DS doesn’t want us to contact him while he is travelling

Gosh sorry to hear this.

Did your parents (or parent/step parent) really just chuck your stuff into a different room/space and not tell you they were doing this, i.e. you came home and had no idea this would happen?

Or maybe it's not the parents he's keeping her away from, but the sister? She sounds like she lacks emotional intelligence.

This is true. It's not surprising he doesn't want his parents to meet her, given what happened last time.

I'm sorry you went through that too. That Larkin poem - ' they fuck you up your mum and dad, they don't mean to but they do' - has gone through my head for years!

I'm going to craft a message with DH and send it to DS, mainly reflecting on our response to the break up being wrong.
It's not clear what you're actually going to do here, whether you're going to apologise unreservedly or just bring it all up again. If you do this, please don't go with an invalidating non-apology like "I'm sorry if you felt XXX but we YYY..."

Maybe speak to him! My parents chucked out a load of toys that I'd kept in pristine condition because I wanted to hand them onto my own kids one day. I was heartbroken. They've never apologised or even acknowledged doing this. In my case, rightly or wrongly (pretty much rightly, I still think) it gave me the message that I no longer had a place at home, so I never went back.

@AnonymousBleep similar. My parents didn't give away my bedroom, but they started to rearrange the furniture and my mother started storing her stuff in my wardrobe. I didn't know until I came home one weekend and saw it. It made me really unwelcome. I hated that it was just imposed upon me, no talking about it, and I certainly wasn't allowed to have an issue with it. But they still wanted me to come home at every opportunity and keep me close.

The more I read, the more I feel sorry for your DS. Frankly your DD1 sounds horribly spoiled and entitled and that your household has revolved around her and her wants and her opinions. I hope you can claw back a relationship with your DS but you'll have to put down boundaries with her and her friend first. Will you do that, or will you worry she'll kick off?

I think you've raised a really sensible young man. He sounds like a son to be very proud of.

Have you thought that he may just not want you involved with his new GF? His last one still goes round your house, is believed ahead of him, and is his sisters BF. You all know too much. You are in each others pockets.

If I was him I wouldn’t want to introduce any of you to her. I’d keep her away from you all. It’s too much drama and aggro.

She’s not dodgy. He just doesn’t want you to meet her. Your DD is already stalking her on Instagram to see what she’s like and is commenting on her.

God, the drama. 🎭

I suspect there is a bit of cause and effect here.

If a child is at the age for Lego, they are too old for dolls prams, high chairs etc. What toys did your DS play with as a toddler? And, to be honest if Lego was taking up less space, that suggests you are not leaving the made models on display (my DS is an adult and we have shelves and shelves of things) which is in itself saying something.

"Stuff" fits the space available. You could have chosen not to buy such big items, or to store them elsewhere than the bedroom.

See this makes me feel a bit sad bc we did this to the eldest. Except he knew about it - I think the key here is they just did it without informing you.

We have 4 dc's and when eldest went to uni it made no sense to have his larger room sat empty for months at a time. Also his furniture was pretty crap and needed replacing so we bought him new for his new room and it was also a disgusting tip which he never cleaned or tided so a lot of his stuff was thrown out. Obviously nothing I thought he'd want to keep.

I hope he doesn't look back on it as we turfed him out of his room though,
I think sometimes we look back on situations putting our own spin/narrative into it to justify how we're feeling. I know I'm guilty of doing it with my own parents. (Not saying that's the case with you!)

He didnt get the biggest bedroom, what a fucking melt.

Or maybe you were so focused on his sisters that you didn't really know or hear him or he knew not to ask or want.

Their break up sounds a completely normal part of early 20s adulthood and just v unfortunate she was close and in and out of your house. I can imagine how hard that was for him
.But !! Just one of those things where it was nobody's fault. And he will.grow to see that as an adult.

You could always say look sorry if we weren't considerate enough at the time we tried to stay out it it hut can see it might have hurt imagining her bending our ear

I would stay calm just tell him you love him..miss him and will see him.when he is back

If he is wise, he should put a large chunk of that down as a house deposit. £125k in savings at 25 is a lot.

And why did the girls have 'more stuff' anyway? Presumably because their parents bought them more stuff. It didn't just materialise out of nowhere!

OP said they had bigger toys like dolls houses and dolls prams. I would imagine in a fairly gendered home, which this does sound like, the boy might receive outdoor toys and computer games and equipment which might take up less space in his room or live in the garage (bikes, skateboards, etc), while the girls are
given books, jewellery boxes, soft toys etc. I don’t think they actually received more gifts than the son.

Some of the other issues are fair enough, like the ex girlfriend, and maybe DD1 needs reminding that her brother is her brother and her friend isn’t necessarily going to be truthful about the end of the relationship BECAUSE she wants to keep the friendship and can’t risk being seen as the witch who broke the brother’s heart. But if OP feels now that they weren’t as caring to DS as they could have been, that’s a good place to start. Not to parade it but to acknowledge the hurt and apologise with no expectation.

But they already had the bigger bedrooms? Or did you move your son into a smaller room to accomodate their stuff?

It really sounds like you're minimising here. I've been on the receiving end of what your son has experienced (I'm also the oldest child of three) and it really hurts tbh.

I've read the whole thread. What jumps out at me is that you've been given some really good advice from others who actually read the whole thread, and some fantastic insight into what is going on and why this is happening.
The question is, OP, what are you going to do next? Say nothing and let him go off thinking you still don't get it, or some sort of apology to maybe build bridges for when he gets back, or something else entirely?

Agree! I reckon he feels that you don't really value him or mind whether he's there or not. He's about to do some extended travelling. If he leave lines of connection open and then doesn't hear from you enough, or only hears from you if he initiates it, that's really going to hurt him. So he's closing down connection with you whilst he's away pre-emptively. Then he can tell himself that he's not hearing from you because he decided that he didn't want to.

Also, I think he's excluding you from his life for this period because he wants you to have a sense of his feelings of not being welcome or valued. It doesn't mean you don't welcome or value him, OP, but now is the time to show it rather than allowing yourself to be provoked into being punitive or distant, which will be taken as proof that you don't care.

It was hard at the time as he was telling us she cheated, didn't care I was studying, I did everything I could and she still left and at the same time DD was spending every night going "he did this and he didn't really love her and she never cheated he lied, he kissed a girl in the club, he's selfish etc. Obviously we should have just told DD we didn't want to know and that it didn't matter the rights and wrongs. Thinking more I'm worried that his ex actually did treat him poorly but because I like her and DD is so close to her I chose not to see that and that is really unfair of me.

Tell him this then, just admitting; you were wrong will probably be hugely therapeutic for him. Don't bring what your dd said into it though, you don't want to damage their relationship any further.

That's really sensible to recognise that and be able to accept it. I'd definitely include that in your letter. I'd also bring up with your DD that she'll need to meet her friend away from your home from now on, even with your son away because your home is his home as well. Remind your DD that your son is your absolute priority, no matter how much you personally like her friends. It wouldn't hurt to let your DD know that he's just as important to you as she is, no matter how much it's been the family joke that she's the favourite.