Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who has given me advice on my thread about my son wanting to drop out of uni. And, of course, I am here again to give an update on that and ask for more advice on how to cope with what's happened since my last post.
Since my son wasn't responding to our texts or calls, we decided to reach out to his gf and she told us he's not been going to lectures at all and generally had no motivation to do anything. She told us that even when she suggests doing various things at the weekend, he isn't that enthusiastic about it and doesn't want to do anything. She then told us that they decided to split and therefore wouldn't be seeing as much of each other as before.
After we spoke to his gf, I was extremely concerned by what she told us as this was a completely misaligned with what he had been telling us before Christmas. He himself wasn't responding to my requests for calls or my texts, so last week my husband and I decided to drive up to his uni accommodation to see him. You probably will not believe it but a) his gf was in his room with him and b) out of embarrassment or something else, he refused to open the door and speak to us!
I had to call my sister and ask her husband to speak to him since my son always had a good relationship with him. In the end, he informed even him that he decided to quit uni and focus on YouTube. My BIL told him it wasn't acceptable to keep ignoring your parents and refuse to open the door and see them after they drove to see you for 2 hours and suggested that he calls and apologises. He did call in the end but rather than apologise told us that it was always our idea for him to go to uni rather than his and he doesn't want to pursue that anymore. At that point, my husband informed him that we would respect his decision but also would have to stop funding both his accommodation and living expenses and he'd have to work something out himself. He said fine and that's how that conversation ended.
I don't really know what I am here to ask or what I expect to hear. I know that we have likely gone badly wrong somewhere and failed as parents but I am still so heartbroken and sad about the level of deceipt that we have uncovered as my son was telling us throughout October, November, December and even January that he really understood how important it was for him to study and how he was spending all his time in the library. He asked us to help him buy a new laptop in November as his old one wasn't working well. We did buy one as we really thought he needed it to study.
I am now just completely shocked that he has essentially been lying to us for months and pretty much doing nothing while we have been funding his accommodation and living expenses and he has been incurring debt on his tuition fees while doing absolutely nothing as described by his girlfriend. I do realise that he may be suffering from depression and I did tell him that we can get help if he is depressed and that we would always be there for him too. He just ignored all that, and I am still really worried, concerned and at the same time disgusted by all the lies he's been telling us about studying while accepting our money for living expenses and accommodation and essentially wasting it all on nothing. I also discovered he took out the maintenance loan from the Student Loan Company despite the fact that we have been funding his groceries and rent. I have no idea where the money has been going and what he's been spending it on as he doesn't buy clothes, gadgets, go out or does anything else that could explain his expenses.
I know that I shouldn't be making this about how I feel and that I should be working out how I can help him but I just can't stop thinking about his deception and wondering where I went wrong as a parent while also worrying about his future. I also can't stop feeling deceived and disgusted with the whole situation and can't stop blaming myself for doing an abysmal job as a parent as we evidently went very wrong somewhere... I don't really know where and how to find a way forward from this and what to do, so I am hoping to hear some advice from other parents.