I have two children aged 21 and 19. I was a single parent. Met someone 3 years ago. My children seemed to change from around age 12. During teenage years they thrashed my house - tv's broken, graffitti on walls, threw burning shorts out of an attic window, had friends over when I worked nights for a week and they vomited over sofas, stole money from my bank account, sold items from the house. My daughter told all my neighbours that I beat her up - which wasn't true - some of my neighbours are work colleagues so my work colleagues knew too. She used to threaten to call social services and get her and her brother taken away, and also threaten to destroy my relationship with my son. I work in mental health so gave her the details of the local social services team, but she never rang them. She used to call me a 'fuc*ing plsycho, and say everyone hate me. Several nights a week she used to follow me around the house shouting at me that she wanted money for this that and the other, that her brother was befriending her friends, that she didn't like some teachers in school and I should talk to them, that she had a row with a friend. No matter how much I listened, sometimes hours, it was never enough. I dreaded coming home. When she went into secondary school first, the school didn't have a uniform, and she would shout the house down for an hour before school, if the clothes she wanted to wear that day were in the wash, though I explained calmly that I couldn't get her clothes that were in the middle of a wash. She would also phone me on my work phone every 5 minutes to get her point across about something, though I worked in a very stressful job. I couldn't turn my work phone off in case they needed me as I didn't carry my personal phone with me at work. She refused to do absolutely any chores at home, even bringing dirty plates down from her room. The only sanction was not giving her money, but that didn't really work. I It wasn't possible to take her phone away as the city wasn't always safe going to and from school. My daughter wanted to go for a year to France to school to learn French - it has stood to her well, and she is fluent in it. I paid for it and it cost 15k, but when the family she was with in France came to Ireland, and saw how she treated me, they were shocked, and would not let there son come over and stay with us for a few weeks in the summer.
When my son was 14 we moved to the other side of the city from where we lived due to bullying from neighbours who had an issue with single mothers - it happens in Ireland. He still went to the same school and so had the same friends, and I would let him have one or two friends to stay over at the weekends. However, when he turned 14 he started drinking a lot, started hanging around with older friends, would go drinking with them, and be put on the bus home drunk. He also started taking drugs - my daughter's friend gave them to him. He was hanging around with a really rough crowd. One day my daughter, who was always seemed jealous of him, and though they fight, would also be the best of friends, told me she had seen him with a group of friends in the city trying to beat up a child who had autism from another school. I rang the child's school to let them know. I worked mostly part-time, and then went full-time when he was 15. I would come home from work, and he would have had friends in, and most of our food would be gone - this was a regular occurrence, and food is expensive in Ireland. I tried everything - getting counselling for him, he wouldn't go, social services said he wasn't bad enough for them to get involved, the police were called when I felt intimidated by him, I stopped giving him money for anything except a basic amount for school lunch. However, when I stopped giving him money, he hid drugs in our house for so called friends for 50 euros, the police were tipped off, our house was raided, my son was arrested, then we received death threats for the amount of the drugs that the police took. My son and daughter had to leave the area, and move to a house that I owned since my early 20s - my first home, where we used to live for safety. I stayed in the family home as there were threats of it being fire bombed for the debt, which I did not have the money to pay at the time. For several weeks I slept on the floor of my house in case a firebomb would be thrown through the window. Eventually, after drug dealers calling to my house in the early hours of the morning, I rang the police and they caught them outside my front door and arrested them.
After this, my son could not go back to the school he was in, as the police made them aware that he had been issued with death threats by the drug gang, and this put the staff and other students in the school at risk. He couldn't go to another State/Government school as the police had a duty to notify all State/Government schools, so I had to send him to a private school way out of the city, which took about an hour and half each way in travel. However, the cost of the school was 8000 per year, and I had to work 65 hours a week to be able to pay for it, and to pay for utilities in two properties.
Fast forward today, my children are doing well academically. They both finished school and are in University. However, they have never been able to move back to the family home where I live due to the death threats, and they still treat me badly. My daughter is always rolling her eyes at me, treating me as if I'm stupid, and embarrassing me with snide remarks in front of others. I try to build a relationship with her, and am constantly asking if she would like to go to dinner, go for coffee, go away for a night or two to a hotel, but she will keep me waiting until the last moment, and then say no. She rarely answers her phone or a text from me. She still tells everyone I beat her up, and said that a friend of theirs as teenagers saw it. I have asked this friend and he said he never saw anything like that and doesn't know what my daughter is talking about. I went shopping with her to help her buy a dress about 6 months ago. She asked me to get a size small and a size medium from the rail, which I did. She is very tall, and when she put on the small size, I said it was a bit small - meaning short - and she started shouting and screaming at me in the shop that I was criticising her and she would end up with an eating disorder. She then shouted there that I had never asked her to come to counselling with her brother when he eventually accepted counselling -the counselling was only for my son and I.
In relation to my son, I had to buy him a secondhand car, after paying for driving lessons, test etc., as he works in various hotels for money - and I believe is a good and dedicated employee - but that meant crossing the city, and many of these drug gangs hang around the city centre, so a car was necessary for work. Despite this, my son states I was a 'shit' mother, that I moved school when he was 14 and he never saw his friends - we moved because of bullying from neighbours, and he stayed at the same school. He states I never gave them proper food, though I love to cook, and baked and cooked a lot, but he wouldn't eat anything but boxes of cereals. He states he believes his sister that I used to beat her up, though he says he has never seen me do that. Recently, I moved to the UK to work, partly to get away from things at home, but also I had an extra qualification that I could not get a job in at home, but could here. My son lives 10 minutes from the airport, but has huge issues collecting me from the airport, and it is dangerous to go across the city by bus very late at night on the weekends I come home. They still live in the house that I have owned since my early 20s, but refuse to clean it up. Twice we have had mice, as they left rotting food around, and it cost over 1k in pest control. They resent it if I ask them to cut the hedge or the grass. My son will do it sometimes, but never my daughter. His sister bullied him a lot growing up, and I always intervened when I saw it.
A couple of months ago, I took my son away for 5 days in Spain. On the last night, I said I needed to talk to him about how I had been feeling for a while, that I felt traumatised and exhausted by all the stuff with the drugs, and that I felt there was still a distance between us that I would like to bridge. Then he started saying to me that I always 'fuc*king ruin things,' that he didn't want to talk about this stuff. I stated that I didn't want to talk about the drugs issue either, but I needed to say that I had found it trumatising, and exhausting having to pay for private school as a result, that I was exhausted now and felt the need to semi-retire as all the stuff had affected my physical health, which wasn't great anyway, , and that I was thinking of selling the house they were in, so they would either have to see if it was safe enough to return home, or I would have to give them money from the sale to pay for accommodation. I have very little pension due to working part-time for many years, and the house they are in is my pension. He got really annoyed at this. Then he stated that I was ruining the relationship with his sister and was trying to get between them. I asked him what he meant, and he said he had told me that his sister's ex boyfriend had been around there again a few times recently, and I had asked her then was she back with her ex boyfriend. I was shocked. I really liked my daughter's ex boyfriend. I was glad at the thought she might be back with him. It was just a one off innocent questions, and apparently she got really angry with him for telling me. Then he started saying I always had a weird relationship with my daughter - I have always tried to have a relationship with her - and I reminded him that even his own best friend, who was in my daughter's class, often spoke of how difficult she was growing up, even compared to his own sisters, who he had found difficult. Then my son stated that I was not like his friend's mother, who told him she loved him often. I stated that I often told them I loved them, but that they seemed to 'squirm' when I did so. I reminded him also that his frirend's parents were quite hard on his friend, that his friend's parents had refused to pay for college for him as they didn't think his grades were high enough, and that his friend had always said he felt his sisters were favoured. I started to cry at the table in the restaurant, and my son got even angrier. There was no care or compassion. I have had cardiac issues recently too - in the last year or so- and there was no care/compassion either.
I am sorry for the long post - but I have not contacted either of them in the last 5 weeks. I said I was hurt and needed a break for a while. I feel so much better. So many times, with all the abuse, I felt like I couldn't go on. I feel the need to go no contact for a lot longer - would love some advise on this. I have a partner now, in the last three years, who is shocked at how the kids treat me. I really want to semi-retire. Would really welcome some advice.