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

Piffle.

It’s 5 months since the marriage ended. Of course he can’t see his mother with a new partner. In time matters will change.

The split is not your eldest DCs fault. At 20 he may be struggling with all kinds of emotions. However much you were hurting, I would still have maintained the relationship with my child. Instead you have gone cold and then reinforced this by taking everyone else away except him. I think you ABVU.

What's wrong with a blended family, exactly?

From a certain perspective it was OP who broke up the family because she wouldn’t (entirely reasonably) put up with her exh behaviour. But the 20 year old isn’t seeing the reasonableness of walking out. He just sees his mother leaving.

I agree entirely.

It is manipulation and misogyny dressed up as moral outrage.

Apparently, the father may sow chaos without consequence, yet OP is expected to endure censure for daring to pursue a relationship of her own.

You are weaponizing your relationship with your son becuase of something your husband did. Your poor son.

He didnt have the affair. He didnt choose his parents. All he did was decide to live with his father. He had a 50/50 choice and made what i bet was a difficult decision.

Since then he has been marginalised by you, his siblings and i dont know possibly other family members'. For gods sake, he is your son and regardless of the relationship breakdown you had with your husband, your son deserves not a single bit of this.

You have made this bitter and drawn a line which your other children are now protecting. I would be very surprised if your son can recover from this and have a healthy relationship with you

Also shocked that PPs are suggesting he is controlling for not wanting to be part of a blended family - who would? It's generally very difficult and in some cases awful. He's obviously hurting. People on here are crazy sometimes.

All those saying it was the Dad that broke the family, yes it was. However I have seen sons blame their mother after a split, even when there is cheating from the Dad, as she 'must have done something to drive him away'. People do not always take the logical approach.

Wow. OP I'm very sorry as of course you will be feeling raw but this is your child. Your son! How could you not even think to invite him on a holiday? That's awful. You are driving a wedge, not him. Of course he will feel divided loyalties, even if he is sticking up for his dad when he shouldn't be it doesn't mean he doesn't love you or care. You need to urgently make amends with your son and hold him close, or you will lose him forever. Don't let your husband's awful behaviour ruin your relationship with your son too.

OP’s son rejects the idea of blended families, despite the fact that his father was the one who fractured the original family through an affair. The irony is rather striking.

His father is, of course, entirely free to arrange a separate holiday for him.

He sounds awful frankly. Claiming it's your fault the family is broken up, saying that he forbids you from ever having a new relationship?!

As for saying he won't be part of a blended family. Well he's chosen not even be part of his own family so yeah that makes sense! Plus he's an adult so why would he need to be part of your potential new relationship anyway?

What about his arsehole father who was shagging someone young enough to be his offspring while he was married?! Not one word to say against him?

Presumably it's fine for him to cheat but god forbid you could possibly try and find happiness after being betrayed.

I'm not surprised you didn't invite him. And his sister didn't either.

His diatribe about how he's not your son anymore, while calling you 'mama' like a one year old would. It's pure manipulation and veering towards misogyny.

Ah OP I do think you have been unreasonable here.

your oldest is clearly struggling, at 20 he’s still young. He’s lashed out at you. Calm clear communication is needed. Hard when emotions are high. state the facts. Father had the affair which led (rightly so) to you leaving. Your future relationships are none of his business. Also his feelings are his and it’s wrong to hold that against him.
you should have invited him on holiday. Sharing pictures you knew he would see, like you wanted to punish him for staying with his dad. It’s his decision to live with him.
control the things you can OP. Build bridges, fast, own your own mistakes and get your family (minus cheating waste of space) back together. You need to find a way to respect each others decisions, you don’t need to agree.

good luck OP. This comes from someone with fractured sibling relationships that stemmed from adult behaviours and it never recovered.

I agree with this post. I have children similar age and 20 is still very young.

On one hand I think had you invited him and had he accepted, the holiday would have been miserable all round given the tensions. Saying that though, your actions are punishment whether you admit it openly or not. Going quiet on him, not inviting him on holiday yet posting photos on social media so he can see you are away with his siblings, allowing your DD to exclude him but invite your cheating ex etc.

Saying that, it must be a terribly hard thing to go through. I wish you well

But he's also an adult who chose to stay with the parent who broke this family, and I didn't think to include him this time given where things stand with his sisters.

Would you have left him behind from a family holiday before you broke up? Because he had fallen out with (one? or both?) sisters?

Anyway, since the problem is sibling tensions , you can surely invite him away with you. Meanwhile, if you are in any way presenting him to his siblings as an adult who chose to stay with the parent who broke this family, you need to stop the stirring and emotional abuse. Your children are not pawns to punish your ex on your behalf

I think you and your eldest need to meet up and have a proper conversation about all of this. It’s not okay for him to say that you are breaking up the family when it’s his dad who has done that. Or to dictate your future dating life, again, his dad has caused this and he’s an adult who should understand this. Is he quite misogynistic in general?

But, you should reach out to him and try to maintain a relationship. I can see how he feels hurt if he’s being excluded, even when he has tried to reach out.

Terrible that you stopped talking to your son because he stayed with his dad. That's on you.
Bizarre your daughter invited her dad not her brother. Also on you.

You should be helping all the siblings get along. Their parents will be dead one day and they need eachother.

It was very wrong to not invite him on holiday.

You have caused a rift between your kids. You are now responsible for helping to repair it.

20 is still so young, he just watched his two safety nets split and go different directions. He is also the oldest and watching his 3 siblings go with their mum he might have felt some loyalty to not leave his dad alone. Honestly its heartbreaking but you sound like you need to work on forgiving him for trangressions that weren't his. Don't punsh him for not wanting to abandon his dad - even if he is an absolute shite.

He has been made the bad guy in a situation where there were never any winners, Encourgae your children to try and fix their relationship and keep them out of the crap between you and your ex.

His reasons for staying in the family home with his Dad don't have to be about taking sides. Perhaps he wanted the security of a familiar space, the comfort of his own room and was resistant to change when his family world was being blown up. It's not your son's fault that his dad was a dick and shagged someone else. You ignoring him will have been very hurtful.

To go on a holiday with 3 siblings and not the other is mean. It doesn't matter that you're hurting and regardless of his views on whether you should meet anyone else, you are effectively cutting him out of your life and that is mean and hurtful.

I am not in your situation but I have some teen children who live with me and a teen step child who doesn't live with me. For any holiday or trip or treat, she will always be invited. She doesn't always opt in because she works full time, and does other holidays with her mum and her friends but it's incredibly important that she knows she is always welcome so she never sees a photo of her dad, me and her brothers all having a lovely holiday without her that she didn't know about.

His views about how you should live your life moving forward are bullshit. Is he fully aware that his Dad's infidelity is the reason for the marriage breakdown and you moving out?

"My other son and both daughters are angry at their dad too, but they came with me and we've been doing okay. Therapy, lots of time together, dinners, days out." You need to try to do with this with your eldest son, particularly the therapy. He is unreasonable to expect you to have just sucked up your ex's betrayal. You are unreasonable to expect him to have immediately sided with you and left his home and dad. You are not looking for a relationship with anyone right now, ignore the talk of blended families and the like. Focus on the now.

He needs to apologise to you for blaming the break up of the family on you. And demanding that you don’t have a life with anyone else. Who does he think he is?! He sounds extremely childish and/or manipulative. He needs to understand that he has contributed to the hurt piled on you when you were most vulnerable. That this is not a matter of you not loving him, or blaming him in any way for his father’s cheating, but a matter of you protecting your own wellbeing and not having unfair blame being heaped on you on top of the devastation caused by his father.

I'd be bending over backwards to have a relationship with him. It's not our DC's job to understand our personal lives, only our job to be there for them unconditionally.

That said, a holiday, if he's out of favour with the other DC might not be the best idea, but I'd definitely be taliing to him about the way forward, not just excluding him.

I think you should cut him a bit of slack OP. 20 is very young. Don't let him dig himself into a deeper hole with you and his sibs. It isn't his fault what your ex did. Surely he was feeling very raw too?

Maybe your ex even inappropriately confided in him and further muddied the water.

In your position I would try to reach out I think. What he is say about not having a mother now is really sad.

Your original advice was to tell the OP not to talk to him until he had apologized. Considering that he had made several attempts to reach out to her, but she ignored him, that's awful, awful advice.

Your son is being indoctrinated by your cheating EX DH.

I wouldn't have invited him on holiday. He needs to seriously consider his tone.