My oldest son never calls me. I looked back at the past years of texts and it was always me reaching out to him. It was at least once a week, messages like ‘How are you?’ And ‘TGIF!’. Sometimes he’d respond, sometimes not even a response.

I’m hurt that he never reached out to me on his own volition. He doesn’t think of me at all? This just seems strange to me.

He’s had a gf this whole time and they are now getting married. I can see he is very busy and preoccupied with his life with her. But I would still think a son would occasionally reach out to his mother and father. He’s only reached out when he needed something financial.

My husband is an only child. When we first got together, I noticed he also never called his parents, nor did they call him. It was me who would ask him fairly often to call his parents to keep in touch. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Their aloofness was baffling to me.

My other son calls quite a lot. He doesn’t have a gf, nor does he have any other friends right now. So he’s lonely. Partly, his reason for being alone is that he is working very hard and his job is fairly isolating in a lab. Also, he has some social anxiety. But he has been a completely different kid in his warm contact with his mom and dad.

So, it’s not that you don’t get contact from sons vs. daughters.

I don’t know how to say to my son that I would like him to call/text me more. If I say that, he may do it, but it won’t feel good because I forced him. If I stop contacting him, I wonder if he will ever notice and reach out to me. But then I am playing games with the phone just like my mom does, and I can’t stand that.

Is this just the way it is? Once my son left for college the relationship was really over? It’s just super painful.