My adult son hates me!

[mlou440]

Hello, I am desperately seeking guidance that may provide me with the tools to build a better relationship with my 25 year old son.  I married at 18 and I had a very turbulent marriage for 16 yers to an alcoholic...divorced him when my son was 14...during that time I tried my best to be a good provider, mother and role model...my only son never went without anything....I was a very strict, organized and scheduled kind of mother....yes whether it was right or wrong I did punish my son for inappropriate behaviour...perhaps today being wiser I might have chose different options... I did not know anything else.  I raised my 4 younger siblings.  My husband was the good guy and I was the bad guy....
Today, I am only 46 and have been divorced for 11years...emotionally I feel like I am 80....since the time of the divorce my son has constantly alleged that I severely abused him...anyone that will listen is told this story...and it gets embellished....I have spent the last 11 years of my life desperately trying to show him that I love him, accept him and would do anything for him.....now he is cohabitating and has a one year old daughter...his current partner is a very jealous, manipulative and controlling personality...she hates me terribly and now my son is even worse than ever before....he allows her to scream and yell and disrespect me terribly....he says he supports her....the situation is very bad and unpleasant...
I have gone many times to a counsellor looking to fix whatever it is that I have caused....I just don't know what to do....anything he wants I provide for him...just recently I stopped the financial flow and all the 'taking advantage of me' behaviour....I am an educated, logical and fair minded woman...but when it comes to the relationship with my son I am a total emotional basket case....I cannot stop thinking about this situation, I have acid reflux, headaches, I am depressed and angry at the world....I want to lash out.
I try to occupy my life with warm and fulfilling activities but I cannot stop obssessing about my son and granddaughter...I don't want to go the rest of my life not having a relationship with them but more importantly having my son truly feel, think and believe in his mind that I abused him...it is tearing me apart...he will not go to counselling and now has cut off all communication.

I am only telling you the tip of the iceberg of my heartfelt story....I am hoping that someone may have some suggestions that I may employ to make my son realize he is wrong, to show I love him and build a better tomorrow and have a wonderful future.
Thank you to whomever.
Mary Lou

[Nighthawk61]

Welcome to Medhelp. Please post a question yourself, telling your story, and asking for advice on the Relationship Community. Regulars won't comment on older posts because it sends the current posts out of range. Good Luck and Hang in Thee. Hope to see your own Post. Liz

[specialmom]

Hi there, this is a very old post.  The original poster is no longer on the forum.  good luck

[Tired_of_being_selfless]

continued from previous...

3) Lastly, I sense that some parents may be exaggerating some horrible details about their kids. Around the time I turned 30 was when I started to pull away from my mother. She made it very clear she was either uninterested or incapable of helping with my depression. So I took that as a sign that I'm on my own. I showed less interest in spending time with her because lets face it, what did I have to gain? Spending time with my mother was much more valuable to her than it was to me. It's not like I could talk about my problems and expect her to give a crap and say something profoundly insightful. My mother relished in our quality time because it meant that she could spend 90% of the time talking about herself. She would occasionally throw a generic “How are things going?”, I'd reply a curt “...good”, and then the conversation would shift quickly back on her. I can read your mind right now ...well you did tell her “good” didn't you? What more do you want? Again, my mother is aware of my depression, she is aware I'm being medicated for depression, and my mood had degenerated to the point that she encouraged me to take pills. All three of those are huge red flags. Feel free to assume that when I say “good” that I'm just trying to be polite and trying not to open the flood gates with the generic opening question “How'ya doin?”. If she would haven taken the energy to have a follow up question like “Are you still depressed?” or “Are you feeling any happier?” or heaven forbid the dreaded “Why are you so sad son?”, I would have gladly unburdened my woes on her. But deep down inside I believe that was exactly what she secretly wanted to avoid. Long story short, I started to drastically reduce communication with her. She eventually starts confronting me about it. To my surprise though I discover that my mom has remembered history much differently than me! She even complains to my sister who relays this information back to me, and my thinking in my head is “are we talking about the same events?”. For example, my mother told my sister that I had slammed the door on her exiting the car. That was a blatant lie. We were in the car, she was dropping me off somewhere because mine was in the shop. She wanted to pass the time by talking about a bunch of trivial and unimportant things going on in her life. I was still pretty pissed about everything that was going on for the past couple of years and her refusal to acknowledge it, so I remained quiet. She picked up on this and apparently it upset her. Of course she said nothing about this on the drive, why would she start being inquisitive now? As I exited the car I said “thanks mom” and closed the door, NOT slammed. Was I acting like a petulant little **** inside the car? Yes, that was the point. The intent was to get her gears moving in her head so that one day she would hopefully get off her *** and start acting like the parent I wanted her to be 7 years ago. So yes, I was deliberately being moody, however, I didn't slam the door. That was a fabrication from my mother because she felt hostility from me, in which she constructed this story of her horrible son being snide and cruel to her, ending it with a dramatic door slam. Give me a break. I remained silent the entire drive to the destination, I even answered her questions with a short response. When we arrived, I said “thanks mom” and closed the door like a normal person. Moody? Yes. Slamming the door in rage? No. Again, her mode of thought is denial. It's easier to think that I'm some ungrateful jerk and that she's the victim, rather than to take the time to reflect on herself.

Again, I don't believe in blaming your parents to the end of eternity all of the bad things going on in their life, but we can't deny the fact that our lives start with you, the “adult” parent. You don't necessarily have to be a bad person to raise dysfunctional child, but bad parenting does.

[Rtpb]

Wow. That is really helping me see things from my son’s perspective. Thanks.

[Tired_of_being_selfless]

I am a 32 yo male. I am not married and don't have kids. I'm writing this because I am that ****** ungrateful kid that every parent on this thread is talking about. I have stopped communicating with my mother. My dad is dead, but I don't really care because he wasn't much of a father to begin with. I'm not quite as bad as some of the other children described on here, but I though I'd put my two cents in. I don't believe in blaming your parents for everything going wrong in your life, and I do believe that kids at some point should take responsibility for their lives. That being said, I also believe that parents have an obligation to ensure that their “young” children are on a right path early in life that won't lead to a dysfunctional, depressed, and maladjusted adult. So here are my thoughts:

1) In a lot of these posts I'm reading about kids that are abusing drugs or alcohol. I know I'm not a good son, but I've never abused any drugs or alcohol. Never been much of a drug user. What events in your child's life led to substance abuse? Were you aware of this and chose to take no action? Or did you chose to be blissfully ignorant on obvious signs? How involved were you in your child's upbringing? Did you have a relaxed attitude to drug use? I ask these questions because I feel that a child who becomes a drug user early in life is a reflection of the type of parent, or more specifically “parenting” you chose to exercise. I luckily never got hooked on that stuff but not because of any involvement from my mother. I just wasn't dumb enough to fall into that. I often characterized my mother's style of parenting like that of raising a cat. She ensured that we had food, water, and a roof over our heads ...but that was it. She wasn't really interested in anything more than that. Don't get me wrong, feeding and sheltering your kids is very important, but those are the basics. Not providing that would make you a bad parent, but just because you do provide that doesn’t mean you're the greatest mother in the universe either. Christ, even hyenas take care after their young, that doesn't make you a unique parent.  A little more effort needs to be put into raising your child, in terms of  molding their minds and TEACHING life lessons. My mother wasn't into that. Rather she pushed me off to Boy Scouts hoping the other adults would. She attended the first few outings but then slowly pulled out. My mother isn't a bad person, I know she isn't. I know she loves me, and I love her. I'm just infuriated with her complete laziness, indifference, and blase attitude towards parenting. I later in life developed depression which I smartly kept a secret from everyone. Not surprisingly it did not help the situation. At the age of 24, I called my mother on the phone to confess about my depression, to which her answer was “okay, see a doctor and he'll provide some antidepressants”. That was it, no other questions popped up. No further inquiry as to WHY I was depressed. It was not spoken of again until a few months later when I was visiting from college. She brought it up in passing, I put on a brave face and said “oh yeah, that was nothing. I'm fine now”. She bought it immediately and the conversation shifted. Mind you, this entire time I wasn't on antidepressants. More time passes and things get worse. My attitude becomes moody and my mother encourages me to go on antidepressants. I go to my doctor and he prescribes me some pills. I inform my mother I'm on them. My mother now knows that I am depressed, and that I am currently taking antidepressants to curb my behavior. She still never asked “Hey son, why are you depressed?” or “What's on your mind? What's causing you to feel so sad?”. Her explanation that she TOLD ME (because she's a secret neurologist by night, and she clearly doesn’t need to hear from my side what's going on in my life) ...she says “you just have a chemical brain imbalance”. Not once did my mother think to ask what was going on in my life that might have led to this. She was never even curious. She cooked up this idea that I had some silly little mind fart, and all would be solved with pills, and she believed it. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism for some people, but what parents need to understand is that denial only benefits you, the person in denial, not your children. They still suffer.

2) I also notice some mothers mention their drug using, lazy, abusive, deadbeat husbands. My dad wasn't much better. He wasn't abusive or a drug user, but definitely a lazy deadbeat who cheated, didn't have a job, brought no money in, and was mostly absent from me and my sister's life. Here's my question to every mother with this type of husband. Why did you marry this guy?!? I asked my mother this all the time and she always gave me the most stupid and irresponsible answer ever. She says “all my friends were getting married at the time, so it seemed like a good idea”. She openly admits to never loving him, yet she haphazardly decides to marry this moron she barely knew and pop out two kids. What an idiot. Both my parents are idiots. My mother would defend herself by saying “if I hadn't done that, you wouldn't be born”. That is a ******** answer, and you know why? Simple, would you ever wish that upon your children? Would you ever encourage your children to make the same dumb choices? If the answer is no, then own up to the fact that you made mistake. Don't hide your stupidity behind the fact that it led to the creation of your kids. That doesn't make it okay. At the very least YOU, the parent, the adult, should be LEARING from your mistakes and attempting to teach your kids not to follow in your own stupid footprints.

I have to break this into two messages because of a word limit. See next message...

[specialmom]

This is an old thread.  And the subject matter is so sad to me as a mother.  Luck to all.  

[MotherFatherSisterBrotherFriend]

People, people!  Get a hold of yourselves.  We live in a world of Internet.  So easy to connect and vent and blame and display ourselves.  It's pathetic.  When the 55 y.o. and older were born, we didn't have Internet.  We had discretion, Common Courtesy, Common Decency.  We fought for ourselves and for what was right.  Can't expect kids to do that when the TV or Internet news gives us no hope.  My son became an arrogant piece of work when he became 18.  I then stopped giving him things and told him to fend for himself.  He wanted things or money from me.  I gave him chores to earn money; told him to go to school to get a salary.  That's the game of life.  He hung out with the wrong crowd, went to a two year school for 7 years, and pissed away his savings.  The chip on his shoulder became bigger and so did his "friends list" on Facebook.  He bad mouthed me and I told him to connect to one of his 400+ "friends" to move in with them.  He calmed down for a while until the next time.  I'm a single mother, who plays father, sister, brother, friend and know when to put on each hat. Don't forget your own needs mothers.  Like retirement, friendship, interests and more.  That's the game of life.  He met a girl four years older than him at 22 years old.  She's another piece of work.  Her clock was ticking to the sounds of old maid who wants a family.  I said let him find himself and to grow out of childhood first.  Noooo.  At 23, my son became a father.  I blew my stack.  They married this year.  I kicked him out and said now society and the game of life will help you grow up.  My grandson is a cute 2 years old but now the boy and his father is the mother's problem, not mine.  I'm saving for retirement, looking forward to spending my money on travel, and I returned to school. Live life!  hhahahahahahah