do things come full circle? serious advice needed pls very long.

[herewegoagainpleaseno]

24 years ago my son was due to begin law at university.
basically my dh and I went on holiday for 2 weeks, when we returned ds had moved in an older woman, I will call edith ,who was pregnant.

she had never worked to support herself, after her divorce, sofa surfed until she met my ds.
ds stopped his studies, didn't work either, while I supported them both.i
constantly insisted they worked but they ignored me.

not that it was their fault, but a few months later I had a stroke, being so poorly I told them to leave and find their own place.

the day after they left a letter came for edith in response to her application for housing benefit on MY home which would have been fraudulent.
another air mail letter came from her friend in Australia responding to her query as to the easiest area of Australia to go to to "get in" and advising her she would be found an Australian husband.
edith requested a "private birth at the Portland as it was safer than nhs", obviously it couldn't happen.
edith asked if I could finance a house for my new grandchild,we can call sarah, it couldn't happen.
edith wanted private education for sarah, which ds agreed to despite being in a poorly paid job.
after a year or so, edith found a new man who could provide financially for her needs.
ds continued paying for the education building up massive debts, and leaving him barely enough money to feed himself.
I begged him to stop paying the school fees but he said if he did edith threatened him to be denied access.
edith wanted a car to take sarah to school, if ds didn't get a loan for it, he would be denied access.
edith told ds if he wanted to see sarah he mustn't bring her to me as I hadn't financially supported her.
edith refused access of sarah every birthday Christmas etc, even "allowing" ds to speak to sarah one Christmas day, so he kept ringing but edith knew he couldn't talk to her as they were in newzealand!
this access and financial situation left ds severely depressed, penniless, which we were obviously affected by too.
when sarah was 11, ds pleaded with edith to allow sarah to leave private education as ds was virtually bankrupt.

the response was if he stopped paying she would tell sarah ds didn't want to pay anymore as he wanted a girlfriend! ( sarah told ds when she was 6 yrs old that "mummy said if you have a girlfriend you won't be able to see me again")
edith moved from one man to the next over the next few years, ds was still paying and begging to see his daughter, but it was denied/made difficult by edith,
even when he did have access when he returned sarah ,edith would be out sometimes making him wait for 1/2 hours, as she "forgot".

roll on the years ,sarah was at university, ds paid as much as he could to his detriment, edith still relied on her latest man for funding,
I can only visualise her as a financial vulture , swooping on any man to fund her.

after being made redundant ,in desperation ds worked abroad sending money to sarah, who by now had completed a masters degree.
last year sarah was offered an excellent job with relocation expenses, the chance of a rented house close to her first job, which I couldn't believe that she turned down.

by now ds has returned to the uk, has a great job, and living close to his work, finally he can rebuild his life, maybe even save some money and pay off his debts.
sarah said she wanted to live with her dad , which she hadn't since she was 2yrs, and now 24.
(edith is with another man who was opening a pub in January)

ds and gd moved into the new home yesterday, which I was so happy for ds who had suffered so much in previous years , also sarah with as she called her mother a complete narcissist).

then I receive a text from ds to say edith has left the latest boyfriend is moving in with them as she is "homeless".

neither edith or sarah will work/contribute to any running costs, ds said sarah will try to "get a dog walking job".

we have had years trying to deal with ds's depression, poverty,i can't believe it's all happening again, full circle?

I explained my fears to ds, he was angry ,but he simply said it's not what he wanted,
but what can he do about it?

I can't go through this again, watching them both exploit him god knows where it will leave him now.

full circle.

God.

Well, first your son tells Edith to leave immediately. He owes her nothing. Change the locks if she has a key.

Then he should sit his dd down and talk to he, tell her just how badly her mother behaved to him while she was growing up. He needs to tell her that he wants nothing to do with his ex and she is not allowed in his house. If his dd cann't understand that or abide by that, she will have to leave and find somewhere else to live too.

He needs to be really firm about this. He sounds like a bit of a walkover.

It sounds as if Edith's homelessness was imminent and Sarah was the foot in the door to your DS' home.

Sarah doesn't sound like she's too different from her mum. ☹

Honestly you spent years teaching him that this is the right way to deal with this situation by enabling this.

It is not surprising that it has ended up this way.

He has a 24 year old daughter, it is well past time that you stopped worrying about this, especially because it sounds as though during his formative years you basically enabled this crap.

offred, what do you suggest I could have done differently?

how do you think I enabled him?

he loved his daughter deeply, and was a grown man.

he worked, supported sarah to his last penny, I could hardly dictate to either of them what they should do, regarding access despite repeatedly trying mediate .

edith was happy to live on benefits and boyfriends, please suggest what on earth I could have done to make them see reason when edith emotionally blackmailed ds regarding access and money.

You could have refused to financially support them and encouraged your DS to learn how to become assertive/assert access through court when his ex was frustrating access. You could have stopped picking up the pieces for this decades ago.

It is HIS life, if this is what he is choosing for it then you need to find a way of accepting it.

You also need to stop seeing this as all her fault. He chose her, he chose not to use contraception with her too most likely, he chose to bankrupt himself giving in to her demands, he chose to just leave his vulnerable child to be brought up by a woman who seems poisonous and you made a number of choices that infantilised him and enabled the situation to continue.

None of this is your drama though. There is literally no need for you to be so involved. This is how he is choosing to live his life.

Frankly, it is the daughter I feel sorry for in this situation. She was left with a toxic mother and abandoned by a father who was not prepared to protect her by challenging her mother’s bad behaviour, which is bad behaviour in itself IMO.

Unfortunately you can not do any thing, you DS is determined to allow both Sarah and Edith to ruin him. He choosing this all by himself he could easily have told both of them that they couldn't live him. He could have build an adult relationship with Sarah by not living together.

I don't believe Sarah was offered that job and house, it was just a ruse to reel you son back in by her saying daddy I so want to live with you, mum so awful etc, etc. So he came back got a house and with in 24 hours Edith was homeless, really I don't believe it for a moment your ds is just the next wallet she and Sarah want.

Why on earth would your son let Edith move in? Baffling. He owes her nothing

I didn't financially support them, told them to stand on their own two feet.
I also constantly told ds to go to court for access, but he said if he did edith would withhold access.

he refused to go down the legal route afraid of losing his dd, despite me and others advising him that was the only way to go.

I didn't "pick up the pieces" as edith had total control of sarah, ds worked , giving edith as much as he could to keep edith "sweet" as he put it.
yes, he "chose" to almost bankrupt himself for the love of his dd.

ds definitely didn't "just leave his dd", edith moved in with another man taking my gd with her, this was her pattern of behaviour, sometimes ds didn't even know where sarah was.

sarah was never "abandoned" by her father, he constantly searched for access,

he gave her a mobile phone so she could call him and vice versa, but edith took it away, thus refusing access yet again.

yes, we have had great sympathy for sarah over the years, but when access is refused constantly ,how could we have supported her?
I would send cards to her last known address, but heard nothing back.

I agree, ds should have "challenged" ediths refusal for access to sarah, apart from court, what can you do when a child is used like a pawn for financial gain and control?
yes, ds is now the next wallet that has been hijacked.

This is not all down to the his ex.

This is at least as much down to him and his choices.

You said you supported both of them for a while.

IMO you have a very rose tinted view of your son and a very biased view of his ex.

This is not your drama, you are way too over involved.

If he really loved his dd in the right way he would have put her above his desire to please/not get in trouble with her mother.

He chose ‘Edith’, he chose not to go to court, he chose to give in to her demands and bankrupt himself, he’s now choosing to let her come back into his new home... his choice, his choice, his choice...

You need to just get that through your head.

‘Your mum was very demanding’ is not an adequate excuse for failing to parent his child virtually all her life.

He has not been an adequate parent, it sounds like he hasn’t been an adequate adult either and so the daughter has had two inadequate parents.

You have a right to be upset at being deprived of a relationship with your grandchild when she was growing up but you need to see that this is as much your son’s fault as his ex’s.

There’s nothing you can do. It’s up to him. He is a grown man and ought to realise he’s being ripped off. If he does realise and still goes along with it, more fool him.

He really needs to tell Edith to F off and tell Sarah she can stay (if he wants her to) but she’s more than old enough and educated enough to get a job and pay rent.

TBH, i don’t understand why he’s paid what he has. I read this as Edith was pregnant when she moved in. Is sarah even his kid?

At this point, 24 years on, you have to assume that both of them want their lives to be like this.

You need to get on with your own life and let everyone else in this sorry mess get on with theirs.

I bet Jeremy Kyle would prove he wasn't even the df.. .

How on earth did he have to search for access when he was paying school fees? That's a pretty good way of knowing where she was! I would have sent cards via the school, not the last known address.

Was he actually paying any maintenance? You talk a lot about him paying school fees, but he owed a certain amount to her mother for maintenance anyway, and if he could afford school fees, the maintenance might not have been much different.

That said, it sounds like he was threatened all the way and if she was in NZ, not exactly easy to get access. But you say about him moving home - so I can't actually work out whether any of you are in the UK and who has moved where and in what legal jurisdiction they have been - which would impact his options.

What I would advise now...

Sarah knows he has been a constant in her life if from an odd angle, for 24 years. That he paid her school fees. That he was prepared to give her a home.

Now is the time to say "I love you, but I will not house my ex girlfriend" (that's really not normal, Sarah knows that). Please continue to see me.

The following may happen:

• he was Sarah's latest mark and she leaves. Your son has lost a fictitious relationship, I won't say few lost nothing as clearly she is dear to him. But if she sees him only as an ATM, he is losing nothing and the sooner he starts that devastation then healing - the better.

• Sarah will want to see him, but be too influenced by her mother. But at least the path is open when she's ready to break free

• Sarah is ready to break free now, and will be so fucking glad that she now has an excuse to walk away from her awful mother!!

Interesting though, that your son also (24 years ago) was a loser leeching off his mother. Like certainly called to like there.

So if anything has come full circle, perhaps it's him getting his comeuppance for leeching off a woman. It's like an Aesop's fable without the animals.

yes, he is a grown man, it is up to him what happens next.
it's just so hard watching ds constantly being controlled for the last 24 years by edith, and on it goes.

I have told him quite clearly to his face, he needs to get a backbone, even put it in writing by email.

his response was "it isn't what he wants" meaning edith moving in, but "what can I do"?

so, it has come full circle, they will move into his place, he will work to pay to support their lifestyles.
then the pattern of behaviour is that he will become depressed again, they will find another benefactor and he will be left with debts yet again.

of course there is nothing I can do, nor want to, his choice, his loss.

I told him, look at the past to find your future, "he knows" but still continues this path.

yes, I feel sad for sarah, when she was just 6ys, she said, and I remember it clearly, "mummy said men must pay for everything.
my mummy hates you and daddy, but I think you are really nice"

ds has been called a gentle soul, but has been a total weak idiot not standing up for his dd and himself for decades.
now it will all begin again, and I will helplessly stand by and watch.

He could say no.

^exactly. He could say no. That’s what he can do.

What you can do is accept he won’t and don’t try and pick up after him. There’s nothing else you can do.

Yes he has been a weak idiot and he still is now in his forties(?) by allowing it to repeat again.

He will be getting something out of this pattern of behaviour.

All you can really control is how much this affects you.

You don’t need to be around to pick up the pieces (financially or emotionally). He’s an adult and has an adult child.

If his daughter chooses to go the same way as her mother then that is a direct consequence of his (lack of) parenting as well as her bad parenting.

It’s a mess but it is his mess. Step away.

Haven't you posted about this before?

of course ds paid not only maintenance plus school fees, and anything edith wanted/needed.

ds did know of course where his dd was during her school time, but once she left school very often edith would move around and he didn't know where they were.

all 3 in the uk.

I believe it was sarah, with her dm prodding her in the back who said she wanted her dm to move in with ds, no need to work then.

it was only a few weeks ago, edith was moving with latest boyfriend to run the pub, but as soon as ds said about his new house, suddenly edith was "homeless".

also ds was at home, until going to university, but once he met edith, that was when everything changed, but I quickly told them both to find work and support themselves, so ds definitely not leeching off me.

even so, watching you (adult) child walking into yet another disastrous situation is hard to watch, but yes, maybe their dramas their life.
also after years at university sarah's work choice is being a dog walker.

Well that’s Sarah’s problem isn’t it?

Ah, all the NZ and Australia stuff confused me. So NZ was just a holiday trip.

I think by the point that he didn't even know where his own daughter lived, I'd have taken the risk over court. But... hindsight is an easy thing to have.

What is completely clear now, though - is that you have to step away and he needs to say no to them moving in. But... that's his choice. He can let them move in (so he can live with Sarah) but not hand over any cash. It's his choice.