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?

It would be a very bad idea for you to write a letter. I think your friend needs to take a step back especially from getting other folk involved who aren't even part of the family. She will just have to hope he will come round in the future.

Just going to leave this here: www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

If anyone is ‘creating false memories’ it is likely to be your friend.

You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to interfere like this.

Many years ago my late mum had some friends whose children cut all contact with them. My mother was forever saying how awful it was for them, what lovely people they were etc and I met them a couple of times they did seem lovely. The wife died and the next thing we knew he was charged and found guilty of historical sexual abuse of his children and sentenced to 7 years! Apparently the wife knew and turned a blind eye.
Im not saying this has happened to your friends DS but children don’t generally cut all contact with their parents for trivial reasons.

Don't be the flying monkey. You sound far too invested in this. It seems to me that you are loving the drama and you are trying to put yourself right in the middle of it.

God, I can't remember at age 5!! And to be honest if I had, it could have been to prevent the diatribe for not.

And what difference does those make? A child cuddling another adult is not foolproof evidence that the mother was perfect. It really tells you nothing at all! Fucking hell, you are clueless!

I would just say that you really have no idea what goes on behind closed doors and people are very good at putting a show on it public.

It takes a great amount of courage to cut off a toxic parent, people don’t do it for the fun of it.

Leave it alone, he has enough to contend with.

I’m in the same boat as you, people would
look at my dad and think I was awful for never going around. What they don’t know is he used to be physically abusive to my mam and brother and and verbally abusive to all of us. He’s a selfishness narcissist but no one would know that!

What a cruel thing to say. You're not a nice person for sure.

I've known my friend for 30 years, we have a wide circle of joint friends and we're frankly all shocked.

He has cut off everyone apart from his 'new' family (girlfriend and wealthy family).

My friend did not suggest that i write a letter, but I wanted to write something thoughtful to see if we could get a dialogue going.

You clearly know fuck all about attachment.

You say your friend supports you writing to him. This clearly shows she has no understanding of how to deal with him/people in general so I think it’s fair to say this probably had a negative impact on his upbringing.

Honestly this letter is the kind of thing my own mother, who is completely insane, would get one of her well-meaning but slightly batty friends to do if I ever cut contact with her.

Does the mother also support you writing to his girlfriend and her parents? If so there can be no argument at all that she’s a good parent.

And where do you get the statistic that 27/28 is where depression kicks in?

Please don't write the letter. That poor man. You are delusional if you have convinced yourself of this crap.

You don’t know what really goes on behind closed doors. Anyone meeting my mother would think she’s great. But she’s not, and I had a pretty miserable upbringing. By writing to him and his gfs family, you’re putting yourself right in the middle, and it could do far more harm than good.

@soupsetpleasehelp no I don't know her or him. I do know that people often only show you what they want you to see and you likely don't know the full story.

Often parents who have been cut off will say they have no idea why or will claim mental illness, claim the child is lying or blame others. Actually the majority of them will have been told exactly why, many many times.
Believe me when I tell you I have a lot of personal and professional experience here and I think this is a terrible idea.
You could do untold damage and potentially wreck any chance of a reconciliation.

I suggested the letter and not just to the son. It was me, not my friend suggesting it.

Replying to someone else, yes as a young child he clearly had trauma as part of his parents splitting up. He was a super teen but seems to have had a delayed teen period. My friend's psychologist said this is not uncommon in kids of single mothers. Kids/sons can get quite angry with their mums but much later.

Children are programmed to try to get their parents to love them because they rely on them for their survival. Seeking hugs does not mean someone had an ok childhood.

Sorry but this is nothing to do with you. My mother also came across as an amazing mother and all my friends told me they wished she was their mum. They didn’t know about the years of physical and emotional abuse she subjected me too. I cut contact with her too in my mid 30s and I’m sure her side of the story is very different. You don’t know what’s gone on.

Don’t be so naive.

Kids don’t cut off their parents without good reason. She’s not your Mum - you know less than half about what’s gone on.

Keep out of it.

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)

You want to write to not only your friend's son but also his partner and her parents to question him about why he has made the decision not to see his mother? Are you mad?

First of all, he is a grown adult man and he is fully entitled to decide for himself whether he wants to see his mother or not, without random people interfering with emotionally manipulative and intrusive letters.

Secondly, you have no real idea what things were like for him when he was a child. You do not get to judge/decide what counts as a normal childhood experience or not. Just because you think he seemed happy as a child and just because your friend says things were normal, that doesn't mean things were OK, or that he feels the same.

Even if his idea of abuse/neglect does include things that most people consider normal childhood experiences, it's still up to HIM to decide how HE feels about HIS childhood. Clearly, contact with his mother doesn't make him happy and clearly he has decided to stop seeing her for a reason, and that is absolutely none of your business. For all you know, that reason might be nothing more than that he just feels like shit every time he talks to her and he can't be dealing with it any more. And that's still his choice to make.

Thirdly, the idea of you writing to his girlfriend and her parents is fucking deranged. Seriously. You think that is going to help matters? His mum's friend writing weird letters to his girlfriend and her parents? He's going to think both you and his mother are toxic as hell and he will be utterly, utterly furious, as well as mortified that his girlfriend and her bloody parents have been dragged into this. It's nothing to do with them and they don't deserve to start receiving guilt-tripping letters essentially suggesting that their partner/son-in-law is somehow defective and crazy because he doesn't want to see his mother.

FWIW, while I'm not estranged from my family, I have been on the receiving end of this sort of drama - I haven't been the person who cut their family off, but I have been the person close to them who a) got messages from a go-between like you and b) had to deal with the fall out when the person who was estranged from his family got similar letters.

We had this happen exactly. The friend wrote the letter, and I had to phone her and explain that he friend had been lying to her for years. I don't think you should get involved. Look after your friend, but don't try to interfere, becasue you don't know the truth of what happens behind closed doors.

Do not write a letter. No one cuts off a parent without good reason.

I did not cut contact completely but went low contact . My parents broke up when I was about 3.5 years old. My mother kept me away from my Father and made access incredibly hard. I saw him again at 13. She later admitted in a rare reflective moment that he hadn’t done anything wrong as such she just couldn’t be bothered with the hassle plus was enamoured of my horrible stepfather. She did talk very negatively about my real Father, it was awful and vindictive.

My friend is divorcing, her husband had an affair and lied to her for a year. Not once has she bad mouthed him to their children. Your friend made a massive error because he is still her sons Father. Plus I am suspicious of the not seeking medical advice. My Mother also refused to take me for medical treatment once and then decided that she would fix my dislocated elbow, it had happened before so she reckoned she could do it. I remember every single second of that incident,I was 6 years old and it was 50 odd years ago.

Everyone thought my Mother was lovely including her many friends. Funnily enough she never mentioned how she made my brother drown unwanted kittens in a bucket when he was 12, that man was haunted by that till the day he died.

You have zero idea what’s going on. People can wear more than one face.

It seems you want to be right. You could permanently damage his relationship with his mother if you get involved. Do you not care about the damage you could cause?

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

curious you use the future tense in terms of the offer, and not I’ve offered and my friend accepted…

honestly. Stay out op.

But there’s truth to what PP is saying? Leave it alone.

Do not write this letter.