Money and Estranged Adult Children
penbyrd
15 years ago
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penbyrd
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agostargazzer
15 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
mothers estranged from adult children
Comments (169)It's been close to 4 years from where this all started. The disrespect from my grown son escalated to the point where I told him to leave. His anger was out of control. My ex and I were separated due to his extra marital affairs. I felt I had to jolt him back to reality but instead he went to live with his father which made things worse. I kept the doors open, texting him often, telling him I love him and telling him that I didn't want this to be a permanent thing but his anger towards me got worse. Lashed out at me towards household things that "belonged to his father". Screamed and cursed at me. Many remarks about "this is my fathers house". Telling me that I was the reason for his anger. And with each explosion, I still kept the doors open. The final straw for me was a text that he sent me saying that "im sorry that you damaged me but I will no longer be controlled and manipulated". Those words cut me so deep. I still can't get past it. I was the mother who went to extremes to make sure my kids were never damaged emotionally. The mother who wanted my kids to always see both parents sitting in the stands at their games to have that memory forever, not knowing that I made their father go to the game. The mother who protected them from knowing of their fathers first affair because I thought it was a mistake and these kids shouldn't lose respect for their dad or look at him badly. I wanted them to be proud of their parents. I would have stayed in a loveless marriage so they would always feel safe and always feel like they had a home base. And he says those words to me? I damaged him. At that point I wasn't taking anymore. All communication stopped. I thought he's not hearing from me now he will realized what he has said and done and I thought the lightbulb will go on and then he will come back and tell me he is so sorrry for that and all the undeserved disrespect. One month later I get a happy birthday text. I dont respond. The next month Merry Christmas. Again I dont respond. The remorse and apology never comes. Eventually the pleasantry text continue for both of us. Only holidays. Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday but nothing on Mothers Day. Obviously, everyone on this post understands that hurt. The day to celebrate the person who raised you, loved you, took care of you, gave you a good life and I get nothing. That's a hurt beyond words. This is the son that I was so close to. Always close to. Never could have imagined this happening. I miss my son but I feel like he needs to come back to me. I can forgive him but I can't forgive if hes not sorry and if he thinks what he did was acceptable. I won't allow him to treat me that way. At this point I feel like this is the way it is and the way it will be and I will never stop loving him in my heart and will never stop hurting in my heart....See Moremothers estranged from adult children
Comments (14)I joined just to post this since I think it will help to just put it out there. I have 3 children, a son and 2 daughters. My 21 yr. old son, the oldest, has yet again decided to cut me off. My son started to have behavioral issues somewhere around 14. At first it was manageable, but over the years things got worse. At one point he was hospitalized (involuntarily) and he also stole my car in an attempt to drive out of state to see a girl. (he did not have a driver’s license) Throughout this, his level of disrespect, anger, lying, lack of maturity and overall moody behavior grew to a point where everyone in the house walked on eggshells around him. The thing is, because of my own upbringing (see below), I refused to give up on him. I know he is smart, loving and good kid underneath the problems. We, I and my husband, were willing to stick it out while he sorted his life out, got on a path of self-reliance and moved out like all kids do. Earlier this year things came to a head. He decided that once again the rules didn’t apply to him and he stayed out all night drinking and doing drugs, neither of which are allowed in our household. We basically told him that this wasn’t acceptable and after a heated argument, he stormed out. He later called my sister and she picked him up and took him to her house, which on the surface would seem fine, but not in this case. A bit of relevant backstory- I come from a big, complicated family. 6 older siblings, a mother who ditched us when I was an infant, multiple alcoholics, multiple marriage/divorces and generally a drama filled bunch. The only sane one was my dad and he passed away when I was 17. Up until last year I had confidence, abandonment and trust issues, but only around my siblings. It was like I was a different person around them and I realized it was because I just didn’t want any drama, regardless of how it negatively affected me. Finally, at 40 yrs. old I decided enough was enough. I started standing up for myself and stopped being the push over that my dysfunctional family/siblings had grown accustomed to. This, of course, did not sit well with them. Now the specific sister who picked up my son that day has a habit of making decisions for me, being judgmental and sometimes, just downright degrading to me. We had been butting heads over me not taking crap from people any longer and she pounced on this opportunity to lash out at me. She decided it was a great time to interject her opinion into the situation. She proceeded to tell my son he could stay there for as long as he wanted, rent and rule free, basically undermining us. She then decided to come over to my home and insult me by calling me a host of vial names because I told her that she crossed a boundary and that it was not acceptable. After the barrage of insults, I told her that she was being disrespectful and she needed to leave. We have not spoken since. My son on the other hand came home after about 6 weeks because he missed us. (his words) He got a job, bought a car and things appeared to be going well. We actually thought he was on the right path and we would be helping him move into his own place in a couple of months. Then things went south again. 2 months ago he started hanging out with his old friends, he started stealing again, smoking weed, drinking and finally he got fired for calling in too much. All through this, he is growing more disrespectful to us and after he stayed out all night parting again, we told him we had enough, he would need to make arrangements to move out at the end of the month. We would no longer be providing a free ride for his party habits. What we didn’t know is that my sister had been speaking to him this whole time, telling him he could come back there, no rent, no rules. So I feel like on some level he purposely caused problems so that he could justify/blame us for having to go back to my sisters. So here we are now. His little sisters haven’t heard from him since he left, my sister and son are manipulating each other, feeding off of each other’s anger towards me and creating a mess that I frankly have no idea how to clean up. I’m left to sit here wondering how long it will take for my son to see the truth of the situation, if he ever does. I’m having an especially hard time today because tomorrow is his birthday. If I text him a simple happy birthday, I’ll get a nasty reply. (I’ve tried in the past) If I say nothing tomorrow, it will be another piece of ammo that can be thrown at me in the future. I basically can’t lose either way. I just don’t know how to move on. Some days are okay, others I’m a mess. All my old insecurities are creeping back up and I don’t know how to stop them from consuming me....See MoreFor those whose adult children are estranged....
Comments (161)Well, in my sister's case, she has mental health issues, but was a bright young lady. She was overweight since childhood, but she was an absolutely beautiful girl. She went through a stage where she thought she was a lesbian. She liked to say that she wanted to bring a girl to Thanksgiving dinner as her date and upset our folks. I told her I figured they would get over it eventually. They loved her very much. Maybe too much. She met a guy on Yahoo personals and they had German ancestry in common. Turns out he's into White Supremacy, but we didn't know that at the time. They married within the first year of dating. He moved into her apartment and it didn't take long to find out that he was emotionally abusive. He blames it on his diabetes, but he even tried to start a fight with my husband at dad's funeral. My sister was unhappy in her marriage and we learned quickly that mom and dad were NOT allowed to give her and hubby anything. I didn't know anything was wrong until mom wanted to go visit them at their house one night. They weren't home and mom started crying and saying that she wished she hadn't married this guy. It was then that I found out about his white supremacist tendencies and the way he was controlling of my sister. Of course, she has gone back and forth over this saying it's not him, it's her that's the problem, but the night our dad died guess who was with her at the hospital. Dear old mom in law, the enforcer. This woman-the boy's mother-is the one, I'm really sure of it, who is most behind the estrangement. She tried telling my aunt and grandma that our dad molested us and that we were "stair-step" children. We were in fact 7 and 11 years apart in age and our dad NEVER molested us, ever! Of course, madam wolf didn't bother to ask my oldest sister and myself. She raises a child who thinks hitler is someone to look up to and takes a giant crap on our family. I have found out that there often is an older woman in the family that is behind the estrangement of the spouses parents and family. Well, my sister says that I'm a n**ger now and she hasn't let us see their daughter. We suspect she is pregnant again, but they won't let mom see that child either-even though the big bad dad is dead as a doornail. My dad is pushing up daisies. How would you feel if you were accused of molesting your own children and denied seeing your grandchildren? It is the most bull crap thing I have ever seen. I'm sure they are feeding her the whole, their toxic people, line and I'm sure it feeds her narcissism to believe it. God will have to deal with it. I miss my dad so much. This is NOT the way things were supposed to be and her actions have affected ALL of us. Of course, she doesn't even think about any of that. It's all her up in there. Our mother is very broken. I pray for her because only God can help the hole in her heart. That chicken sister of mine couldn't even go in and see dad's lifeless body laying on the gurney the night he died, but I remember his eyes. I was with mom and we went in right after they pronounced him dead. I remember his beautiful blue eyes had faded to a green as deep as the ocean because the life had fled from them. He choose not to get that open heart surgery. I guess he didn't think dying could hurt any less than being accused of being a child molester and a sob supreme by the woman who raised a model SS career man. It's not all about any one person. What you do affects everyone and we are ALL responsible for each other. I loved and protected my sister to the best of my abilities. Our dad did yell a lot and he was an ignorant man. He didn't know how to raise children because he came from an alcoholic dad-but our did was NOT an alcoholic nor was he a child abuser. My children remember their grandparents and I would never, ever have refused my parents or my husbands' parents from getting to know their grandchildren. Never....See Morereconnecting with estranged adult 'children'
Comments (152)I am recently estranged from my 26 year old son. It happened last summer after what was supposed to be a wonderful family trip to Hawaii. We invited my oldest son and his wife to come along with us, all expenses paid. We had been fortunate to have free air travel due to mileage. To make a long story short, are daughter in law has never liked us. Almost as soon as I met her I told my husband that she was very comfortable with us (i.e. lack of respect!) As soon as they were engaged I started hearing about things I had done that 'hurt her badly," from my son. This went on up to the wedding, with me continually apologizing and making amends for crimes I didn't commit. My husband told my son at the wedding that we really wanted his wife to call us Mom and Dad now, not by our first names which she had been given permission to address us by (reluctantly.) Since we had so much turmoil in the 1 1/2 that they were engaged, we thought it best to stay out of their lives as much as possible so that perhaps she would feel more secure and comfortable with us. We wanted them to know we weren't going to be interfering. We stuck by our guns, but continually were insulted by the way she conducts herself with us at get togethers. She acts bored, doesn't join in on the conversation, and is generally awful to be around. My son never seemed to notice her behavior, or if he did he ignored it out of his feelings for her. I should say also that my son had very little experience with dating, and no other serious relationship before he met this girl. I should also say that I believe she mislead him as to what her values were so that she would measure up to what he wanted, just so that he would marry her. A year before our trip to Hawaii we decided to invite them with us and our youngest son. I made it clear to my son that I didn't want to know an answer from him so that if they didn't want to go we wouldn't assume it was she who decided it. I also made it clear straight away that we wanted this to be a family vacation, i.e. do things together most of the time. My son had no problem with that, yet as the time drew nearer I kept getting odd phone calls questioning how much time I meant by most. From the minute they showed up at our door at 7am the morning of the trip I knew it was not going to be good. Most people on their way for 10 days expenses paid to Hawaii would be so excited and in a good mood, right? Not my DIL, she looked like she'd rather be doing anything else. She didn't talk to us in the car, on the plane, etc. Thankfully my husband and I sat together and the three of them sat together. My two sons conversed most of the trip, but my DIL did her own thing and tried to sleep. Hawaii was a nightmare. From the start of getting there they were off on their own. We'd have dinner together and she wouldn't join in and acted bored to tears. When we did spend time together she and my son would be off by themselves, while the three of us walked alone. Finally near the end of the trip it came to a boiling point. My husband took my sons out for a beer and confronted my son about his wife's behavior. My son admitted he had noticed her being quiet. Apparently my son came back and talked to his wife about it since by the next morning she had locked him out of the condo bedroom. My son was beside himself, so my husband managed to get his wife out of their bedroom and outside to talk. My husband is very good at calming emotional situations as he does this quite often in his job. Though he talked to her, she just claimed that she has the type of personality where she'd rather listen. Of course this didn't jive with a few experiences we had in Hawaii where we joined up with friends of my son and DIL that happened to be there. When we were with their friends she was the life of the party, talking, laughing and carrying on. Still my husband talked with her, explained how we were feeling, lsitened to her side and came back to the condo with her announcing to us all that she didn't mean anything by her behavior, that she is just introspective! We spent the last day in Maui with all of us together, but her behavior was just a bit better then it had been. Since my son and I had had words also over the tension, I'd say it was still tense when we got back home even though we had basically made up. The rest of the summer was discussing, arguing, and hearing what we are sure was an out and out lie for her behavior on our trip. She didn't tell my son about this until she was confronted, and my son wouldn't tell me anything other than they had got bad news while in Hawaii. Finally after me pressing him for the bad news by stating we were worried (which we were,) he told me that his wife had thought she had a miscarriage. I asked if she was late, if they were trying, why did she think she had a miscarriage? He told me no to all my questions, and stated she thought she saw something. If she had been pregnant and had lost the baby at two weeks there certainly wouldn't be any evidence she could see. Still, we couldn't accuse her of lying to our son. Also, even though she had a cell phone that would allow her to call the states for a local rate, it never occured to her to call her dr., her mom, or talk to me. She was 'too embarassed' to talk to me because she is so afraid of having a miscarriage because allegedly her mother had several. To think my son fell for this line is absolutely amazing, but then it was ingenuis since most men wouldn't have a clue. It wasn't until she was home that she found out from 'someone' that she didn't miscarry. This was according to my son. Now if that someone had been a dr., I'm sure she would have stated dr., not someone. After her escapade in Hawaii we told our son she could no longer address us by our first names, that we wanted her to call us Mr. & Mrs. as before due to her obvious lack of respect for us. We didn't state the respect part to our son as the reason though. She refused to do so, causing so much anguish for our son. Mind you my son has been seeing a therapist since they got married, and is on medication. His wife however doesn't go to therapy or take meds that we know of. After a tumultuous fall, it reached the breaking point one night when he called with a list of 'issues' he had with us. This is a son who we used to have a wonderful relationship with, and all of a sudden we had wronged him. After a raging arguement at their condo where my son wouldn't let us in his apartment to discuss things, threatened to call the police, and finally had me reacting emotionally by calling my DIL a b*@ch. This was followed by my son calling me a F'ing b*@ch. I was crushed. The next few days were hell, and by day three I emailed my DIL and apologized for my emotional outburst. I put a return receipton the email and copied my son in so that I would know they both saw my apology. She never opened it. My son finally opened it 3 or 4 days after I sent it, but not reply, nothing. I was so angry that even after my apology that he didn't react that I wrote a three page letter listing all the things that had gone on in the past 3.5 years and also a few jabs. It was an email which is all to easy to write and send off before you have time to let everything you said sink in. I'll never send an angry email again, from now on it gets saved as a draft and given some time to think about. Still, even though my email was very blunt, my husband and younger son said I was right in what I had said. I probably could have left out a few remarks that were very sarcastic though, and I'm sure that even though what I said was true that it still hurt my son. Since that time I have only text messaged my son to let him know that I love him and that he is always welcome back. He did return my text with a very short 'thanks' and that he loved me to. He's never called. We didn't see them for Thanksgiving, and only saw them a week after turkey day because my sister in law had a party for her daughter who turned 30. They came and did come in and greet my husband and I, but I know it was a charade since the whole family was basically watching. They never talked to us again that night. My husband wouldn't even stand up to hug my son, though he did embrace him somewhat. My husband also acted as if he didn't see my son's wife to avoid greeting her at all. I did however give a hug to both my son and his wife. Later we all went bowling and were on two different teams. It is a big family so we had about 10 peoples on each team. We never spoke during that time, but when we left I did say goodbye to his wife and hugged my son and told him I loved him. He has never said he is sorry to me for his outburst, and it hurts me so much. I realize now that my son was never the person I thought he was. My younger son has helped me see how selfish he always was, and that though my DIL may be evil, she just helps feed his already immature personality that doesn't seem to be able to be natural. It's as if the two of them are play acting. Everyone thinks they are so special with all the kind things they do for the family, yet who are they the least kind too, us! Their relationship is a facade. They both drink too much, and are both very much 'me' people. They don't speak about important things, and though at one time my son seemed to think family was of the greatest importance, he now seems to not care at all. I don't know if he even loves us or not. I am devastated, and every day seems like I have more weird stress and anxiety symptoms to deal with. I could never have imagined this happening in a million years. We did nothing but bend over backwards for 3 years to please his girlfriend and wife. We wanted to like her because she was so important to him. We would have done almost anything to make things work, but Hawaii was the final straw. If we didn't have my younger son with us I doubt anyone would really believe us that it could have been that bad. Without us ever saying a word to my younger son, the first night when we went out to dinner and my son and his wife split off from us we got a mouthful from the younger brother. Our son came outside by us and told angrily told us that he had never met anyone like his brother's wife. He told us she was ungrateful, and he couldn't understand how she just couldn't pretend to like us. I think I might be insane if it weren't for the fact that a 23 year old see's through her, even if my 26 year old can't. I just don't know how I'm going to survive this. I jsut want to move on and leave him behind. No child who treats his parent's this way deserves to be in their lives. Every day I say I'm moving on, but it is like slow motion and all sorts of things trigger angry emotional feelings. It is so surreal. I know I went overboard writing this message, so please forgive me. I'll take any support, advice that anyone can give. I don't know how i"m going to live out the rest of my days without him, yet I don't want him if he is going to be this cold to us. anniebal...See Morefuzzywuzzy
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