9 months on I am grieving for the loss of my son - he has gone NC on us

[birdladyfromhomealone]

I will try not to drip feed, but I am devastated that our son has chosen to cut us out of his life.
Every night I go to sleep thinking about him and wake up in the morning with a pit in my stomach.
I have spoken to him several times since Feb on his terms, when he will allow me to but he refuses to meet us, as he says it will just be another arguement.
Our DS met his DW at uni 11 years ago, she is from a different culture but born here.
For 5 years she kept our DS secret from her family, she had to go home EVERY weekend. Even though she was living with our DS, having a relationship with us, lived with us whilst they flat hunted, holiday's, meals out, staying over etc
She was treated very well by us and was one of the family. Me and my 2 DD and her used to go for spa days, nights out etc .
We all got on.
Then my DS proposed with my DM engagement ring .
A huge diamond with rubies,
We arranged to have it made into a solitare and the rubies into earrings.
This was a huge thing for me to pass on my DM ring, I wanted my DS to give it to her as we loved her.
After they got engaged she told her family and my DS was welcomed into their family ( she said it would destroy her family for her to be with a white man)
Her parents arranged 2 weddings one for their religion and one civil white wedding.
We felt like guests at our sons wedding.
We were told what to wear and how and when to behave.
The next day 40 of the brides family turned up at ours for lunch. We invited her immediate family only.
I told my son off and he got very emotional. I admit I was cross
After that things were never the same.
A year after they got married he gave up a city job in London to work for her father, moved 300miles and moved in with them.
He told us 3 weeks before he moved although they had been planning it for months.
They then bought a house just down the road so she still sees her family daily.
I bought them a surprise of some furniture for their new home, she refused to let the delivery driver take it off the van.
We then had a huge row as she said I disrespected her.
We have not seen them since.
My DH told our DS it had made us ill.
My DH has gone on antidepressants and I have been diagnosed with stomach ulcers.
Our DS reacted very badly to be told this and said he does not have a DF anymore.
Our 2 DD are stuck in the middle as they still see their DB and DSIL (once or twice since) but cant try to resolve this for our family as DS goes off on one if our names are mentioned.
For the last 11 yrs we have been a very close family, holidays, nights out, weekend breaks.
We are devastated by this but there is no talking to our DS he hangs up on us or ignores messages.

We are all speculating but I do feel that if this was someone’s daughter who had been isolated by her husband and had no contact with her family, had given up her career and was working in the husband’s family’s business, the advice would be very different.

Probably. However, whether this is a case of an abusive spouse, or purely a breakdown in communication between mother and son, the actual practical advice remains the same. OP needs to engage with her son directly, and not to treat him as a mouthpiece of his wife. If it's not a coercive relationship, he will be insulted that you are not listening to him. If it is a coercive relationship, he needs someone acknowledging him as capable of having his own point of view all the more.

If you suspect your son or daughter has an abusive spouse, it's not the time for trying to exert your authority over either of them. Grit your teeth and do your best to be ultra-reasonable. Certainly don't hand the spouse any ammunition, metaphorically speaking, in their battle to push you out of their lives and keep your son/daughter isolated.

We are all speculating but I do feel that if this was someone’s daughter who had been isolated by her husband and had no contact with her family, had given up her career and was working in the husband’s family’s business, the advice would be very different

Mine would not change. The sex of the child in the parent/child bond is a detail that has no bearing on my opinion.

Word and primary focus choices matter far more. If a parent is fearful, or concerned that their child is being controlled, to the extent that they have been coerced into breaking a healthy, loving parental bond, IME the parents tend to focus in a very significant manner on their concern for their child.

It is both natural and normal for a parent to conclude that if their child is suffering coercion into alienation from a strong and healthy bond notable harm is being done to their child. Emotions and mental harm for sure. Potentially also physical and economic.

Parental concern of that nature is understandably both very urgent and at the forefront of the parent's mind. This is their child they suspect is being harmed via control, and unwillingly separated from their protection, with the express intent to facilitate more harm (emotional, mental, economic, physical). The perfectly natural parental fear involved in that sort of scenario tends to leak all over all aspects of their communications and takes pole position as the main cause of their evident pain. Because this is their kid and they are desperately worried about their welfare.

If the parents fail to centre the potential harm they say they suspect their child is being subjected to, and instead make a priority of communicating

-the harm they themselves feel they are suffering as a result of the estrangement

-the extent to how clean their hands as per the cause of the estrsngment

-the child's unreasonable responses to their overtures of reconciliation.

... that typically demonstrates that their fear of a controlling, emotionally abusing, harm causing (via coerced family estrangement) spouse (+/- spouse's family) is not the overwhelming response they are feeling towards the rift as it begins, evolves and becomes an extended state of play.

I have one child. A son of 18. I don't believe his penis gives him immunity from a partner with ill intent. I know better than anybody else he is not invincible, emotionally or mentally, due to being male. I have no doubt that if I believed there was a strong possibility a partner was trying to harm him via control, and separating him from us was an act of eliminating the layer of protection our presence in his life offered, to make that harm easier to achieve, my posts would be the same in content and tone as those of the mothers that post in desperation on the relationships board, begging for help and advice because they are in an absolute state of frantic concern for their daughter.

I responded to the OP as I did because of the points she prioritised in her posts, not because of the sex of her child.

littledragon I meant to reply to your post earlier... I wasn't all that clear headed while it was all going on, it's all hindsight. I didn't understand what was happening at the time and I underestimated the effect it had had on me when I was out of the house. I spent years making crap choices, putting myself last and feeling intense shame about behaviour that so now realise was a direct consequence of the abuse I experienced as a child. It is what it is, you know? My mother didn't do the thing with the money but I do recognise that crazy-making thing of constantly changing standards of what was good and bad behaviour.

There are a lot of people on this thread making up and adding in stories to this thread, what's ifs, maybes, total projections. How about actually reading what OP has posted and offering some support to someone Whois obviously in a lot of pain. I guess that's what she came here for. I think the opposite has been achieved when some people just can't help dramatising and projecting. Why are some of you finding it so hard to believe that OP acted in kindness and with good intentions? Maybe because you haven't experienced this in your own lives. OP sending love and I pray that you find some peace 💐

Her family were extremely rude to pile into your house, tell you to put the dogs out, demand alcohol and help themselves to cakes before the main course was served. They sound like spoilt children. Possibly coming from a place of little respect for a family from outside their culture, given your son was forced to hide by DIL for years because he is white. I’m speechless that they said “kick the dog”!

chutney you might want to look at some of the OP’s previous threads. She’s fallen out with a huge number of people, often over the most trivial of things, or perceived slights, but it’s never her fault. She was NC with her own MIL, and caused upset over another child’s wedding plans.
Until she can understand her own behaviour, things will never change for her.

Why are some of you finding it so hard to believe that OP acted in kindness and with good intentions?

Because she is producing some well studied patterns of priorities and focus that tend to emerge in the context of parent/child estrangement. It is not impossible that her self assessment is spot on. But it is improbable. Spot on or not, as other posters have pointed out staying in place with her self assessment and perspective is not going to help her.

I think what some people struggle to understand is that a single lens held rigidly in place is a well studied, well established route to the OP being locked into a searing loss for the long term.

The intention behind the words of those who reflect that single lens back at her as valid, is kind and good. But "kind and good" as part of the construction of bars doesn't change the reality of helping to imprison a person in a world of pain.

The OP can believe, or have come to believe that she acted wholly in kindness and with good intentions. But her son could have a very different perspective of her actions. Truth is a very fluid thing when it comes to individual headspaces.

If they are locked in polar opposite perspectives and nobody budges to take a more unbiased, less self-flattering, deeply uncomfortable, "walking in somebody else's shoes" view of their participation of the the realtionship's collapse, the chances of resolution slip further and further away as time goes on.

The OP is evidently hurting from the loss of her child. She has been very clear she wants the loss to end and reconcilliation to begin. Which means there is still hope, still time.

But not so much if she keeps repeating attempts to end her pain with that single "I was kind and well intentioned, the other side were not" lens held tightly in place. Expecting different results from each overture that doesn't change in fundamental approach. Anybody encouraging her to do that, no matter how good a place it comes from, is potentially adding another brick to help reinforce the wall between her and her boy.

Look at your child. Imagine them very much alive, but lost to you. The searing intensity of that feeling doesn't suddenly disappear just because they get big and have to shave. A held hand and kind words are no compensation for a type of help that has a significant chance of supporting a parent into maintaining that kind of pain as major feature in their life. Potentially for all the time they have left. Because there can come a point where repeated overtures that are very similar in that "single lens" stance can create a titanium-like resistance to any future attempts at reconciliation. A person can change their approach with a new, more "other perspectives included" thinking ....and meet such heavily reinforced barriers that the shift they have so painfully achieved, never gets seen or heard.

When you are are at risk of downing, kind words that don't challenge the direction you are moving in can soothe away any half-hidden, fearful doubts about your internal compass,. And instead confirm the direction of the walk towards the tsunami. They can distract you from the steadily rising water levels. And it makes it so very much harder to hear to distant screams of people yelling "turn around, there's a life raft 130° to your left".

I don't want her, her son, her wider family in this club any longer than they have to be. It's a spectacularly shit club. The fees are outrageously high, and the only currency you are allowed to pay with is pain. Pain that can take your breath away with an intensity that can sustain for decades.

I'm not going to sit back while watching kind and well intentioned people potentially soothe her into accidentally signing up for that. I am a lot of not good things. I have more flaws, more faults, more accumulated fuck ups than your average human. But I'm not that cold and unfeeling that I can hide the thread and think "fuck it, it's her funeral".

That life raft is probably hole free and floaty at the nine month mark. She doesn't have to be swept out to drown in the seas of enduring loss, bitterness, or regret. If I could dive in and help pull her out of the strong current she's stuck in I would. But it doesn't work that way. When you are in the throes of estrangement you are very much alone out there. The only person who can change direction is you. Because only you control the degree to which you are willing to open your mind to the possibility of more than one truth.

I didn't understand a word of that ^^

Nor did I

@CesiraAndEnrico
I don’t think I have ever read a more waffles and utterly nonsensical post in all my years on mumsnet. Good on you!

@CesiraAndEnrico I do get you, for example in OP's original post she doesn't actually say that she wants things to improve, just that she thinks they've been awful and she is grieving.
Posts like this are the equivalent of putting coal on the fire Her family were extremely rude to pile into your house, tell you to put the dogs out, demand alcohol and help themselves to cakes before the main course was served. They sound like spoilt children. Possibly coming from a place of little respect for a family from outside their culture, given your son was forced to hide by DIL for years because he is white. I’m speechless that they said “kick the dog”!
-not at all helpful to the problem, presuming of course that OP DOES want things to improve and hasn't just come on for affirmation. That much is still hard to say.

Lots of us have had relatives who act out of kindness and good intentions. The recipients of their kindness sometimes appreciate it. Sometimes they don't want help - and there can be many reasons why it is not welcome.

You have to judge for yourself whether your generosity is welcomed before you act. Imposing unwanted generosity can be bullying. I help my aged parent - while I am willing to do more and buy things for her, I have to curb my behaviour because she likes to be independent and she also likes to be generous.

You might need to come up with a way of allowing mutual generosity- if one party is always on the receiving side, they can come to dread being given unwanted help.

I understand what you’re saying, Cesira . Both you and Mummyoflittledragon have been both eloquent and measured on this thread.

I get you too cesira, I totally see what you mean

I was going to say I have no idea at all what you are on about Cesira. I am pleased others are equally baffled.

I can absolutely understand what Cesira is saying.

Chutney says that people should be offering more support to the OP who is clearly in a great deal of pain. I agree that she is, understandably so, and that she needs support. But I disagree that the best way to support her is to tell her that she’s 100% in the right and her son/DIL are awful. That might make her feel consoled in the moment, but it won’t help her fix the rift between them that’s causing her pain.

I thought Cesira's post was perfectly clear.

But if you want a dumbed down version, I'm happy to accommodate.

"Mate, telling people that they've done the right thing often seems like the nice thing to do, but in the long-term it is less than kind. We all know this when it comes to the minor basics- for example, if your best friend wanted an evening gown and she tried on one that made her look like Edward Scissorhands, who wouldn't steer her away?

But in the big, big matters, like begotiating family relationships people find it harder to be honest yet tactful. In fact, people often gain a Rah Rah Sisterhood to applaud any stance they take, to their own detriment. The OP's son has gone nc with her, and the best chance she has of rekindling the relationship is if she convinces him she has taken his feelings on board and she won't repeat the behaviour on her side that led to this. (And follows through on that.)

Every person who tells her she was totally reasonable in the first place is doing their little bit to make it harder for her to resolve this.

At this point, it's been nine months, and it's still possible to approach her son. With every month and year that passes, the chances that fences can be mended will drop. These things need effort on both sides, and with time, her son will build a life without his parents in it, and learn to cope with that. It will become the status quo, and after that, the chasm between mother and son may seem like too much effort and risk to him to bridge.

The club of people who have no relationship with parents/their adult children is a terrible one. There are no perks: no 10% off at leading UK supermarkets, no Pizza Express vouchers, no discounted cinema tickets.

It's not supportive to steer the OP into it. There are a fair few hackneyed phrases about tempting people into things that imperil their future with pleasant words, aren't there?

I do wonder why there ring didn't go to your daughter?

JamieVardysHavingAParty

Why can't I do that ?

Think of all the megabytes we'd save.

Although in my defence I would like to point out that I was the user who first discovered MN places a character limit on your posts. Mine might still be long and waffly, but at least they all fit into a single post these days.

Twitter however, remains a challenge too far.

Hah! I've tried Twitter and I can't even arrange a meet-up for next week with friends without running foul of the character limit!

Jamie sorry I didn’t understand that either!

Which bit?

I thought Cesira was crystal clear and I am in 100% agreement. I am pretty shocked by some of the reactions to the post actually. Thanks for the dumbed down version Jamie. 😁

Sadly I think op is long gone. Happy to discuss Nicholarse and Cuntaline and anything, which is fun or puts her in a good light but unable to face her demons. I do, however, hope she is able to come through this. I do not believe her to be a nasty person or having been purposefully malicious to her ds and dil.

Unfortunately being unwilling to engage with mumsnet wisdom when the going got tough really just confirms our suspicions that op is unable to face the truth. Saving face and being right appears to be more important to her than keeping in contact with her son. She just cannot see it in this way. So sad.

toomuchtooold. Your post is all too familiar. 😘

Hi, I am really sorry to hear about what you have been going through, and I empathise about the situation with your son. If I may make a suggestion, I would write your feelings down on paper and send a letter to your son explaining that you only meant well, send him your affections as well as your good wishes to his wife, as you meant no disrespect, asking that as family, you meet-up with your husband to try to resolve this. As you and your husband's health appear to have been affected by this, speaking to a counsellor may help, there are free local services that can be accessed without being referred by a GP, such as 'Talking Therapies' and CBT - i.e. 'Moodzone' on the NHS website offers a search facility. I hope this helps, and wish you all the best.

@CesiraAndEnrico

Have appreciated your very clear posts on this thread - can you suggest a good place to start to read some of the research you have referenced?