It is natural to wonder what happened to the wonderful son we raised, the one we loved so much, and now there is this ES who seems so opposite to the child you raised. When I felt so angry with him, I had those thoughts. Then I would work to remember the little boy who loved his mommy so much. That would make me sad.

So then I would think about what I used to say to them when they misbehaved. "I will always love you but I don't like you very much right now."

I think our feelings change as our children grow and the innocence is lost and we remember how they loved us unconditionally and we thought they always would.

Sometimes it is easier to let go of some of the feelings to take away the sadness in our hearts. That's when I reach out to God to help me through those thoughts.

Hi Gordos4. No, you are not alone. I have wrestled with the same emotions or lack thereof. My ED was such a wonderful child. I have survived nearly 2 years of virtually no word from her. Now that most of the intense heartache has passed, I've found there is little left in me for her emotionally. I've asked the Lord too, how can this be? Is there something wrong with me because I don't feel that bond with her at all anymore that I do for my other children. I think until someone experiences the betrayal and malicious treatment by your own beloved child that we have, one cannot truly understand the heart of our savior; He endures this grief in numbers beyond comprehension at the hand of a world that rejected him and crucified him. I have begun to accept this unsolicited "lack:" of emotion as part of the journey. There is so much emotion attached to the various forms of love (storge, philia, eros and agape) and yet I have found that agape love is much different from the others. I think the writer of this article @ rightfromtheheart.org says it well: "Agape love is unconditional love. It is a CHOICE we make to love another person whether they love us back or not. It means that you choose to love someone even if he is your enemy! Agape love is not based on emotion at all. In fact, it may be contrary to our every emotion. It is an act of the will." I refuse to let the enemy convince me that I don't love my child anymore,. I love her now with the best love because I have to choose to love her daily.. 1 Cor.13:4-7 tells us what love is. Who isn't learning patience through their estrangement?. Kindness for me is hard to practice since she has cut off all ties. I admit to being jealous of all my "replacements" and being robbed of memories I though I would share of her life as an adult. It hurts and I acknowledge and confess this to the Lord each time I feel it welling up in me. The section of the love chapter I find intriguing and comforting is that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but in the truth. Many have insisted I just have to go along with my "new" daughter, but my heart won't let me compromise the truth which is the main reason I believe I have been cut off. She does not want to face the truth and I can't live without it. I have almost lost my hope many times and just given up on life altogether. I never would have predicted the emotions/lack thereof had I not walked this path personally. I am learning not to give them so much credit though. They are fickle and often can be manipulated by the enemy. True love is based in truth and that to me means fact. I am not there yet, but I believe that at the right time, God will restore all the emotions of love that we lack right now, like he did for the father of the prodigal son. I truly think it is dependent on the repentance of our children though, just as the prodigal recognized his guilt and repented;. Until then, keep yourself unspotted by the world and wait with hope for God to work. Sorry, I'm too long winded! I hope this brought you a little comfort.

gordos You bring up a very thought provoking post. You are not alone in your thoughts. I think the fact that we will no longer tolerate poor treatment and disrespect from our EC is a good thing. I think because we love them we want what is right and best for them. We want them to live the way God wants them to live. To be honest I do not love our ED less but I do love her differently. We can forgive and we do but we will probably never trust our ED again and that makes things different. Loss of trust is a loss and that is sad. I also know how much she has lost through this estrangement (2 years at this point) and I have compassion on her for her poor choices which I can see at my vantage point (although she may no see yet at age 22). I'm sure the prodigal father felt the same way.

rosearch, I like what you said about waiting hopefully for God to work. We ;pray in faith believing that God's will be done.

Oh my goodness yea I have to go & change my goal because I just know I can not face my ED in 2 yrs I put 5 to begin with & I got a message that that's to long so instead I am going to save the $ to go & visit my new GS & that way my very spoiled ED will be dealing with her very own spoiled brat just begining to hit the FURIOUS TEEN YEARS - she will be getting her own taste of "Mom you are a blah,blah,blah & maybe it will ring some bells. My son posted her nephews BN on her FBpage & she sent him a really nasty message back so he did the big brother thing & sent a nasty one back!
Do you remember who was asking for something abouut sisters. I found the web page but can't remember who I promised it to if you see anyone asking questions it about it is
http://foreverfamilies.byu.edu/article.aspx?a=142
They have some good ideas i was looking at it myself for my son & my ED it would be nice if the cousins could actually meet sometime. martha

I can only second what linda and rosearch wrote above. Today, I can say that I have truly never hated my son at any time no matter what he did or said to me. Those teen years were truly the pits though. At the peak of his worst was the time when I have to say that I had negative feelings toward him that I would call "intensely negative" but yet not to the extreme of "hate" which scripture says is the opposite of love.

It was during those times that I think what was going through my mind was that I just did not want to be around him, his negativity, his belligerence, his defiance his seemingly delight in drawing me into arguing with him almost daily and over everything. Despite all this, I can't say that I stopped loving him, but I think it was more of a feeling that he just did not love me at all and THAT was at the heart of the matter. His mouthiness and defiant attitude had gotten so bad that at one point I told him I wanted him to leave. He did and I left the house to go up to our camp 250 miles away to calm down, refocus and try to come to terms with having done what I did. I feared terribly that he would turn to things he had not been involved with prior to this (except perhaps dabbling in) but I was glad for the peace and quiet it brought.

But the break did not last long. When the weekend came, my DH came walking in with our son. I was furious with him for doing it without discussing it with me. He simply said, "He is my son too and I want him back home."We hugged and I told him that I loved him and that we would get through this together. I did not fight it at that time because from that moment on things changed tremendously. He has never been like that again - even through he has come close a few times during this crisis also.

I'm just praying God does a re-do in his heart like He did before.

My son never ever spoke inappropriately, was always loving all through his teens and college, would always ask my opinions on things, tell me about his weekends at college saying he didn't drink so preferred to drive home for the weekends, etc. I am sure he shared how important our relationship was to him with his girlfriend, now wife, so no wonder she told me she had never seen a mother and son as close as we were. My DH and other son held the same closeness. I thanked God for giving us such great sons who didn't drink or do drugs, etc.

Then when gf came into his life, he changed. No one could believe the change. He did every thing she told him to, nasty things, and at first we could see he was uncomfortable speaking like that to us. But he became her puppet and the rest is history. Over 6 years now..

I struggle all the time wondering if he is still loving or has become hateful like his wife. I fear it might be the second. I hope God is still in his heart, even if he can't share that with her.

Norske , my Ed changed when she moved to her boyfriends home at 18 . And because none of us could bond with him , she began a lifetime of hate towards us . He is year younger than she , was a Momma's boy , couldn't keep a job , quit school , if he broke a nail they had him in the emergency room , and he cheated on all his g/f's before my daughter . Before they ever moved in together she would sneak him in to her house ( she lived on our property behind out house in a small home of her own ) and they would spend the nights together there . I didn't approve but she was of age ( 18 ) . She was still in school but he had quit , she would go to school and he would lay up in her home back there , playing her video games or those he brought . Well time came when she graduated and she moved to his home ( with his parents ) I almost couldn't accept that but did . He came to me that Christmas and told me he would pay me back if he could borrow some money to get her a ring ( an engagement ring ) . I wanted my daughter to be happy so I took him to a jewelry store Christmas eve night and he picked out a 2000.00+ ring for her , it was beautiful . I wanted her to have the best and most awesome ring .... he said he would pay me back , even if it meant he take on 2 jobs ... I knew when I did that he was never going to pay me back , nor would I ask him to... however I did expect him to ... along with the ring I bought them both gold wedding bands .. costing over 800.00 for both , as a gift , as well as another 2 grand in wedding decor she picked out.... well months went by , nothing , and he would come to Friday night dinners , sit across the table and not look at anyone but keep his head down , no eye contact .... they began not coming to our home or Friday night dinners ( we always had a weekly dinner out somewhere ) ... days turned into weeks into months and now its years ... and when the subject would come up as to why WE didn't like him the money was always brought up ... she would throw it in our face that this was all because we asked for the money back ... I never asked him for the money back ... even when I was broke and had no money . When she would leave him to come home because he was cheating on her ( twice ) she would cry and cry , and say she was gonna leave him but within days she was back saying sorry to him pleading to come back home to him ( he always kept the girls with him , she would leave them there , of her own accord ) . She would only tell me the bad things he did to her ... yet expect me to love him as I love her ... I never got the real chance to know him to love him but I know her loving him has caused her to hate me and who I am ....

caregiver1958 - did your daughter ever marry him? Does he still have the rings? And you mention girls? Are they granddaughters?

I am so sorry for the pain this has caused you. Maybe you, like me and others here, never in a million years would have imagined we would be dealing with these issues when our kids were young and loving and life was good as a family.

I am sorry to say our ED was always a challenge and defiant in her ways
at home. Others did not see it and we did our best (we are sorry now) to not have it seen by others especially at church. This is one reason the estrangement came as a shock to those who were not family or extended family. They had not seen the rebellious nature and disrespectful spirit. We did have our ED in Christian counseling and periods of medications through the years. This angered her and she never thought she needed help. She always played the victim to role. I still never thought she would leave home at age 20 with the first bf and his father who enabled it. They either believed her lies or didn't care. They just wanted her. Of course that changed a year later. Sadly she found another enabler. We pray one day she will not find one and come back as the prodigal son did.

I grieve for the sad choices our ED has made and the losses that have resulted in her life. Our EC lost good parents and grandparents for their children.

Just want to make clear that I have NEVER hated my son. If I did, I would be making an appt. to see my priest. I was just wondering if anyone else had feelings of "deterioration of love".

Gordos...I have definitely felt a "deterioration of love". ...I have described to myself as a "withering of love"...much like a plant cannot grow or flourish without sunlight and water no matter how deep the roots (love) are...the plant gets unhealthy color...leaves fall off...it does not bloom anymore...

All the best reason for all of us to get and rejoice in the glory of Gods love and the beauty of this world He put us in and other people (like all of you here for me) that do help us flourish and regain ourselves.

AllK

gordos, if you are referring to my post, I was not inferring that you were saying that you now hated your son any more than I was implying that the two I mentioned did. I was talking about my experience with my son and my thought process only and how sometimes we human beings can be pushed to the point that we can be so angry at what they have become it can seems at though our love can turn to hate. And to be truthful, during the early stages of estrangement, I came way to close to using the term, "I hate my DIL for what she did to us."

So sorry if it came across as implying anything about you or anyone else. I would not assume that is what you meant.

You know love and hate are sure close friends. I wouldn't choose my son as a friend and my kids say hes a jerk, but I still love that jerk, there are times I think Im glad you are moving away and other times it hurts to much that I wanna swan dive off the balcony...not really, just a tenth of a second fleeting thought you know....

I just wonder sometimes of how much sometimes when God doesn't allow these EC in our life that he has MERCY on us

I agree with the others here.
I think that most of us parents love their children no matter what good or bad their children do, we simply love them. When they were children we punished them for it to teach them that hurting people by word or deed was not acceptable. But when they turn into adults and are living on their own, as parents, we can no longer punish them for their bad behavior toward us.

Depending on the degree of their disrespect, I think our level of love for them as our children that God gave us and our level of the hating their sinful behavior towards us can get blurred sometimes because the emotions can be so intense for long periods of time. Yet we know we cannot stay there and let it become who we are and so we have to either walk away from it and turn it over to God or deal with it as it is.

Sin is like a cancer. When someone has cancer, we don't stop loving them because of it, but we hate what the cancer does! God hates what sin does to his children, but He still loves them. We are called to do the same as hard as it can be sometimes......and with a SIL like mine? Well, he's challenging.

Romans 12:9 "Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good"

AllK - your comparison to a dying flower/plant is perfect. I often feel like that plant. God knows my feelings and won't give me more than I can handle, but I do wonder why he trusts me so much (with loss of my son).

I did hate my DIL at first for the chaos she caused in our family. Only prayer continual prayer, has turned my heart and I forgive her for her hateful, verbally abusive ways she treated me and my family.

As I used to say when my kids were younger, "I will always love you but I don't like you very much right now."