AIBU to not invite my 20 year old son on a trip with his siblings?

It is also common for shocked and upset children to struggle to see you having your own life and dating again. Again, this is typical and usually handled over years and through speaking honestly and forging relationships. Not in anger.

Please don't cut your own son off like this to punish him or your husband. Not ok. Keep lines of communication open, keep the door open, keep your own relationship with him separate to your dad.

My dad has now been with his 'affair partner' (now second wife) longer than my parents original marriage and they are all happier, after the initial shock.

Life is long, I did not like reading this post, I find it quite upsetting you would treat a child this way and even wonder if it is true.

and hes 19, not a baby and knows the damage of cheating etc he should have chose better

He's lashing out at you because you are punishing him for having an ongoing relationship with his own father! You shouldn't have made him choose, and you shouldn't have gone quiet on him.

I cannot imagine my parents behaving like this, my mum was cheated on by my dad and she was raw but she never made us feel bad about wanting to see him or have a relationship with him- he's half our DNA and you cannot ask children to take sides like this.

Your son told the truth, he has indeed been excluded from his own family and that was a very poor move on your part, you have made a little new family without him and that's unforgiveable. He shouldn't have to take sides with you and move out and effectively cut his relationship with his dad to be in your life.

Awful, sorry, but this is awful.

Parents often forget that their children are 50% of the parent that they personally chose, you can't expect them to cut off like this.

I’m sorry your husband did that to you, truly terrible and awful. But to be putting your kids in the middle of this is disgraceful.

How did your daughter graduate at 15? Is she some sort of genius?

Where does the OP say that the son thinks it's ok for his father to move on? It sounds like he desperately wanted them to stay together. He wanted her to forgive the father (entirely understandable why she said no way to that) for his infidelity and stay in the marriage so that the family didn't break up. The OP only discovered the affair a few months ago. The son says he doesn't think he'll ever be ok with her dating and remarrying - he will come around from that when he's stopped grieving. Perhaps he already would have done had the OP not ignored his efforts to reach out to her.

Im going to say Yabu. I think you should have heard him out when he tried to reach out the few times previously. He might have felt he made a mistake with his choice.
I also think it was wrong of your daughter to invite her dad to the graduation and not him. Why? It was her father who cheated. Yeah, perhaps your son messed up but he’s young, sounds like he tried to repair things and you all aren’t letting him forget it.
If he had clung to and defended his choice till now, and not tried to reach out, I might have said Yanbu to not invite him on holiday. But to ignore him and then not invite him I think was actually kind of cruel.

You are the adult here and it is for you to rebuild the bridges you have burned. Ok he chose to stay with his dad but you are wrong to punish him for this. He’s young and emotionally immature and he’s going to say and do all sorts of wild things because he’s probably reeling. Talk to him asap and explain you are sorry and you were just hurt and confused but you love him and he’s 100% part of your family.

Many years ago my DP split in similar circumstances. When mum role the news she said I’d be staying with her. I asked if I could stay with dad and she said of course you can if it’s what you want. She didn’t even tell me dad had cheated. In the end I stayed with her. It was years before I understood what she went through and how brave she was to shield me from it. In the end my bond with my mum is 1000 times stronger than my dad but I’m so grateful she never poisoned me against him or asked me to choose side. Divorce stinks.

ETA - YANBU because your actions come from a place of extreme hurt, but please don’t lose your sone over it.

This. The OP may have made mistakes but to be honest her son sounds controlling and misogynistic. Father can have an affair and move on but she can’t? He needs to grow up.

Deciding to stay in his home is not rejecting his mother and his siblings. Terrible advice to encourage the OP to continue to view it that way.

I think if he is lashing out at you and his siblings it would not have been a nice holiday. I think if he wants a relationship with you then he should meet you halfway. He is not a child. Your ex was the cheater and he has no right telling you that he won’t accept you finding a new partner. Any reconciliation should be done slowly not with a holiday where you are all spending a lot of time together. Plus he needs to sort out things with his siblings. He can’t paint himself as a victim if he made the choice to stay with your ex and reject you and his siblings.

If you are unhappily married, you end your marriage respectfully. You don't stick your dick in someone else and then lie to your wife about it.

So you have ostracised your son because he went to live with his dad? It isn’t your son’s fault his dad cheated on you. It doesn’t make him less his dad. You said you didn’t want them to pick sides. Yet you clearly do, in fact, want them to pick sides

Speak to him

Choose somewhere neutral and tell him plainly that his blaming you for your reaction to his father's infidelity, his trying to determine how you spend the rest if your life has driven a spike through your heart

Be clear, you need time to recover from his father's behaviour and now also have to navigate his reaction. You too are only human and his behaviour will take you time to understand

Be even more clear: you love him but really don't like his attitude atbthe moment

Then leave the ball in his court

He can be as angry as he likes... with his dad who had the affair.
He also doesnt get to control/decide how his mum lives her life after being shat on.
Father and son are both finding out that actions have consequences.

Listen to this, OP. His dad cheated on you, not him.
I can’t believe you ignored his oliver’s branch. You need to repair the relationship.

You have behaved abysmal toward your eldest son. He may have hurt you with some comments but he is still very young and has also had his world torn apart. It's not too late to build bridges and i would urge you to reach out to him and start to rebuild your relationship.

Miss Trunchbull has entered the chat

Yep agree with all the posters who are saying the OP is unreasonable. I cannot stand parents who force kids to pick sides (while claiming they are not). Your sons relationship with his dad is not your relationship to manage.
My own mother did the same to me (not that I stayed with my dad but because I had the audacity to still want to speak to him - she was so awful that I had no choice really but to cut him off otherwise I would have been cast out from my siblings and extended family too) unsurprisingly I do not have a great relationship with my mother now. I can see what an emotionally abusive and immature parent she was, you will be lucky if your oldest son bothers with you at all in later life.

Reach out to your son.
There are billions of people in the world and only 4 of them are your kids.

Be the adult. Whatever has happened is water under the bridge. Do everything you can to try to repair your relationship.

Good luck.
X

OP’s son requires correction.

The conduct, misogyny and contempt he shows towards his own mother are entirely unacceptable and warrant a firm reprimand.

No mother should have to accept this.

This. I'm also surprised by the responses.

The OP's DS is 20. He is an adult man, not a 13yo boy. He explicitly blamed the OP for breaking up the family when she wasn't the one having an affair. He then sought to dictate to her regarding her right to date or have any future relationships. He sounds horribly misogynistic and totally unwilling to admit that it was actually his father at fault and that his mother was the victim in all of this.

Should she have responded to his attempts to reach out? Yes,of course she should have done. She has acknowledged you'd. Do I blame her for being hurt and cross that her son had blamed her for the fact that the family had been broken up? No, I don't.

Given everything that has gone on, I don't think it was unreasonable to take the other kids away without inviting the eldest son along. The siblings weren't talking to each other anyway.

I do think that the OP should attempt to build bridges now, but I think she should be very open and transparent with him about how hurtful and unfair his previous comments have been.

With him reaching out, if you don’t take the olive branch then it’ll just keep going downhill. The divorce was your husband not your kids. He didn’t need to go on the holiday but maybe let him know you were for going?

That poor kid-ok he's 20, but not much more than a kid. His dad cheated. Your son did nothing wrong. You don't answer a message from him. His siblings are rejecting him. He's got nothing, at such a tender age-and he wasn't the one that made the decisions which have affected everyone.
I would be really worried about such a young person in this situation. It's not abnormal that he wants his family together, and a lot of kids reject blended families. Some people might say they work sometimes-maybe that's true, especially in cases where the parents are widowed. But where they've chosen to break up, it's a fact that a lot of kids/young adults are very hurt.