Brought To My Knees

We talk about boundaries here at PC, especially when it comes to parenting.

I thought I’ve been a great mother and assumed my sons loved me.

Long story short, my son has recently become immensely selfish and hurtful, which I am sure was prompted by his fiancé. This attitude is also possibly the way of his generation.

I have been trying to have a boundary, but he just doesn’t care about us and has been ice cold.

The panic attacks I am having about becoming estranged from my son has brought me to my knees. Forget boundaries. I will swallow all pride, and let him tar and feather me. I will do whatever he wants and stand there and act like I like it out of fear of losing him.

Although, I know now that he was already hateful long before I realized it, and over nothing beyond I am sure someone had an agenda to alienate his parents. I know I lost him anyway. But still, I will beg and crawl through glass for him.

I am humbled and humiliated.

I don’t have much luck with boundaries because the other person doesn’t care about me.

I am curious about why you think its the fiancee and not just your son? Did she do anything or say anything to you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TishaBuv We talk about boundaries here at PC, especially when it comes to parenting. I thought I’ve been a great mother and assumed my sons loved me. Long story short, my son has recently become immensely selfish and hurtful, which I am sure was prompted by his fiancé. This attitude is also possibly the way of his generation. I have been trying to have a boundary, but he just doesn’t care about us and has been ice cold. The panic attacks I am having about becoming estranged from my son has brought me to my knees. Forget boundaries. I will swallow all pride, and let him tar and feather me. I will do whatever he wants and stand there and act like I like it out of fear of losing him. Although, I know now that he was already hateful long before I realized it, and over nothing beyond I am sure someone had an agenda to alienate his parents. I know I lost him anyway. But still, I will beg and crawl through glass for him. I am humbled and humiliated. I don’t have much luck with boundaries because the other person doesn’t care about me.

What exactly has your son done that you consider selfish and hurtful, tarring and feathering you, hateful? It is hard to know if your reaction is proportional to the actual offenses or if this is your perception and emotional reaction that might be somewhat out of proportion.

I say this because you say you are having panic attacks and talk about being brought to your knees, and I know your son is about to get married and you don't like his fiancee. So, it seems in the realm of possibilities that perhaps your reaction is complicated by the idea of your son moving on with his own life and that you feel abandoned which can trigger very intense reactions like panic attacks and feelings of persecution for some people.

Do you have a therapist who you can talk through these intense emotional reactions with? If your son is pulling away when you are reacting this way, it may be because he finds your emotional reactions far too intense or perhaps manipulative. I'm not saying they are, but that may be his take on those reactions.

I just saw this. All of the above is me except I didn't even realize I was swallowing my pride; rather, I fell for all the bs hook, line and sinker. It is amazing the bs I believed because I had such an idealized view of my son. In my family's case, it was damaging to him that I did. The only good thing about my story is now I see it for what it is. Still, while I am with him, sometimes he can still charm me and perhaps that is because sometimes he does treat me right but, many times, he still has a bad, disrespectful attitude. Perhaps it is just immaturity; perhaps he has a mood disorder like I do; only he can figure it out. I am to enmeshed and troubled to try to diagnose it. When the bad attitude immerges--I leave or end the call. I used to go see him even when his attitude was bad--I think that is why I had panic attacks sometimes when he called or on my way to going to see him--my intuition was signaling to me that I needed to stay away. I think our panic attacks are triggered when something we are dealing with reminds us of when we were mistreated in the past--whether that is recent or from our childhood.

My only advice is walk away or end the call whenever he does not treat you with respect. You gave your heart, soul, and all your resources to this child--you deserve respect. It can be hard for a while when we change our expections of people--some have temper tantrums or reveal how they truly feel. Hopefully, he just needs to grow up but you don't want to spend much time with him if he is not treating you right. I am sorry. I know how much it hurts.

I really wish you felt more comfortable sharing a little more info about this. You have posted a bit on this before but without context its hard to know how to support you or what to say. Keep your chin up/

Your thoughts are completely valid and my apologies to all for not listing all the specifics. Let’s just assume that all I am saying is accurate and true.

My feelings are not at all triggered by that he has found his love and is marrying, thus leaving me feeling abandoned. He’s had a steady string of gf’s, my youngest son has a serious gf, I have no issues with them and am happy for my sons to be happy.

Yes, his fiancé did and said many hurtful things. I’ve been reeling from this whole thing for a year now, trying to figure out what is happening. Red flags! The bottom line is, his fiancé set out to eliminate his parents and he went right along with it. I am sitting here questioning myself if he ever loved us at all? This is a son who I have had a completely wonderful relationship with until a year ago.

But, it really went bad a few years ago, I just had no clue. He was getting all worked up behind our backs as she (I am sure it was she) put thoughts in his head to alienate him against us.

He threw things at us that he thought were bad that we did as if to justify his really bad treatment of us. Those very few things were merely good parenting decisions, for good reasons, which we gave in and let him do anyway. He was just deflecting in throwing them at us, and we had to defend ourselves for each action (like only two!) in all his years on earth that he could find to use as ammunition.

When I first posted about this, I remember you said, ‘Don’t go to his wedding being miserable’. You were right, and I have heeded that advice.

I know you go to a wedding to celebrate with the bride and groom. If you can’t feel celebratory, you just don’t go. Of course, I don’t want to dampen their day.

My h and I tried to get them to do us one small concession so that we could attend in peace. Any other son would have instantly said yes in order to let his parents feel comfortable, but our son stonewalled us on an answer since April and ultimately said no. He does not care to have us at his wedding!

Now he won’t take our calls at all and said we ‘won’t be talking for a long time’.

So, what I wrote about humbling ourselves to crawl over glass for him isn’t even wanted by him. He’d rather have nothing more to do with us.

For someone, supposedly with abandonment issues, I have been abandoned quite a lot and have handled it actually well considering.

I’m not sure what is going to happen. I take this hour by hour.

I pray he has a happy, healthy life. I have no idea the reasons these things happen, but I trust there is a master plan for why. I certainly don’t want to bother him and keep him from his joy.

I am thankful that, at least, this happened to both me and my h. This actually brought us closer. Could that be the master reason?

I pray I one day have a great relationship with my son and will gently keep trying to reach him as time goes on. What else can I do?