To throw my 16 yr old son out after he squared up to me

I read OP’s update too and to be honest l don’t think you’re reading the same one if this is what you took from it.

I hope it's a lesson to you too. All I see in your most recent update is you continuing to blame him, liken him to his dad, elevate yourself to sainthood and taking pretty much zero responsibility for actually starting the whole thing off.

I actually find your update very alarming. Your son needs to be able to talk and be listened to, not dismissed and then lambasted further. You obviously hurt him very badly but you have completely brushed over that fact and all you've gone on about is how wrong he is and how amazingly fantastic you are.

It sounds like the poor kid is on a hiding to nothing with the pair of you as his parents, he's managed to draw two short straws.

That is the most important bit here indeed, have you spoken to him since?

Has he been in touch yet?

Yes, it is so obviously a joke. I am stunned that people are interpreting that as a genuine threat when the OP clearly loves her son and would never threaten him!

The reason OP made the comment wasn’t because DS didn’t turn the machine on properly. It was because he was taking wet clothes out of the drier five minutes after she told him to leave them in until they were dry. ‘Do you want to die?’ As in wearing damp clothes is bad for your health.

Now look at his response. It wasn’t ’what do you mean ?’ Indicating he didn’t understand the comment. It was ‘say that again’. My interpretation was that he perceived OP as disrespecting him, and that was what fuelled the aggressive response. Not something he learned from his dad - more likely from his peers as a result of the ridiculous posturing that goes on these days. That he would take that home to his mother is concerning enough, but when you put it with the deeply misogynistic comment about the drier being her responsibility it’s a waving red flag.

OP hasn’t triggered anything that wasn’t already there and poised to turn into something much more sinister given the chance.

I have a similar but more extreme situation. Son was 19, came home drunk and started squaring up to me and to his younger sister, and considering he is built like a brick shit house it was very very scary. I placated him, and got him into bed. I told my ex (who was abusive which is why I left), and asked him to collect him in the morning, and I told him what happened and said I would like him to have a word. Fully expecting him to read him the riot act of how we aren't aggressive to women, and how he was agressive to both me and his little sister and how that was not at all ok, and he should apologise. I don't know why on earth i expected my abusive ex to do this - I really don't know what I was thinking. Of course, he didn't, claimed Id made a fuss about nothing, accused me of being a psycho and over exaggerating. So I cut him out of it, and just dealt with my son head on. When things were calmer we had a chat, I said it was absolutely terrible behaviour and never ever to be repeated in my home. He got the message.

Moral is don't involve abusive exes. They just make this shit 1000 times worse. x.

I agree DS shouldnt have escalated, but if you or OP believe because he was a toddler he was unscathed from the violence I disagree.

There's an atmosphere, a fear, anger in a home with DV and toddlers are very attuned to their mothers.

None of that makes it OK but that doesnt change the fact, OP started with "do you want to die" over DS not turning on a dryer properly. I can understand with the history how that escaled and also think you shouldnt say that to your child even if you meant it as a joke

Codswallop.

OP still experiences herself as being in an abusive relationship with her ex—I don’t see why anyone would think the child has not already suffered and still suffers even if the parents technically split when he was a toddler. ACE score for this child is very high given what OP said.

At any rate: to reiterate of the hard of thinking this is not a court of law and OP is not presenting a case to a judge for a divorce from her child. This is a sick body. The family is hurting and needs medicine and healing. The medical model is more appropriate than the judicial/adversarial model.

Mumsnet likes to choose a villain, a victim, and “rescue” one from the other. But this is just a struggling two person family. No villains snd no victims. Just two people who would like to be able to harmoniously and lovingly be mother snd son but who are struggling to feel safe in the relationship and manage bursting emotions.

Nothing OP says should warrant this kind of response. The escalation is entirely on him. And so many posters are missing the fact that OP says her son was a toddler when they split up - he didn’t witness any DV and his father wasn’t abusive towards either child.

I am with you!
I do not read a threat into it, but a " you could get ill if the clothes are not dry", which is caring!

This is breaking my brain, to be honest. So many people reading a completely different scenario.

Even if my DH tells me he is "killing me" if I take the clothes out of the drier before they dry, I am not going to react like he slapped me across the face or pointed a knive at me!

OP said in an update that her son was little more than a toddler when she and his dad split up, and he didn’t witness any abuse - nor has his dad been abusive to either child. This came across to me, not as DS not understanding what OP meant, but perceived it as her ‘disrespecting’ him. Which is an entirely different scenario, likely learned from his peers and deeply misogynistic. In which case, OP has a much bigger problem than this simply being something he’s parroting from his dad.

And as far as l can see his attitude to OP on this occasion means he’s just as dangerous as an unexploded landmine. She clearly wants to try to get to the bottom of why he acts like this, but she doesn’t have an obligation to put herself in harms’ way to do that, or to simply absorb the appalling behaviour he mete’s out.

This is a lot of elaborate victim blaming. He's 16. Old enough to know better.

Maybe he is! That’s the point. OP has to show him how functional adults defuse scary situations. “Squaring up to someone “ and getting ready to fight *are what he learned at daddy’s knee.” He has to unlearn that. How can he do that with OP acting like he is an unexploded land mine?

Really?

I also live in a safe secure loving home and we have plenty of banter between us and our teens- I can well imagine how the OP said what she did and its completely irrelevant to the issue.

I am afraid it looks like your son is going the same way as his abusive Father . You are far better off with him away from you @summerviews.

Op said jokey but exasperated. Her tone, in my mind, would not have come across as jokey. And we’re talking about a child who has grown up around dv .. not your average typical child.
I get that but how is he going to cope ' in the real world' if someone makes a joke he doesn't understand? Is he going square up to them everytime he thinks someone has 'disrespected ' him?

Right: a child who has grown up around dv so knows that a “joke” can conceal a threat. Why is s it so hard for posters here to grasp that Op’s words were not taken as she meant them? Do abusive men never say they love you as they are beating you? Never cover their rampant hostility with jokes about violence? Never diminish your self worth by saying something threatening and then accusing you of “having no sense of humor?” Because those are absolutely standards of abusive relationships.

Op said jokey but exasperated. Her tone, in my mind, would not have come across as jokey. And we’re talking about a child who has grown up around dv .. not your average typical child.

Well sure but he’s 16!

i don’t understand why this simple question of parenting strategies is turned here into a massive game of “who has to be ashamed.” Its not useful. Its not relevant. No one is blaming OP. Its not useful to assign blame or shame.

However we have an unspooling set of incidents: OP is the one who chose the order of the action. Her comment “do you want to die” was the start of the unravelling of behavior. And she is asking the question here “what can I do.” So she gets the chance, here, to examine her behavior and mske a different choice. As they say “if you keep doing what you do, you will get what you got.” She can change. She can’t make him change. She can’t angrily punish him to change. She can only figure out how she wants to live, build that world, and invite him back.

it’s entirely up to her. Its easy for mumsnet to treat this 16 year old as a throwaway—just a hulking abuser, an (ugh) man like his father. Lots of posters have advocated criminalizing him, treating him like an adult, beating him, slapping him, exiling him, throwing his things out, telling him never to come home, etc..etc..etc…Is that what OP wants? She sounds devastated. To her he is her child—she loves him and has tried to live with him and raise him despite her husband’s violence and cruelty. She wanrs him back. She wants to heal the relationship. The advice of posters telling her to beat or insult him into submission is not relevant. They want the same authoritarian peace her ex does: they made a desert snd they called it peace. The adult must win or we all lose.

In reality just the opposite is the case. OP needs to find a way to demonstrate and live non violence with her son. They are two traumatized people living under one roof. She is the elder, she is his parent, she has a capacity that he doesn’t to recognize the course of events and deescalate.

As soon as her “joke” elicited such a strong reaction she should have backed up and given him space. As everyone has pointed out an aggressive posture and chest puffing is a fight/flight response. It does not mean he was a danger to her. Both animals and humans will posture to puff themselves up snd scare away an attacker. Most if the time this works and no fight ensues. He needed not to be cornered. He needed a way to retreat.

As for the OP as a trauma victim herself the same advice applies . She obviously became overwhelmed with memories of DV snd was hijacked by her amygdala. The advice I give clients is “step back” move away from what is frightening you until distance lets you feel safe enough that your prefrontal cortex cones online. From that vantage point you can make better decisions.

Both she and her son could benefit from non violence training (books, videos).Try more trauma therapy. Think about this incident as a chance to model intelligent, compassionate, problem solving skills to your son.

As others have said start by reconnecting to him. Ask him what each of you could have done differently. Ask him, with curiosity, what each of you could fo differently next time. Don’t offer perfection—and don’t demand it. Just offer, and receive (hopefully) forgiveness and reattachment as mother and child.

But I still dont think someone against violence should be saying things like "do you want to die?" Context is important there but her meaning and his understanding seem wildly far apart and she was the first to make a threat
I still say co text a d tone of voice is everything.
Theres a world of difference between saying it in a nasty way or a jokey fashion.
If the adolescent can't tell the difference now, how is he going to cope out side the home when mates, random people etc make daft jokes. Is he going to fly off the handle and take everything literally and puff up his chest and name call?