girl—then woman—who didn’t speak to her father was “exhausting.”
Twenty years later, at 42, Grace briefly saw her father when she gave a reading at her grandfather’s funeral. “I thought seeing me might stir something in him, but it didn’t. I was disappointed.”
Two years after that, while driving through his town with her cousins, one pointed to two men chatting by the roadside. “‘There’s your father,’ my cousin said. ‘Oh yeah,’ I replied, but I had no idea which one was him. It really shook me.”
Grace realized she wanted to know more about him—who he was and what traits they shared. “It was the elephant in the room for years. The longer we avoided it, the bigger it became. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, and I worried my mom would see it as a betrayal.”
The thought stayed with her until a family wedding in Ireland, where her father now lived. Everyone was there except him. The next morning, with…
(Note: The text cuts off here, but the rewrite maintains the original tone and clarity while improving flow.)Without time to overthink, Grace walked to her father’s house and sat on the doorstep. “I thought, if I leave now, I’ll never come back,” she said. She didn’t wait long. When he returned, he didn’t recognize her at first. Then he said, “You’d better come in. Do you want a cup of tea?”
They sat at the kitchen table. “It felt surreal,” Grace recalled. “I knew if we were to have a relationship, we couldn’t bring up uncomfortable topics. We talked about baking, feeding the birds, growing vegetables, and his English pension. He asked if my mother was alive, and I said, ‘Yes, she’s fantastic.’ I felt I had to defend her. That was the only time we touched on anything sensitive.”
Mostly, she felt relief. “I needed to let go of the feeling that part of me was missing,” Grace said. As she left, he hugged her and cried a little. “That felt satisfying.” They settled into a routine—Christmas cards, birthday calls, and visits once or twice a year, always lasting about an hour.
Grace has thought a lot about why she went to her father that day. “So much in my life had been decided by others,” she said. “I wasn’t willing to miss out on knowing my father just because it might upset someone—whether it hurt my mother, risked rejection from him, or drew disapproval from relatives. And I couldn’t blame anyone else for the distance when I was the only one who could take that step.”
She wishes she had done it sooner. “I’ve struggled with childhood wounds for years. Knowing he was just an ordinary person—and that I wasn’t somehow lacking—might have helped.” Now in his 80s, Grace says, “This gave me the chance, late in life, to be his daughter. If he had died without us reconnecting, that loss would have been unbearable.”
For some, reconciliation comes only at the end of life. Researcher Pillimer notes that when deep wounds remain unresolved, late attempts can backfire. But when both sides truly want it, these moments can bring closure, ease regrets, and soften grief for those left behind.
Lynne, a 71-year-old lawyer from Missouri, found closure in a deathbed conversation with her father after being estranged for over a decade during her teens and early adulthood. He died at 59 when she was 36, but she says, “We only talked about those lost years when he was dying.”
Lynne’s parents divorced when she was eight, and her father moved out. “At first, I saw him regularly,” she said. But at 13, after her mother remarried a difficult man with his own children, her stepfather banned contact because her father struggled with child support.
She felt his absence deeply. “Home life was hard. I remember wishing for a boyfriend to hold me when I cried—only later realizing I’d really wanted my father. When my mother once said, ‘It’s better your dad’s not around,’ I thought: You’re so wrong.”
Her mother’s second marriage lasted four years, but the rift with her father remained. In her late teens, Lynne refused an offer to meet him. “I was still bitter,” she admits. When he had a heart attack soon after, she didn’t visit. “I regret that now,” she says.
[Image description: Lynne (right) with her father and sister. Caption: “I resented that he hadn’t fought harder to be in my life.”]I resented that he hadn’t tried harder to stay in my life.
We did see each other when I got married at 21. “I didn’t want to get married without him there, so I invited him as a guest. He didn’t walk me down the aisle, but we talked, he gave me a gift, and we hugged.”
Three years later, on Father’s Day, I reached out on impulse. “I saw a card and sent it. I’d never done that before, and I don’t even remember why I did it then.” That December, he called on my birthday. Later, we arranged a dinner with my siblings. “It felt warm and welcoming, but we didn’t discuss the past.”
My father had remarried, giving me a half-brother, and over time, we grew close again. My husband, son, and I spent Christmases in Florida, where he lived, and he visited us too. “I realized how intelligent he was and that his sense of humor was a little quirky—just like mine.”
I often wondered how he felt during those years apart, but I only got answers in his final days. After he suffered a pulmonary embolism, my siblings and I went to upstate New York, where he had moved, to be with him. “They told us he had ten days left,” I remember. “We laughed and talked a lot. He apologized for being absent. He admitted the divorce was his fault—he’d cheated—and told me how proud he was that I’d become a lawyer. He said he loved me and regretted everything. It was heartbreaking that he was dying, but in a way, it was the best outcome possible. It gave me closure.”
“Some relationships never mend, and some people are just awful, but that wasn’t my situation,” she adds. “I’ve always believed that holding onto anger or resentment hurts you more than anyone else. Forgiveness is freeing—it lets you move forward.”
Support Resources:
– UK & Ireland: Samaritans – 116 123 (free), email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie
– US: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – Call/text 988, chat at 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741
– Australia: Lifeline – 13 11 14
– International: Find helplines at befrienders.org
FAQS
### **FAQs About “I Was Foolish and I Miss You”: Family Reconciliation After a Long Feud**
#### **Basic Questions**
**1. What does “I was foolish and I miss you” mean in family reconciliation?**
It’s an expression of regret and a desire to reconnect after a long period of conflict or silence between family members.
**2. How common is it for feuding families to reconcile after years?**
It’s more common than people think—many families reconcile after years, especially during major life events like illnesses, weddings, or funerals.
**3. What usually causes long family feuds?**
Common causes include money disputes, inheritance issues, misunderstandings, grudges, or past betrayals.
**4. Can reconciliation really happen after decades of not speaking?**
Yes, many families have successfully rebuilt relationships even after decades of estrangement.
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#### **Benefits of Reconciliation**
**5. What are the emotional benefits of ending a family feud?**
Reconciliation reduces stress, heals emotional wounds, and can bring a sense of peace and closure.
**6. How does reconciling affect other family members?**
It often improves relationships across the whole family, reducing tension and creating a more supportive environment.
**7. Can reconciliation improve mental health?**
Yes, letting go of long-held anger and resentment can lower anxiety and depression.
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#### **Challenges & Common Problems**
**8. What’s the hardest part about reconciling after years of feuding?**
Overcoming pride, fear of rejection, and rebuilding trust are often the biggest hurdles.
**9. What if the other person doesn’t want to reconcile?**
You can’t force it—sometimes, acceptance is necessary if the other person isn’t ready.
**10. How do you handle old arguments resurfacing?**
Stay calm, focus on the present, and avoid rehashing past conflicts.
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#### **Practical Tips for Reconciliation**
**11. How do I start the conversation after years of silence?**
A simple, honest message like *”I was foolish, and I miss you”* can open the door.
**12. Should I apologize first, even if I wasn’t the only one at fault?**
Yes—taking responsibility for your part can encourage the other person to
