My son wants nothing to do with me

pj4101 · Apr 02, 2014, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

pj4101,

You mentioned he wrote you letters saying what you did that hurt him. Did you just apologize or did you "validate" what he said as things that would hurt someone?

If your approach was "I am sorry, poor me for not being able to leave an abusive relationship etc.", he will not respond. And to be honest, he is showing you the only thing he did learn too, making sure he had necessities and learn how to thrive without close loving relationships. Think about it, do you really expect him to just "know" how to do something that was not really given to him, shown to him, instilled in him? Which parent offered him a role model? If he leaned toward his father "the tough guy", then all he did is try to find ways to "protect" his low self esteem, not to develop healthy self esteem.

You cannot turn back the clock. All you can do is at least be a parent now, but that is allowing yourself to validate "his" hurts without expecting him to validate your reasons for your mistakes, and that can be hard. What he needs from you is "validation" and what you need to do is say "yes, you grew up in a dysfunctional home, you were often abandoned emotionally, that was wrong for you, that was unfair to you". And stop there, don't add in the "but I didn't know, or any poor me's". He doesn't want to hear about "you", and he is consistently expressing that to you. He only wants to hear "his needs, what he needed and was not given", he doesn't need to hear excuses or that you need him to "love you" when you really never did that for him growing up.

I am sure you are genuinely "sorry" and remorseful and have realized your own short comings through therapy and time. You are not alone with being challenged the way you were either, as you can see, others have come forward to let you know that.

You need to forgive yourself for just not knowing too. It is certainly not easy to get away from an abuser either, it certainly sounds like your ex was unpredictable and dangerous.

It is hard to validate his feelings when I'm still dealing with PTSD from my own childhood abuse. I had no support system and no one to tell me how to be a mother so I replicated the emotionally hands off approach that I grew up with. I used to say that I raised myself and your words made me see that I did the same thing to Eric. I do tend to take everything so personally that I sometimes don't see what's really there. But I can't forgive myself--I was supposed to be the adult. And I have to accept that I will no doubt never be forgiven.

Rose76 · Apr 02, 2014, 05:15 PM

That is hard to accept. It does sound like your son has put a big old wall between you two, and he seems to plan on keeping it that way. You did a lot that was right. Sometimes, you just have to let go. He got a good education, and that's a credit to his rearing that he had that capacity. Give yourself credit for having done some things right.

Maybe, once in a while send him a card with a few pictures of you in your current life enclosed. No big letter, just a short note. I wouldn't do it too often.

This is a heartache for you to bear. I'm sorry. It's a chance a woman takes when becoming a mother. Very hard.

mycatsmokes · Apr 08, 2014, 02:02 PM

Here's a son's persective. I grew up with an abusive alcoholic father and an abusive psychopathic brother. I begged my mother throughout my childhood to protect me from them, but she did not. I saw it as my mother's responsibility to protect her child from extreme abuse, no matter whether that abuse came from outside or within the family. I still believe that.

I again asked my mother why she did not protect me when she saw that the abuse was tearing me apart. Her reply - "I thought praying would be the answer". Well, it wasn't.

I thought long and hard in early adulthood whether or not to cut my mother out of my life. Not just because she failed to protect me, but because she was also an emotional abuser. I decided not to, but to give our adult relationship a chance. But she was definitely skating on thin ice as far as I was concerned. Anyway, her abuse continued into my adult life and I eventually cut her out for my own emotional protection.

You were an adult during the periods of abuse that you describe. You made adult decisions based on adult perceptions. You decided whether to get your son out of that situation or to have him endure it. I'm sorry, but you must now live with the consequences of those actions.

Having said that, you deserve to be happy. Move on and start anew, but accept that it may be without your son.

Rose76 · Apr 08, 2014, 05:52 PM

mycatsmokes: It's hard to find anything unfair in what you are saying.

The Law is getting around to that way of thinking, also. I think there was a time when mothers did not get prosecuted for failing to protect children from abusive fathers/boyfriends. They do now.

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