How awful that much-loved 30-year-old son cut all contact

[soupsetpleasehelp]

I'm actually writing as I have a very, dear old friend whose DS has completely cut her off. He is in his early 30s and he grew up between his parents (in a different country so no risk that this is outing) after his dad left the mum, shared contact which is common over there. The dad has since then had numerous relationships, and was horrible towards my friend in the early days, and wouldn't provide enough economic support etc. All the main care really came from my friend.

Anyhow, she was always extremely close to her son and was (is) the most warm, loving mum (person) you could imagine. Her son was always her first priority (but I wouldn't say he was spoilt) and we, her friends, always used to meet up with him and he was super cuddly and loving with his mum. No wonder, she was always very encouraging. However, over the last few years he's gone into modelling and has had a few girlfriends, the most recent one who is from a wealthy family.

My friend's son has slowly cut contact from last Xmas until a hard cut off earlier this year. He kept bringing up old (what I would have considered normal experiences) from when he was a child, when he felt she didn't meet his needs with regards to taking him e.g. to the doctors immediately after a fall (she did the next day when he complained of more pain, he initially said it was OK) and he had a fracture. Well, I'm sure lots of parents would have been the same. She is the most far from neglectful you could imagine, a wonderful person.

My friend has taken onboard that perhaps she and her parents at times talked about her ex husband (the father) in not too rosy a terms but I don't think it was a bad case of it at all, just a few occasions (tbh we all knew how awful the father was to my friend).

I wonder at times whether he due to mental health issues is gaslighting his mum, and now that he is in the modelling world and with rich girlfriend and parents, he somehow is embarrassed about his mum (who is very overweight and lives in a small flat) and that this has created some sort of dissonance which have led him to almost create false memories of how awful she was when he was growing up.

I hate seeing my friend upset and I would like to offer to write a letter to the son (and perhaps to his girlfriend and her parents as they only have his word) as I know both my friend and remember seeing her son grow up from 0-5, then seeing them regularly almost every year until he was in his late teens/early 20s. She honestly is a natural with kids and the kindest friend.

I would like to hear from all of you out there that have been affected by this either as the person being cut off, or the person dropping contact. What would be the best way to approach this letter?

Thank you for saying that, that’s put a smile on my face. I’m glad you found it helpful in someway

I will be your therapist, you can pay me in wine which we can then share 😂

Omg yes please 🍷 😁

I believe there are people who might go NC for unjustifiable reasons, but rarely would these people think they were abused when they weren't . They would not use the term abuse. Only someone delusional would think they have been physically or sexually abused when they haven't been.

The friend wanted her son to see the same
psychologist as her to “work through the issues” - another red flag!

Abuse isn’t the only valid reason to go NC with parents. Some feel they were let down by their parents, had emotionally unavailable parents etc. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what other people think is a good enough reason, people have every right to make their own choices.

Oh, I see. No, not always. More than women, though.

What about emotional and mental abuse and/or bullying?

Wow, that’s such a wise and powerful post, Errors. I’m so sorry that your mum was like that when you were young, but so happy for you that you found a way to come to terms with it. To exorcise all that pain sounds incredible.

I'm afraid I'd say theres more to the story here. I am low contact with my mum, the only reason I've not gone no contact is that she physically wouldn't let me. She already shows up at my house unannounced every couple of months and expects me to drop things. She is a narcissist and a very cold person. The reason I'd say that there is more to the story is that (I'm assuming) that you are hearing only her side of the story and if you asked my mother's friends they would say she were a brilliant mum and grandmother. What they don't see is that on the very odd, spaced out occasion she sees her grandson she spends most of the time posing photos or taking photos of him doing mundane things (eating a banana) and then uses these to show her friends how great she is as a grandma.

My mum also declined to take me to hospital after a quad bike accident, my little brother was also on the bike with me. She wouldn't take me because it was easter sunday and we had dinner plans and then a service at the cathedral - she didn't want to miss this. Increasingly over dinner it became obvious something was wrong, I got myself back to uni on the train the next day (carrying a very heavy crossbody bag) and then made my way to A&E to find out I had 2 fractured ribs. But in hindsight we had a great family dinner and no one remembers the number of stairs I had to drag myself up in the restaurant to get to the toilets in clear pain. There are so many stories that I can tell but they sound like I'm being dramatic if you hear them as standalone stories.

It was a long process realising that I was not a priority for her once I became a certain age, almost like I'd served my purpose. It sounds like the son is realising somethings, this happens with age, life experience and new perspectives.

Very insightful and healing to read, indeed. I’m going to come back to it, and read it again, because there are people from the past who I’ve sort-of forgiven but not quite, and I could do with some of that there exorcising!

@Errors I’m really glad you found healing for yourself. You sound really well adjusted and I’m sure that’s taken a lot of work.

I completely agree that forgiveness is for yourself. I will say, though, that forgiveness doesn’t always mean continuing a relationship with the person who hurt you. My husband has spent a lot of time understanding his abusive father and sometimes sympathetically of the reasons why he was the way he was (a real case of This Be The Verse). He has made peace with the abuse he suffered and has in his own way forgiven his father. But he will never see him again - that’s just not something he feels he needs to do in order to heal. He is healed and has done so completely independently. I guess I just wanted to add this as I don’t want anyone on here to think the only way they can heal is to forgive and forget and make friends with their abuser - you can find healing and peace in other ways too.

The truth is subjective. TBH I could see my mum’s best friend saying the same as you but in reality, she did and said some very damaging things. You truly don’t know what he has experienced or more importantly, how he has experienced things. Continue to be a good friend but do that only with your friend, it is not your place to interfere further and if anything, would likely only inflame the situation; the very idea that you would contact someone he’s in a relationship with and her extended family is frankly outrageous and would likely result in them all thinking you’re both completely unhinged.

For me it was realising that my mother and sister weren't to blame for the abuse we all suffered at the hands of my father, helped me realise what he did was wrong . Not that he was an evil monster but a damaged man who did bad things and my mother a damaged woman who enabled him because she was afraid. I saw myself as a difficult child who maybe didn't help herself, and perhaps it was hard for me to accept maybe it wasn't my fault , I often felt I was making a fuss over nothing. But my sister sure wasn't! It's that which helps me realise it was genuine abuse and was wrong.

This. I don't think the term trauma has been defined too widely at all either. If your limbic system and brain perceived it as potentially life changing trauma, then it was! Reading The Body Keeps the Score and the books by Carolyn Spring, which my therapist encouraged me to read have been so helpful for me. I've stopped asking myself how valid my trauma is every day. I still do ask myself and have doubts but they no longer cripple and obsess me. I'm getting well.

I would say the same. I have CPTSD from being bullied, teased and shamed by my peers. I was also sexually abused by more the one person at different ages starting young, and physically as well as mentally abused by my father. The effects have been the same. If anything the emotional and mental abuse were the biggest for me because they were on going and threats of violence were involved, weapons used as a threat, murder threats. The actual physical stuff was never as bad as what I feared would happen. The fear is the worst bit . And the shame . Such shame.

Knowing also as well that the abuse would have been considered too low level to need any social services investigation . I used to pray for death or that I would have the courage to do it. No one was going to rescue me. And my mother said verbal abuse doesn't count, it's not as serious. She said he wasn't really hurting us and it was ok because he was sorry afterwards and he loved us.

That’s really sad. I’m sorry that happened to you.

I am NC from my parents. I got a letter from a relative. It was a lovely well intentioned letter. She is a truly lovely person however there is no way in the world I would ever, ever have a relationship with my family again.

There was incest. There was cover up. It isn’t something I want to discuss again. My parents and siblings who participated and went along with this are not people I should or could trust again.

@soupsetpleasehelp you have absolutely no idea what goes on behind closed doors, none. I am not suggesting it is anything like my situation and I get you want to be a good friend but I don’t think writing a letter is a good idea. You are projecting your own ideas about what relationships should be onto this situation. Any adult has the right to have whatever adult relationships they want and no one else gets to write the rules for another adult. There is a lot of unseen dysfunction out there, let others figure out their own path.

What a surprise. Of course you think this post is “wonderfully honest and helpful” - because it completely supports your chosen narrative that your friend is oh so lovely and couldn’t possibly be at fault in any of this. No, it’s all the son’s fault for having his head turned by a modelling career and the wealth of his family; for being corrupted by the evils of social media. You don’t need to actually examine anything at all - you’ve been given a convenient place to lay the blame and you’ve grabbed it.

I felt sorry for you that certain posters had derailed your thread, because you’d had the sense to admit the letter was a bad idea, which made me think you’d even listening. But actually, you still believe that there’s no possibility your friend is in any way to blame for any of this, and that it’s all down to her son and the dreaded “wealthy family”.

That means a lot to me, thank you.

The point is still the same. Whether or not you actually send the letter you thought it was a good idea to not only get involved but to fan the flames. You don’t know what has happened, you’ve had one side & your reaction to people telling you this (& our own experiences which you totally ignore) & insist you & your friend know better, that her therapist needs to tell him he’s wrong & you guys are right, plus her telling you everything then you relaying all this private info just shows what type of person (you both) are & tells us part of the reason he’s gone NC. If she’s anything like you are relaying then I’m not surprised, especially as she wants you to get involved to try and force him to see how wrong he is & how right you both are. It’s insufferable, especially the way you not only talk about him with his modelling etc. If I was in his place & had you getting involved I’d be blocking you both & it would only confirm I’d done the right thing..

just shows what type of person (you both) are & tells us part of the reason he’s gone NC

Extraordinary thing to conclude and say when you know none of the people involved and absolutely nothing about the facts in this situation.

Maybe mum could create a photo album for him of past childhood photos. So not minimising his feelings but helping him remember the joyous times.

Do not send a letter, instead help your friend put a photo album together of childhood photos for him. This can be done online.

The fact that both you and your friend even considered writing a letter as a good idea suggests that you might both struggle with setting healthy boundaries.

You only meet your friend once a year and you appear to be over-invested. I would encourage you to reflect on why you feel the need to get involved to such an excessive degree. This tendency could stem from people-pleasing habits.

I’ve met people who seem very nice, but they often have an unhealthy level of involvement in others’ lives, crossing boundaries.

I wonder if both you and your friend might fall into that category.

I completely agree with you. It’s all down to each individual’s tolerance levels and this is a very personal choice.

Actually internet forums like mumsnet are very quick to recommend cutting people off rather than dealing with complexity. I am saying that it is unlikely that the son would have cut the mother off without the influence of the culture that mumsnet is part of, and as such it’s not the place to bring grievances about “cut ‘em off” culture if you don’t want to hear more of the same.

I agree that narcissism is bandied about too easily but it’s now in heavy use, so if people are going to use it, they might has well have a look at their own reflection in the water first.