Family estrangements a term used broadly to describe situations in which someone cuts off all communication with one or more relatives seem to be more common than ever.

Over one-quarter of adults responding to a U.S. survey by the Cornell Family Reconciliation Project reported being estranged from a family member. When applied to the general population, that means tens of millions of Americans may potentially be estranged from a relative.

In the polarized years since Donald Trump clinched the presidency in 2016, Americans are increasingly subscribing to a kind of political tribalism , even within their families. In 2019, 35% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats said they would be unhappy if their child married someone from the opposing political party a sharp uptick in disapproval since people were polled on the subject 50 years ago, The Atlantic reports.

In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, HuffPost spoke to a number of Americans , Republicans and Democrats alike, whod lost family members to partisan politics.

I do miss them, said Jerry, whose left-leaning brother and sister dropped him from their Facebook friends list and changed their phone numbers.

It was not always like this. We were at one time a tight group, but since our parents passing away in 1999 and 2011, politics has consumed them, he said. And theres no way they would ever vote conservative or I would vote liberal.

In a high-profile example of this trend, former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois was shunned by multiple family members who believed hed joined the Devils Army by voting to impeach Trump.

What a disappointment you are to us and to God! they wrote in a handwritten two-page letter featured in a New York Times profile of the politician. It is now most embarrassing to us that we are related to you.

Deborah Duley, psychotherapist and founder of Empowered Connections in Maryland, said she sees clients struggle with this on the regular.

It seems that their family members feel more empowered in the past few years to say what they want regardless of how hurtful this could be towards their family member, said Duley, whose counseling practice specializes in women, girls and the LGBTQ+ community.

The Supreme Courts decision this summer to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion has been an especially thorny subject among family members of different political stripes, Duley told HuffPost.

Some family members feel they can say how excited they are that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she said.

The pandemic has also exacerbated the divide, given how politicized arguments about mask usage, vaccination status and individual risk assessments became.

A blunt social media post, a slip on the family text thread, a careless remark during a holiday celebration the smallest offense can shatter a sibling bond made brittle by intense political partisanship, said Fern Schumer Chapman , author of Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation.