AIBU to feel my son is unfairly comparing support?

Also should add- do not stop having your DD’s children on the Wednesdays.
It causes stress for all of you and won’t make him happy anyway, he will find something else to fixate on.
Also- stop giving him so much money.
I think you are 100% correct to buy things the children need, rather than sending him the money.
what is your relationship with DIL like?

I think that this isn’t really about money as other have said. My BIL had to live with his his grandparents for a year when he was small and despite this being a very long time ago, it has lead to a lifetime of resentment and feeling of unfair treatment and that his siblings are favoured, despite this being demonstrably untrue.
i think all you can do is continue being honest and open with your son. I don’t think you should start spending more on him/his kids- you are already helping him out financially to a massive degree. At the end of the day- yes, his childhood was messy, but he had a loving home with immediate family with you and your Mum caring for him. He is an adult now (40+!) and at some point needs to put on his big boy pants and get over it. As a parent himself, he should know that sometimes we make crap choices with the best of intentions at that time and actually- although it is obviously not great that he didn’t live with you (which you acknowledge and apologise for)- you made that decision to give him stability.
You sound like a lovely Mum.

What?! Why would you let your dd down with established childcare arrangements to appease your stroppy 40yo son?!
Right now you are making decisions out of severe mum-guilt. Stop it. You made mistakes. He is hurt. But that hurt doesnt mean you need to enable his bad behaviour for the rest of your life and damage your other relationships.
He is a grown up. His feelings and trauma are his responsibility to heal and Explore. You can help him with that by being emotionally available to talk and go through it. But you DON'T have to give him money and allowances to buy his approval of you. In my opinion it is pretty disgusting how he treats his own sister and her children. A fully grown man?!
Stop enabling him. He doesn't get to decide how much time you spend with your grandchildren or daughter. He can ask your presence more, sure. But he cant dictate your relationships. He is not a boy anymore. He is a man. And it is time he took accountability of his own actions and emotions.

He is walking all over you. Stop giving him money. Tell him you would love to spend more quality time with him, and be available but do not put your relationship with your daughter and grandchildren down just to appease him. Stop apologising to him - it does no good and he clearly resents you. You cant change that. Own it and move on.

Completely agree with this and pp saying he's manipulative.

He's making you jump through hoops and only wants you to see his kids the one night you babysit for your DD?

He's insanely jealous of her and even if you give him what he wants he will change the goalposts.

Don't do it op. You've said you're sorry, you give him money every month- probably enabling a gambling problem, I'd stop that for a bit as well.

He can't rake you over the coals for the rest of your life.

He’s manipulating you. Stop giving him money. He’s a grown man with two kids, he needs to step up. You’ve offered all you can. He doesn’t get to tell you who you spend time with, least of all your daughter or her children. He doesn’t sound like a very nice person.

I agree.

I almost posted something very similar last night.

Hope you can find some way to sort it out, OP

I've been thinking about this thread tonight, and read your posts back to back, OP.

There's no mention of your love for your son. Not when he was a child, or now. There's criticism of him, there's little signals to feed the thread such as 'he was the one who asked to go back to his grans' and stuff about him needing/wasting money, resenting his sister and so on, but virtually nothing about the fundamental things like love, emotions and so on.

You've said you should have done things differently, and that seems to be the point of the thread, but there seems to be a lot missing from all this. It's all money, babysitting, shoes, what you bought him as a kid.

I've reflected, but still feel very sorry for your son, not matter how flawed he is.

He sounds like a complete man child, I think I’d tell him to either try therapy or get a grip whenever he starts. I wouldn’t send him money and I would definitely not ‘prioritise’ him on the day you have your other grandchildren. Crazy talk from some PPs, I have to believe they think he is 14 and not 41.

His childhood sounds a hundred thousand times better than mine and I would never contemplate taking it out on anyone like that, let alone my innocent younger sister and nieces and nephews. Especially not at the big old age of 41! He should be embarrassed.

It sounds like you have a good relationship with your daughter. Don’t spoil it. Your son sounds pretty awful actually and seems to be motivated out of spite or jealousy of your daughter. Doesn’t sound like his childhood was too bad tbh but he thinks he can guilt trip and manipulate you. Anyway he’s 46 now so that behaviour needs to stop. Ignore the pile on - Mumsnetters love an opportunity to take the moral high ground. Most are being very selective about what you’ve written anyway.

I’ll preface this by saying that the way your son is treating you now is completely out of order and you shouldn’t give in to any more bullying. But… I was also brought up by my grandparents. We lived 200 miles away from my mum and I seldom saw her. She also met my stepfather when I was 9 and started having me in the school holidays when I was 11 – spookily the same age as your son. It was too late by then – we were no longer mother and child in an emotional sense, because I’d twigged that she’d chosen our circumstances. 11 is a pivotal age for this. So really, in this scenario I am your son, OP – although my mum never tried to mend the situation when I was an adult, so you seem much more sensitive and humane than she ever was.
There was probably pressure from my grandparents to keep me, so my situation mirrors yours there too… However. I think I can illustrate to you how your son probably feels, and it’s this:
He does feel abandoned. I know you tried to see him as much as possible during your time off, but he feels abandoned because you COULD live without him. That was palatable to you. It was possible. You were able to do it. You didn’t love and need him so much that the two of you could never be parted. You COULD be parted from him, and you were. And now he has children of his own, he sees that very starkly. (You were too young, I know, but he possibly doesn’t get that.)
So here’s the thing that might save you from being my mum: admit it. Tell him you regret it, you were wrong, you don’t know what you were thinking, you slid into it. Don’t justify it, don’t give him silly work/time-related reasons… I think you’ve said you've tried to tell him some of this already, which is brilliant, but keep going over it. One thing my mum didn’t do though – sorry OP. She didn’t go off and have another child that she could actually stomach LIVING with. That would have destroyed me completely.
A glimmer of light – your son still cares enough to be showing the grievance, IYSWIM. By his age I’d long since checked out emotionally. I saw my mum at Christmas to pay lip service to family obligations, but we had zero relationship. It sounds like he still thinks of you as his mother. My grandparents were my parents, and when they died (in my late teens) I was on my own. Family therapy would be a good idea for both of you, because there’s still hope. You obviously do care, otherwise this thread wouldn’t exist. My mum would never have posted it!
I’m sorry he’s hounding you for money; that’s truly shameful.

Yes this! But that doesn’t make it right

I agree with others about not pandering to his demands around Wednesday arrangements with grandchildren, he’s lashing out and if there is no specific need for him to have this particular time I would be firm on declining. He is obviously and understandably very hurt like others I suggest paying for counselling and encouraging and supporting his efforts to better his circumstances like babysitting while he goes to college at night. Also maybe reach out to his partner and let them know u’r free at weekends, evenings and would love to help, drop over - a family WhatsApp for up just u, u’r son & his partner might be a positive thing is not already in place.

He's 41 and acting like a spoilt jealous kid. Borrowing £££`s each month and not repaying? Complaining about what is bought. Nope. He needs to grow up. Maybe he didn't live with you but he had a loving mum and grandmother. Many are far worse off.

It would be helpful for you both to have some therapy together. It won’t be easy and very uncomfortable however, it would help greatly in the long run.

He’s a 41 year old man. I’d tell him to grow the fuck up tbh!

You are right. He will swiftly find another way you are favouring DD, because it’s not about what’s happening now, it’s about what happened 25 years ago.

I wouldn’t mess up your relationship with your daughter in a futile attempt to mend your relationship with your son.

He needs a boatload of therapy, ideally both individual and with you. You might also benefit tbf - you seem clear eyed about the problems but struggling to work out what and how to move forward.

She is supplementing her dds income by enabling her to work without the associated childcare cost. She’s just using her love and time to do it instead of transferring money, and understandably he sees that as the op choosing her just like she always as. Her dd is an adult too, if he shouldn’t need the support nor should she.

Her daughter probably earns more than £400 a month from the extra day a week she can work with free childcare and support. The op is prioritising her, and instead of putting her own time and love into ds like she is dd she is instead giving money. Probably less money, and ‘as a loan’ to the lesser child which is what the son quite reasonably feels she’s done all her life.

Sadly I think that you are right that he will find something else to be angry about. I think you are in an almost impossible position. Logic would say that if you do what he asks and show you value him equally with your daughter it would improve your relationship but it might equally lead to him coming up with another challenge. I understand why he feels hard done by but nothing that you did was based on malice. His demands, all on his very detailed terms, feel like blackmail. If you do decide to switch your childcare on Wednesday to him then I would be very clear, in writing, that you are doing this at his request, to allow you to spend time with him and his family. I would be very open with your daughter and mother that you are doing this as an attempt to mend fences. I wish that I believed that when he feels less resentful of your daughter he will allow you to bring both families together but I think he will find some other reason to object.
The money side of it is deeply worrying, you should not be supplementing his income. Presumably when you gave money for shoes and then had to give more the money had been spent on something else. Could you give vouchers rather than cash?
I think you need to set a time limit, possibly a year, to see if he changes in response to your efforts.

adding, I’d tell him I’ll be doing this, but also that I am putting the money I give him towards some family therapy with him as I don’t seem able to find the words that resonate with him to say I love you and you’d like some help in saying that in a way that he feels it, as you don’t think he is. So you won’t have the money spare the next few months, but you can look after ds on the weekday.
One challenge here is if his partner is on board with him going off to therapy with his mum as she will have to be home with the dc when he does.

I wouldn’t let your daughter down to try to pander to this man child. You made the choices you felt were right at the time. You could offer to go to counselling with him and try to get some sort of mediation. Don’t damage your relationship with your girl though. Tell him you’d love them to visit and the times you are available, and if he doesn’t want to work with that I think you need to step back. And stop giving him any bloody money!! Sounds like he is manipulating those around him.

I think so too. You abandoned him ‘for work’ and now you have a non working day that goes on his sister, I think you should give that non working day to his child. You can see dds child on the weekend, it just won’t be supporting her to work. I think this would be a very important gesture to him- effectively that you are actually able to prioritise him over his sister. I went through similar in my marriage recently, I’m an adult woman not an abandoned child and it mattered to me, it was fundamental.

As someone that wasn’t raised by my parents but was sent gifts and nice things from time to time by them, I remember thinking I’d rather be with my parents and have no nice things. Unfortunately, I am not close to either parents and I’m 40 so similar age to your son.
My mother like you had another child, from what I heard (I was a child) lavished attention on her and sort of ignored me (she denies this). The brief time I spent with her in my early teens were the worst time of my life. I’m sure she will say it didn’t work out.
Coincidentally, her cousin was similar to my mum, had a daughter young but left her with her dad, became a lawyer, met and married another lawyer and had a son while her daughter was with her dad and step mother that didn’t really like her.
Im sorry things are the way they are with your son, you cannot change the past, he needs to step up and take responsibility for his family and move on. Thankfully I went to uni without my mothers help and have never needed anything from her, haven’t spoken to her in years because of the kind of person she is.
Hope you can reach a compromise with your son or there’s a risk you might lose him. Acknowledge your failings and maybe seek family counselling if he agrees. Best of luck.

Clap for yourself. You need a knighthood or something?