CHRISTIAN PARENTS of ESTRANGED ADULT CHILDREN Community Group
Estrangement makes it difficult to talk about with family, friends, neighbors and church members. Christians are NOT immune to broken families. Talk about your experiences with those who know how you feel and get positive support through your Christian faith...."In these last days difficult times will come, for men will be lovers of self...disobedient to parents,...
Wow, do I wish I hadn't sent my ES that text last night. He now thinks its okay to send me un-ending texts insulting me. It is different now, as I finally decided last night enough is enough. Im not going to empower him any more. I wont allow the hurtful things he says to make me feel more depressed than I already did. Do any of you wrack your brain trying to remember if you were a good or bad parent. Im realistic , NO ONE is the perfect parent. I've been thinking about when my kids were all little. I was a good mom, I was always there for them, they had everything they needed. We may have spoiled them a bit, but taught them if you want something, you have to EARN it. I truly do not remember being the monster mom my ES portrays me as being. My other 3 sons do not remember me being so bad. They said I was a little too over-protective.
Sadly, the only solution I can think of is that my ES has severe mental issues. It makes me feel better knowing he is starting counseling this week & has access to all kinds of help with his problems. My husband says "he needs to grow a pair & act like a man, not a 5 year old in a 28 year old body". He doesn't understand mental illness too well, & has never been depressed a day in his life. I feel a sense of peace & freedom since my "revelation" last night.
I just pray to God to forgive me for what im doing & to forgive me if I failed as a mother.
Sadly, the only solution I can think of is that my ES has severe mental issues. It makes me feel better knowing he is starting counseling this week & has access to all kinds of help with his problems. My husband says "he needs to grow a pair & act like a man, not a 5 year old in a 28 year old body". He doesn't understand mental illness too well, & has never been depressed a day in his life. I feel a sense of peace & freedom since my "revelation" last night.
I just pray to God to forgive me for what im doing & to forgive me if I failed as a mother.
Let go and let God.........
God never said any of us were to take such abusive demeaning disrespectful treatment from people. Why do we?????
AllK
If I was him or any of these estranged adults including my own daughter...I would be worried about being outside in a lightning storm...cause I would know I was not only breaking one of the Ten Commandments but also natural law (like gravity)...and what might come of that action.
AllK
AllKheirlyn, I have decided, with the advice of my other son, to just delete any texts, not read them at all, & not answer his phone calls. He said "mom, if he hurts himself, THAT is not your fault, that is his free-will he is exercising, & you have no control over it".
If I did screw him up somehow, he should learn to move past it. I can honestly say, I never did one single thing to traumatize my sons, the way my parents did to me. I was more mindful of it & tried to be a better parent than what I had. I learned from my own dysfunctional parents on how NOT to parent.
Revelations are great if they bring change. I hope for your peace of mind your revelation helps you to have the self-control to not set yourself up for more deplorable behavior. I would spend more time focusing on that wonderful advice your son gave you until the other son gets help and realizes just what he is doing to himself and to his family.
There are scores of "counselors" out there making cheap easy money with some variant of this effortless junior high approach to relationships. "You tell me how awful so and so is and then we can hate so and so together."
Basically these people get paid to tell unhappy adults that they were denied childhood emotional entitlements by the bucketload, which caused pain, and that the pain will go away by cutting off parents who "failed," and deserve to be reviled.
They then get paid to give great advice about things like "how to ignore emails" "what to do about facebook" and other blarney. Then they get paid to convince the adult this "no contact therapy" has improved his/her circumstances. Nothing, nothing proven or tested. As we all know, epidemically popular.
It's an untested, unproven, vile, cheap solution to complicated human problems and you can buy these services online from dozens of "experts" charging $100/hour to do this by phone or internet.
It's a situation begging for a major investigative journalistic effort from a major source like the New York Times or the Christian Science Monitor. Come to think of it, an ideal investigative source would be a respected British newspaper - we know the problem exists on the other side of the pond, but the proliferation of cheap "problem solvers" would be easier for the Brit-wit to unmask.