My husband and I have 1 son, age 43, married with 13 year old twin girls. He will not allow my husband and me to see our granddaughters going on 5 years already. When we did drive to see our son and thought we would just have a "talk", he went into an uncontrolled rage and ripped me and his Dad to shreds. He went back as far as his 9th grade and brought up everything and anything that he verbally abused both of us as being horrible parents. We did not have a chance to say anything as he interrupted anything we tried to say and his face was as red as a tomato. Finally, he told us to get out of his place, never come back and we will never see his daughters again. We are so depressed and sad about why our son ripped me and his Dad apart to the lowest of the low. We tried to be good to him, paying for his college education, gifting him with a newer vehicle when in college, helping him pay for various items for his brand new house, and more. We do not understand why our son is so hostile toward me and his Dad and he did not tell either of us why the horrible rippping of both of us nor explain anything. Can someone please, please help me and my husband what we can do, say, anything to make amends with our only child, our son.
Thank you.
Written by
miles45
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I'm sorry that this problem has arisen and is so painful for you. Is your son's behavior new or recent only? How has he behaved with you in the past? Were any of his complaints legitimate? What was your relationship like before college? During his early years? Without these answers, it's hard to understand what's going on. I hope you have a great day today!
Ouch! That was a painful and bewildering experience for the two of you.
Many thoughts come to mind reading your post: Had you arranged with him to visit and have a talk or did you just show up without any notice? Without notice, that was disrespectful and your son was obviously angry about it.
Your son seems to have been carrying a lot of emotional pain and spewed it all over you which makes me wonder how long he has been stewing in his own juices without therapy or what the dynamic of communication was like between the three of you, previously.
At this point, I would strongly suggest that you and your husband seek counselling for yourselves to process this experience and to grieve the loss of relationship that you hoped to have with your son and your granddaughters.
BonnieSue has raised some good questions, as parents we must look honestly at our choices and consider whether or not our choices in the past how they might have impacted our children and to what degree. I have had to do this as a single parent living in undiagnosed depression. It was a painful time but I learned to listen, sensitively, to each of my son's and their feelings and to learn to see the experiences we shared from their perspective. I had my eyes open to how some of my choices were received by them.
Your son is now an adult of 43 and at the very least, you must respect his decisions whether or not you agree with them. I know all too well how painful this can be. It won't be easy but it will be worth it in the long run.
When the girls are old enough, they may have the opportunity to choose to get to know you as young women and that will be something that your son may need counselling for in the future to deal with their independent decisions, as you now face his decisions which you probably don't agree with or understand. The thing is you may never understand or through counselling you may gain a better understanding of the dynamics of your relationship and learn better ways of interacting in and through this difficult situation.
I wish you well. I am confident that you both love your son as well as your granddaughters.
Wow. This is really sad. There has to be something at the root of all this.
Some people, for whatever reason, can only come up with the negatives when something like this happens. They forget the positives.
I agree with BonnieSue that you have to dig deeper and see if there is more here. Your son needs to do the same. I'm not sure if he's in a place right now to look at things and share them.
What bothers me most is the grandchildren. Missing a huge part of life, which is a grandparents love.
Is he protecting them or using them on the battle. That's something only the 3 of you can figure out together.
In the past, when I read these kind of personal stories , I would think They must know, how could they not? Well, Now I understand that it does happen and you may never have a clue as to why. It is the most devastating experience and it effects my other children, grandchildren etc. In our case and I suspect in yours also, it is so unreasonable and also unexpected We never had disagreements to the level where people stayed angry. I wish I had positive things to tell you ,but I don't I try to stay closer with my other kids and to not expect them to fix this for me. It's been a year now, I've been in therapy for that year which has helped me. I'm trying to get on with my life and I have no hope things will change. Your experience may be different, I hope so. It is like a death in a way. I am very sorry. Pam
Some of the things are just wrong like he should be grateful for the education and car. It is also wrong for you to hold those things against him. Also if he gets that angry when he’s around you it seems like he wants to go no contact. I am in your sons shoes because I feel the same way about my parents and they feel blameless and I have screamed at them. Because you admitted to nothing I must assume he didn’t begin to feel this way for no reason. I personally can’t forgive my parents for the way I was raised but I do have a relationship with them. The only advice I can offer is to respect his wishes and relinquish control and if he says no contact and you continue to pursue him it may cause him further anguish. I don’t know you at all but I related to your son reading this.
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