Caring Parents of Estranged Adult Children Community Group
We have given our lives to our children and they reject us. We still love them but this love is now frozen in time. How do we deal with the resulting chaos of our lives? We talk and we listen to one another as we cope with this loss and assault on our sensibilities. Respect in our thinking and language are a must.
Dear other Members,
I would be grateful for some advice please.
1/I am currently facing a situation where i blew up--by text,email, phone and writing--two weeks ago at our two adult sons 25 and 27. I had allowed them to stay at our small studio apartment in NYC as a house they were buying in the area had fallen through.
2/There appears to have been miscommunication on what the ground rules were. Each of us remembered different things. When I got home after a business trip, I found it quite a mess and they had changed my internet password and forgot to tell me..etc.
3/These types of misunderstandings and hurtful communications have been going on for years. My husband and I kept thinking it would eventually get better and tried to keep a focus on the good times.
4/I immediately called my younger son who was on a business trip in California, got the password (he explained he had seen hackers on my connection but just was too busy to tell me and apologized many times), but still I blew up saying i could no longer take the disrespect and they were no longer welcome in my life.
5/On me: I tend to have strong reactions and battle mood swings (recently got worse .....alternating for the past 2 years with anti-depressants, therapy, anti-anxiety medicine, alcohol, sleeping pills and food). Much of this pain has been facing up to the poor relationship I had managed to create with them and the fact that it was not getting better as well as an upcoming job downsizing as of December 31st 2015 (10 years of employment with that company) and my husband and I struggling to save a 30 year marriage and not succeeding.
6/Our children are successful and driven entrepreneurs who work extremely hard and achieve impressive things which are highly rewarded in our current society. Our older son also works another full time job with handicapped people. The two brothers founded a company together 5 years ago and run the company together. They also live together. They feel they are "special" –their words and that we are ungrateful for having such successful children and not deadbeats, and we only consider them spoiled brats, and we ask too much of them for their busy lives. I am still digesting these comments.
7/My younger son wrote a three page letter to me telling me that he was also sick of me and that generally he felt his parents added very little to his life and he didn’t want to stay in touch.
8/In this letter he admitted to doing many disrespecful thing but they were tired of us choosing to always hold it against them.. as they also did lots of nice things. I think this is to me because there their father is an introvert and a bit absent after a bout with cancer)
9/They then moved into my father's house 40 minutes away. My father often tells me he observes disrespect and he would never put up with it.. but recently came over to my studio to visit me and said he didn't want to ruin the relationship with his grandsons by saying anything. He bought a tent for 10 people and put it in his yard so they could sleep there and use his basement to run their business. I understand and yet I don't.
10/I am 52, an ivy league graduate and professional employed woman who worked most of the time but never used day care or nannies. I myself was a high achiever and never had the substance abuse problem I now am fighting against. My husband 58 (also a professional) and I always shared the child rearing.
11/Our stress levels for my husband and I are also high as we have both just quit our jobs, started to sell our main house (about 12 hours away) and began the move to NYC, in part to be nearer to our children and better job opportunities. My husband has now changed his mind and is not moving (for many reasons, but the kid relationship is quite heavy in this).
11/My heart its breaking…I can’t go to work. We have had big fights in the past but always worked them out. I am a relentless communicator. But I feel I am to blame because of my instability. I feel ashamed of my loss of control. I’m already in therapy and have been for a few years…
12/I fear if I don’t make amends, now I will be cut forever. Especially as we get divorced and my husband who manages to stay calm and quiet and distant.. is able to rebuild a relationship with them and I won’t. My husband (or soon to be ex-husband) says this break with our children was “inevitable” and to let it ride its course…for better or worse. This is one of the first times he has every put his foot down with the kids. He has decided not to move to NYC.
13/Both sons respond to my texting about mail, etc. but minimally and wished my husband a happy father’s day. They came to get their mail yesterday and arrived on time and returned something they had borrowed…already a bit different as often they would have forgotten.
14/I see clearly the mistakes I have made…largely too much attention to my relationship with them. and asking them to help me during these last two years of crisis.....I should have kept it more distant. I was not reading the signals.. begging for crumbs of affection. What can I do to repair and heal?
15/My question is should I apologize try and fix things now before I go away for two months? What if they don’t answer? How do I cope with the feelings of betrayal by my father who criticises them to me but won’t tell them directly? He is a kind, honest man. But not very close to his own two sons, ny brothers who moved away as teenagers… and as he is 80, he sometimes gets confused and calls our sons, “my boys”……..Any thoughts? What can you all see when you read my writing that I can't? We all have blind spots....
Many thanks, Kristen
I would be grateful for some advice please.
1/I am currently facing a situation where i blew up--by text,email, phone and writing--two weeks ago at our two adult sons 25 and 27. I had allowed them to stay at our small studio apartment in NYC as a house they were buying in the area had fallen through.
2/There appears to have been miscommunication on what the ground rules were. Each of us remembered different things. When I got home after a business trip, I found it quite a mess and they had changed my internet password and forgot to tell me..etc.
3/These types of misunderstandings and hurtful communications have been going on for years. My husband and I kept thinking it would eventually get better and tried to keep a focus on the good times.
4/I immediately called my younger son who was on a business trip in California, got the password (he explained he had seen hackers on my connection but just was too busy to tell me and apologized many times), but still I blew up saying i could no longer take the disrespect and they were no longer welcome in my life.
5/On me: I tend to have strong reactions and battle mood swings (recently got worse .....alternating for the past 2 years with anti-depressants, therapy, anti-anxiety medicine, alcohol, sleeping pills and food). Much of this pain has been facing up to the poor relationship I had managed to create with them and the fact that it was not getting better as well as an upcoming job downsizing as of December 31st 2015 (10 years of employment with that company) and my husband and I struggling to save a 30 year marriage and not succeeding.
6/Our children are successful and driven entrepreneurs who work extremely hard and achieve impressive things which are highly rewarded in our current society. Our older son also works another full time job with handicapped people. The two brothers founded a company together 5 years ago and run the company together. They also live together. They feel they are "special" –their words and that we are ungrateful for having such successful children and not deadbeats, and we only consider them spoiled brats, and we ask too much of them for their busy lives. I am still digesting these comments.
7/My younger son wrote a three page letter to me telling me that he was also sick of me and that generally he felt his parents added very little to his life and he didn’t want to stay in touch.
8/In this letter he admitted to doing many disrespecful thing but they were tired of us choosing to always hold it against them.. as they also did lots of nice things. I think this is to me because there their father is an introvert and a bit absent after a bout with cancer)
9/They then moved into my father's house 40 minutes away. My father often tells me he observes disrespect and he would never put up with it.. but recently came over to my studio to visit me and said he didn't want to ruin the relationship with his grandsons by saying anything. He bought a tent for 10 people and put it in his yard so they could sleep there and use his basement to run their business. I understand and yet I don't.
10/I am 52, an ivy league graduate and professional employed woman who worked most of the time but never used day care or nannies. I myself was a high achiever and never had the substance abuse problem I now am fighting against. My husband 58 (also a professional) and I always shared the child rearing.
11/Our stress levels for my husband and I are also high as we have both just quit our jobs, started to sell our main house (about 12 hours away) and began the move to NYC, in part to be nearer to our children and better job opportunities. My husband has now changed his mind and is not moving (for many reasons, but the kid relationship is quite heavy in this).
11/My heart its breaking…I can’t go to work. We have had big fights in the past but always worked them out. I am a relentless communicator. But I feel I am to blame because of my instability. I feel ashamed of my loss of control. I’m already in therapy and have been for a few years…
12/I fear if I don’t make amends, now I will be cut forever. Especially as we get divorced and my husband who manages to stay calm and quiet and distant.. is able to rebuild a relationship with them and I won’t. My husband (or soon to be ex-husband) says this break with our children was “inevitable” and to let it ride its course…for better or worse. This is one of the first times he has every put his foot down with the kids. He has decided not to move to NYC.
13/Both sons respond to my texting about mail, etc. but minimally and wished my husband a happy father’s day. They came to get their mail yesterday and arrived on time and returned something they had borrowed…already a bit different as often they would have forgotten.
14/I see clearly the mistakes I have made…largely too much attention to my relationship with them. and asking them to help me during these last two years of crisis.....I should have kept it more distant. I was not reading the signals.. begging for crumbs of affection. What can I do to repair and heal?
15/My question is should I apologize try and fix things now before I go away for two months? What if they don’t answer? How do I cope with the feelings of betrayal by my father who criticises them to me but won’t tell them directly? He is a kind, honest man. But not very close to his own two sons, ny brothers who moved away as teenagers… and as he is 80, he sometimes gets confused and calls our sons, “my boys”……..Any thoughts? What can you all see when you read my writing that I can't? We all have blind spots....
Many thanks, Kristen
There is so much that could be said and I hope others will chime in here too.. if you're interested in kind of picking apart the different aspects of what's happening here I'd be glad to be part of the conversation.
One thing that stands out to me now after many years of dealing with adult children is this.. it is a different world out there and they don't see things the way we do. I don't know what your relationship was with your own parents, but most of us here would not have dreamed of doing these things to our parents.. we didn't feel "entitled" to behave this way.. On the other hand, my husband's and my lives were very "enmeshed" I believe they'd call it today, with our parents lives. It seemed like the natural course of events for generations to be so close. Now our kids feel closer to their peers than to us.
At the same time, we "help" them a lot more than our own parents helped us.. For some reason we feel we owe this to them, even though many of them had much more materially than we did as we were growing up. We shielded them to a large extent!
So if I had it to do over, I'd have put up some invisible boundaries.. not that they would know, but I would feel more confident in "releasing" them to whatever their choices were. This doesn't apply equally to all kids, and even though they might be doing well for a time, they will most likely hit bumps in the road and I'm all for being there for them when that occurs.
The perfect storm comes along when our own physical strength and resilience is waning, losing loved ones or they become more dependent, the nest that's supposed to be empty but isn't, there is job insecurity, and as you mentioned a possible separation from your husband as well as a big move. That is a lot to handle. The reality of all that is why we look for crutches of various kinds.. been there done that!
It will take some time to work through all of this, but give yourself time.. Don't be too hard on yourself. Don't try to tackle everything at once. Put some things aside. Sleep or at least rest is important.. for me, having the radio or a podcast on with some droning conversation or music is calming. Try different things to see what might work on any given night... We've slept in separate bedrooms for years and that helps because then we aren't disturbing each other.. and we get along quite well, we both enjoy having our own space after all these years.
It's good that you and your husband are accomplished and that your sons are too.. appreciate that, and all the hard work it's taken to get here!
There are lots of books out there which address the issue of estrangement, but one of the better sites I've recently come across was posted by Highland Grace just a few days ago.
http://www.tinagilbertson.com/estrangement_excerpt.html
I like her way of looking at it from both sides. I hope some healing will take place, I don't think it's too late.. but the dynamic has changed, and by taking care of yourself and releasing them day by day it might just help everyone have the space they need..
those are my thoughts.. no qualifications whatsoever.. just struggling with this for nearly 20 years with varying degrees of silence and estrangement.. the last 7 or 8 nearly total.. cut off from three granddaughters as well.. but small steps now being taken in the right direction with hope for the future.
Hugs!
I love the idea of invisible boundaries is fabulous. I have tried, but not succeeded very well. I 'll try again!
I shall also look at the website.
I think I am at the stage of grieving the losses... having tried most of the things you suggest already but with not the same results.
Thanks again and I really do appreciate you writing!
Today is the day to the hour almost when I had to put my best friend dog down after 14 years with him. The amount of loss I feel these days is so real. He was always in my life. He did not estrange me. I did not have to worry about the value of his love for me. His happiness was so genuine when I came home from being away an hour, a day, or even longer.
The emptiness I feel is one of the reasons with this estrangement of my two kids that I do not, seem to cannot, be more active on here these days. I am upset with myself that I cannot say positive things on here because with regards to my relationships with my kids, I cannot say anything positive. Try as I might with the few emails I have sent to them this year, it seems that my love for them is blowing in the wind, just blowing in the wind of time. And those times they are a changing.
Father's day came and went and no one - not anyone other than on here in posts and on here in private hugs has mentioned that day - Father's Day.
I know dear wife did not mention it all day long because she also grieves and she does not know what to say to me and so nothing is said. I know she is feeling as blue as I am with her own missing kids on her Mother;s day. How can I or how can she make this day a better day for the loving spouse she is and I am. Sometimes that silence is necessary too since it brings tears to the eyes.
Heather, our assistant at work here is a younger woman of about 40 and she wished me happy father's day and I gave her a big hug with tears in my eye which I could not hold back.
Iron here sent me a hug on this day too and I could not bring myself to respond but I sure have to say thank you to Iron for thinking of me that day. Her on line hug moistened my eyes lots on that day.
I try to keep busy and I do with work now. This past week I have pulled myself together a bit where I am not moping and grieving for my losses that much but the underlying sadness is still with me.
Kiristen, I really do appreciate you arriving on our site here a and I send you a warm welcome. I too consider myself quite an achiever, and wife is one very much too. The two of us are dynamos each of our own making and somehow, this emptiness of children gone for many years now seems to be bringing us together more.
I am 71 and wife is 67 and wife and I are as busy as ever, but now physical impediments seem to be limiting me somewhat. I have been to several doctors in the last while and I now have several different words for what is going on with my right knee and my right elbow. One doc, a rheumatologist, says I have psoriatic arthritis in these joints. Joints swollen to double their normal size. Elbow pain constant and elbow strength down to about 25% of full usage. I cannot lift anything with my right arm. While grocery shopping yesterday, I could not load a watermelon with both my arms onto our shopping cart. But I could do it using my left hand only by tucking it under the arm and doing it that way. Right arm is just a useless appendage just hanging around. I was referred to a surgeon and I saw him 2 weeks ago, he said that my right knee is wearing out and I will need a knee replacement. He said my right elbow needs an elbow replacement now so I am going to a specialist to see what that will be all about in 2 weeks.
Tomorrow early morning I am driving to a visitor information center in one of our loveliest parks about 7 hours away and I have been retained to redesign this building to make it a much more welcoming sight in these majestic mountains. I will be on the road for the next two days and that will be good. I will be not be able to respond on here at all but I can assure you all that I will be ok.
I apologize for writing like this on here just about myself so much but maybe in expressing myself llike this I can share experiences and feelings that overwhelm me sometimes. Oh and to cap it off, 3 hours ago, wife found out that one of her favourite cousins is suffering from a seriously large cancer and this young man of about 50 is now facing a real serious battle in life. I know wife is taking this very hard.
These are just my rambling thoughts this night as I cannot seem to fall asleep before I hit the road driving with sunup tomorrow. Hugs to all. xfmlg
You certainly have a lot going on with major stress factors.....divorce, relocation, job downsizing, family relationships in jeopardy and, most important, your own battle with mood swings, medication, etc. I agree with Nora about taking a piece at a time. Otherwise, you cannot help but to be overwhelmed.
I would probably, first, prioritize each issue and then think about what, if anything, you can do to change it or let it go.
I have to say, I see your dad as being the Grandparent.....not the parent. And that is his true role. And, at 80, he knows life is short and he doesn't want confrontations. He may have not had the greatest parenting skills with your brothers but, just like us.....first time around, it was trial and error. By the time we are grandparents we have learned so much. But, again, we are not parents and just want to enjoy our grandchildren. We should respect the wishes of our adult children, but your guys are not grandbabies any longer. They are adult men. I am sure, as you said, your father doesn't agree with their actions, but he truly just wants to enjoy his grandsons at this stage and his intent is not to go against you, he is just too old to be in the middle and really doesn't want to be in that position. Try to extend grace to him in these latter years. And what would be gained if he refused to let your sons live with him? You may feel better but at what cost to the relationship between your dad and your sons. And, MAYBE, while with him, your dad may be able to let them know, in his own way, that they should be more respectful of you and how much he knows you love them. Just some thoughts.......
I would try to smooth out situation with words which you may have regretted saying. In spite of your husband telling you to let it go. He will be leaving anyway and this is now about YOU and your relationship with your sons. I don't see anything wrong with apologizing when we say or do something we know was not the best thing to say or do. But, I wouldn't expect an apology in return from your boys. It just may not happen and you can only control your own actions. Do what you feel you have to do, pray that will keep the doors of communication open between you and your sons, but then go forward in your own life. I think your boys will respect you more if they see you are not depending on their relationships for your happiness and that you have a life of your own. Just keeping communication between you will help you as you go through your divorce. And they do not want to be involved with that either. Treat them as adults, who are independent and not living with you so you don't have to worry about their messy and disrespectful habits. Your dad may not like their ways, either, once they are with him for awhile.
And, lastly, I see YOU being the most important person to take care of right now. Get some good therapy/counseling. You will need a good support system as you go forward in this divorce, and some healthy substitutes to replace the substances you are using now. Find places to go that are peaceful and serene......and things to do that bring you joy and satisfaction.
Only replied because you asked. Just my personal thoughts. Not worth so much. No one knows you better than you or what is best for you better than you. Lots of hugs.................