Fallout with son (29)

[54andcounting]

Not for the first time today my almost 30 year old accused me of treating him and his now 25 year brother differently. I’ll try and cut this long story story short - single mum, 6 month old son meets marries, has another son. Fast forward oldest child gets in trouble, husband (not child’s father) forces child out of home because of his criminal activity. I stood by my child, it eventually ruined my marriage. At age 17 my oldest child
lived with his aunt, my sister and I saw him every day, and eventually after my marriage completely failed he came to live with me and sadly my
youngest son stayed with his dad. I have a really good relationship with my youngest son who is now 25. I see him once a week, he has his own life etc. I see my oldest maybe twice. My eldest son always points out my failures with him, says I always treated me sons different

Tell him he’s now old enough to sort it in therapy and offer family counselling if there’s any issues he wants to iron out.

I think siblings always feel like the other sibling was favoured, rightly or not, especially under rocky circumstances (my brother and I don’t even speak anymore). The issue is, at some point you’re an adult and it’s on you to work on your issues. He can’t use you as the emotional punching bag.

I think most siblings feel like they have been treated differently to the other. To be honest sometimes you do have to treat them a little differently because their personalities are different and they may respond to things in different ways.

I have close relationships with both my DD but my youngest made a comment last year apparently 'jokingly' that her sister was the favourite because she was the first born. Her older sister then said 'are you kidding me? You are the favourite because you are the baby and you always got away with everything' Cue a conversation with them both about this and me reassuring them that I always tried hard to treat them the same, or as much as I could do, and that I love them the same.

The issue has been dropped since and it no longer an issue but it was interesting that it was even brought up because I have always tried hard never to make one of them feel more loved, or more important, than the other and have always tried hard to treat them the same. So it was a bit of a shock to me to listen to how they felt and how they interpreted things and certain things that had happened. Especially when that was the very last thing I was trying to do.

Your son possibly feels this but he is an adult now and should realise that parents have to adapt and change their approaches sometimes based on each childs circumstances and personalities and its not favouritism. Sometimes you treat your children differently because THEY ARE different. If you know what I mean.

All you can do really is talk to him and explain why certain things happened or were handled in the way they were and let him talk and you listen to him and validate his feelings. Then after that I think these are his own issues that he needs to sort through himself and you may need to leave him to sort it. But its totally unfair for him to punish you over decisions and choices made in the past.