Hi, A. I love the saying, 'What you think of me is none of my business.' Most of us were brought up to please...and now we have to deal with what is being dubbed by some, The Entitled Generation'. If we get pulled into that our expectations
are going to take us down. I agree with the others that our emancipation is in turning away from it and focusing elsewhere on the things that bring us joy and positive expression. We're entitled, too! More hugs...

Hi and welcome. I was wondering if the User Name you selected reflects your real name in any way. If so, it would be wise to change it to keep your anonymity. 

I haven't had a similar experience to share with you but I sure feel for you and your husband. My take is you are still being punished for not backing a Paris wedding. 

That just doesn't make sense. To me, it looks like the name changing is part of it. You have raised your family. You did your best and your job is done. For most of us, that is hard to get and even harder to honor. Your son has lessons to learn. He has made choices and there are consequences. They are his lessons. It's my hope that you may be able to leave the door open and at the same time shift your focus to what you want out of life and then go or it. Hugs

Dear N, The issues you describe are beyond the scope of our Website. There are no professionals here. All we can do is share our own experiences and hope they help when there is no crisis surfacing that appears to need intervention. When I feel more is needed, I close the thread after recommending a counselor. I'm in your corner 100%!

Welcome, Mrs. V. If that is the first letter of your last name please change your user name to protect your anonymity. We ask all new members to go to our HomePage, and under Open Me First to read the posts placed there for you. Please pay special attention to our Forum Agreement to be sure WWU is a fit. We are a Monitored Site. 

I have had some similar but in no way identical issues in my own family. I tried everything I could think of but came up against a wall of pre-conceived notions I wasn't able to alter. A lot of heartache followed and I found it extremely hard to rise above it. In the end, that's all I could do. Others think and do what makes sense to them. A very difficult lesson for me to learn. I ended up doing my best. No one can ever take that away from me.

I hope someone else has a more positive spin on your situation. That's what I love about our forum. In the meantime, I am sending you good wishes and hugs.

Welcome back, M. No small wonder you are stressed! It seems to me the more you give the worse it gets. Did you set any boundaries after they moved back in regarding what you would and would not tolerate?

I hit a place with my eldest son that in some ways reminds me of your situation. (I also have a younger son who hasn't taken the same road at all.) My eldest did a stint in the Marines in Viet Nam right out of high school, came home, and married at 20. He was a young, unseasoned adult who thought he was all grown up. They didn't live with us but our relationship still deteriorated when they immediately became parents. 

I look back, now, as a great-grandmother, and see a huge credibility gap between young adult and mature adult. My son found pretending he had it all handled daunting and decided it was all my fault. He never was able to reverse that position and walking on eggshells became the norm. He, like all of us with few exceptions, had to make choices and suffer the consequences regarding the lessons life had to teach him. Blame is an option for some. I wonder if he thought I should have done a better job as a mom, so he could skip 'learning his way into responsibility'?

It seems to me that your home is being violated. Your 19-year-old is still your responsibility but your elder son and his family are not. You have still offered support while they are in school. However, it doesn't seem to me that abuse and disrespect should be part of it. I know it is and feel, from what you have written, that you are about to take affirmative action to restore peace and quiet in your home. Is that the case?

We are here for you and will walk with you whatever you decide. I just want to add that I think you deserve better and the only person who can give that to you, is you.
Hugs...

Good Morning, G. Of course you want happiness for your son. However, he is a young adult and has to want happiness for himself. Treating you with contempt and shutting himself off from any interaction with you surely isn't bringing him joy. 

My sense is that your issue is beyond the scope of this Website and professional help is the next step. You may have already tried that. Again, he is no longer a little boy and you can't make him go. What I might do would be to set some boundaries, as in; counseling and respect or the freebie is over and he will have to move out. He needs to learn that early adulthood isn't a free ride and anything goes...his choices have consequences. It will be very hard to do but I can see from reading your post that you do not want to continue to live in the shadow of your son's abuse and enable him to pout his way into adulthood. That's a 'no go' and may be doing more harm than good.

Before closing this thread, I would like to say that if I were in your shoes, I think I would also find counseling for myself! This is taking a terrible toll on you.

Please know that even if this Website can't help, we can care and we do. Wishing you well and sending hugs.

Hi, M., My experience was I got stuck in those 10 commandments. I was important that I go there and face my feelings but I failed to move on for a long, long time. That didn't hurt my eldest son, it hurt me. Eventually, I got that 'I only had one enemy and she was wearing my shoes'. What a lesson for me. We all take different paths. On many occasions, I have really dragged my feet, lesson-wise. Hugs...

Welcome, P. We ask all new members to go to our HomePage and under Open Me First, to read the posts placed there for you. Please pay special attention to the Forum Agreement to be sure WWU is a fit for you. We are a monitored Website.


Everyone here has a User Name to protect anonymity. I am the one exception, since it is my Forum. If you have used you own name, please select something else before you proceed.


The hard lesson I had to learn with my oldest son was that he was a young adult out in the world on his own and part of that was his right to make his own choices and mistakes and to learn from the consequences...or not. It took me a long, long time to get that my expectations were mine and he didn't need to fulfill them. I had an entirely different picture and felt I had so much to give. His wife didn't cling to her mother and family of origin, she dumped them, as well and they formed some kind of a mother hating alliance. For a while I got stuck in self-pity. I think it's an important stage to go through because it hurt deeply and I needed to be honest with myself. However, I was slow to move on and find a full life after parenting. I finally realized that I, too, could make choices after tripping over my expectations and knowing I deserved better for way too long. Eventually, I got that I mattered. You do, too!

Hope we have given you something to think about. As you know, all we can do here is share our experience. We don't give advice...no one here is a counselor and it is probably time to close this thread. We are in your corner as you work your way through this.

I, too, can relate to being 'kicked to the curb'. This may sound strange but I honestly thought my son must be feeling sad on some deep level to have made me, once someone he trusted, the enemy. I think I may have bowed out of the relationship as much for him as for me. He was a gentle, kind man.

Take heart. I am 91 years old and I'm still learning and growing. Change is the natural by-product. Hugs...

And even one step further? Blaming yourselves for taking it. You did that. And that's where your power lies, it seems to me...in making other choices. You are in control of that. You can't change others but/and you can change you! Yippee-yay!

Good for you! Retraining ourselves after decades of putting our children first is terribly hard. Getting that they are adults and responsible for their actions is a whole new world where there are consequences for them and choices for others. Hugs...

Welcome, S. We ask all new members to go to our Homepage and under Open Me First to read the posts placed there for you. Please pay special attention to the Forum Agreement to be sure WWU is a fit. We are a monitored Website.


My painful experience with my eldest son and his wife was that how I felt and what I wanted was of no interest to them. It took me a very long time to get that they had the right, as adults, to choose how the related to and used others. I finally got that the only choice I had was in how I accepted or rejected their attitudes and behaviors toward me. Eventually I decided that my grands were learning that abuse was Ok by example. I didn't want to be any part of that. Self respect mattered to me and I had pretty much lost it over the years.


I removed myself from the toxic relationship they defined and after a while found peace again in my marriage and in my other interests. My expectations weren't met on any level and it finally dawned on me that they were mine and no one had to meet them. My husband and I looked away from our biological roles toward what else would bring us joy and filled our lives by interacting with friends where mutual respect was a given. We started to travel and made new friends and a new life. We never imagined we would find peach but we did.


I don't know if any of that will be useful to you but it worked for us. Hugs!

Welcome, S. We ask all new members to go to our HomePage and under Open Me First, to read the posts placed there for you. Please pay special attention to the Forum Agreement to be sure WWU is a fit. We are a monitored Website.


My serious issues with my eldest son didn't involve my DIL's family. His 'about face' came when he was in his teens. He decided I was not the mother he would have chosen and his friends had fared better than he did. A mother who virtually never left the kitchen and never spoke a word looked much more appealing. What transpired for me might be of some help to you since he carried that attitude on into his adult life, marriage and parenting.


I eventually learned I was the one who decided my value and gave myself the respect I knew I deserved. My expectations were of my own making. Back then they were the norm in the culture in which I grew up. I got stuck in self-pity for much too long. It was healthy at first but eventually kept me from learning and growing.


My lesson was I mattered, if I said so. Respect wasn't something that another bestowed on me or withheld at will. Self-respect was available. My husband helped me with this and I move beyond would'a, should'a, could'a. We knew we had both been good parents...and the issue was my son's to resolve or not. He choose not. We restructured our lives, looking to what we had instead of what we had lost. My son passed his beliefs on to his youngest son. However, his eldest son and our youngest son never bought into it.


My point is that for me, actually for us, the impasse no longer dominated our well-being. We looked to what brought us joy and fulfillment and healing followed.


Sending hugs your way...