Estranged Son- made for an upsetting Christmas.

poet123

You are obvioiusly hurting, what mother wouldnt? but the fact that he asked after you is a chink of hope. Kids can be very stubboirn and loathe to appear in the wrong....I suspect time will pass and he will turn up out of the blue and hope you will not mention it again.

Take care x

red_devil

poet123 wrote: »

You are obvioiusly hurting, what mother wouldnt? but the fact that he asked after you is a chink of hope. Kids can be very stubboirn and loathe to appear in the wrong....I suspect time will pass and he will turn up out of the blue and hope you will not mention it again.

Take care x

lets hope the op is still around and wants to know. you shouldnt put things off, you never know by the time the person gets round to it the other person may be no longer here. Anything can happen to any of us at any time. People should seize the moment and live for today but sadly some families dont. Will they regret it?

ernie-money

Minxz wrote: »

I don't think they can ever realise how hurtful this is.

It's so hard to try to offer advise to somebody who's in a situation you've never experienced yourself, so I'm not even going to attempt telling you what you aught to do, but still, I will give you a little food for thought...
I think there is one point when they might realise just how much they've hurt you, and that's if/when they have kids themselves.
I have a sister and a brother & my brother and I were always incredible close to our mum. So was my sister, until at some point in her teens. I still don't quite know what happened, it never made any sense to me, but it was almost like she hated my mum. The worst thing was when she got married, my mum was invited, but she was told to contact the parents of my sisters future husband, to confirm whether she would attend… My mum obviously found all this incredibly hurtful, and I’m not sure exactly how she dealt with it all at the time. Being younger and not having any kids myself at the time, I don’t think I took in the full extent of the impact it had on her.
Anyway, now, several years later, my sister has a 4 year old son & a little baby, and since she had her first, she suddenly started valuing my mums opinion again, asking for her advice & I think she must’ve started to realize how much she once hurt her, because she now knows what it’s like to love a child unconditionally and how painful rejection would be.
I’m sorry – this is turning into a bit of an essay, but I also wanted to tell you about someone else… My ex partner had a brother who, a bit like yours, went off the rails completely, kept getting arrested, got involved with drugs etc, and at some point their mum said that she couldn’t cope with it anymore. She said he was tearing the whole family apart, and she couldn’t let it go on at the expense of her other children. She basically threw him out (and from what I’ve heard, I don’t even think she was wrong in doing so) and he ended up living with his grandparents instead. Not very long after this, he was involved in a car accident, and sadly died. Had this not happened, everything would probably have turned out very different, but it caused a rift between her & her parents. They felt that you should never ever turn your back on your kids, no matter what they’d done, and she obviously blamed herself for what happened etc. Anyway, his death basically destroyed the whole family, they had such emotional scars to deal with, and the rest of the kids never really had a proper mum to look after them after that. I’m not saying you haven’t already done everything you can, because it sounds like you have done more than that, but if there’s any way you could perhaps speak to your parents about this, and explain that you couldn’t go on if something happened to him, without having sorted things out between you, or get them to ask him how he would feel if something happened to you. I’m sure he wouldn’t really feel that way, but at the end of the day, if he says that he wouldn’t care or regret anything if you passed away and he never got to speak to you again, then I think, as much as it hurts, it probably is time to take a step back. Even if you might not be able to give up on him deep inside, at least don’t allow him to hurt you even more, by giving him more opportunities to reject you.
Sorry again about the essay, but my heart really goes out to you, I couldn't even begin to imagine what you must be going through. Some of the posts here seem unnecessarily harsh towards you, it's always easy to judge... I just hope that I will never end up like this with my little 7 year old boy... xxx

Bufger

I can only say what Paddy's Mum said so perfectly. I would also have a very strong word with your parents about it. If your son chooses to see them then thats fine but you DONT want to hear about it - ever (or until he sorts his act out and contacts you). You dont want them to give him any financial support as it will only feed the problem rather than solve it - ultimately they will do what they want but they at least know where you stand.

if they fall out with you then so be it. You shouldnt be the apologetic one here - your parents should be ashamed of their weak minded involvement thats only helping the rift to widen and your son should be utterly ashamed of himself for his child like temper and lack of respect.

Dont blame yourself

red_devil

families are complicated i never really realised just how much stress they can cause.

Best thing is to get on with your life and try and get a little bit of enjoyment from each day.You can worry and worry but at the end of the day they arent worrying about you so you need to get on with life.

none of us knows how long we have got.

poet123

red_devil wrote: »

lets hope the op is still around and wants to know. you shouldnt put things off, you never know by the time the person gets round to it the other person may be no longer here. Anything can happen to any of us at any time. People should seize the moment and live for today but sadly some families dont. Will they regret it?

That is very true, some people never get that second chance.

Pee

I think it's very true that he will have a much better understanding when he has children of his own. My appreciation for my mother increased lots when I started thinking about having children myself.

NEH

I know of a similar situation, but i think there does come a point even with a son where the relationship becomes so toxic everyone's else's life becomes destroyed in the process....

For how long do you keep making excuses, for how long do you keep trying when you get nothing in return by way of any sort of form of relationship....

Sometimes stepping back is all you can do but when you also know it makes little difference it is even harder. I think though you have to get to the point where you have to protect yourself and those around you. Sometimes there never will be that understandable explanation as to why they've behaved the way they have and continue to do so. Sometimes they don't even know the reason themselves.. ....

I think you just hope against hope that one day they will come back and that one day they will realise what they've got and that it's not too late but now it's just a day that you have to hope will come and in the meantime repair the damage done....

Minxz

Good point NEH... I have made excuses for his behaviour since he was small.. fended off parents at the school gate, had angry dads at the door when he was teen.. and I try very hard to forget all that, but he's not given me anything to show he has really changed and grown up. My mum will phone and say, ' oh he's so grown up, we had a very adult conversation'... but what is grown up about blanking your mum ( the only parent he has, after we divorced, his bully dad never visted them all again..that was over 17 years ago.. )
Surely if you only have one parent you wouldn't want to lose them?
I'm not doing too bad at the moment, I sorted through some of the xmas gifts that were returned, and thought suff it, I'm not keeping these cor when you decide to contact me.. and took the winter clothes back to Debenhams and bought new clothes for me instead.. I felt selfish at first, then realised I was actually only spending my own money :O)))
Even though he's a Uni student, he told mum he didnt want to book token( ALL uni students would appreciate one of these!!) so i have put that aside for someone elses birthday, likewise with a clothing voucher.
I have kept a few things wrapped, but not the rest- maybe I'm being hard now.. but I don't see why, if for instance he contacts me and I get to see him ina few months ( wishful thinking??) that he deserves any belated presents.
he chose to return them.
But I'd still like him to ring..I push it to the back of my mind.. but some things worry me.. my other son will be 21 in march.. we will have aparty like we did for the eldest in a local pub that has a nice room to use.. so that means ither I don't go.. or the older brother won't.
sad for the rest of my children, not just me.

QuantumSuccess

Minxz - your son is a spiteful !!!!!!!. There is a person in my own family who acts just like him. She is also 22. Her mother was a teenage single mum and the daughter has been raised spoiled with a massive sense of entitlement: she's a spiteful arrogant brat who needs a big wakeup call