What is an estranged family?

Question

Is my family estranged?
I'm in my 20s..I have a mom and sis , we are close. My extended family who is my Moms sister, her husband, their 3 sons(my cousins) who are in their 40s and their wives make up the extended family. Long story but they always make fun of us cause they have more money, their mean, and controlled us.
We decided to have some space from them but still be polite. Out of the blue , Cousins wife leaves a message saying how dare we go to Europe for x-mas, not call her husband on his 48th birthday and says "we dont want a repsonse from any of you"
My Mom thought it was best not to reply and wait for another family member to contact us, no one has including her sister and its been 3 years now since we have seen or heard from anyone. There is one cousins wife who calls around x-mas, acting like she know nothing about what happened and asks about 100 personal questions and then she never calls again.

Answer 1

Yes your family is estranged. Estranged means they refuse to talk to you in this context.

I have endured a family estrangement and found a wonderful book called, Healing from Family Rifts by Mark Sichel. Its a wonderful book and helped me quite a bit and I highly recommend it for anyone who has experienced such an experience. Good luck.