Son wants nothing to do with me!

[Wilf1975]

I was married to my first husband, we had a son & daughter together. My husband was mentally, physically & emotionally abusive to the three of us. I eventually found the strength to leave him when my son was 8 and my daughter was 6.
Six months of him leaving my husband took an overdose and ended up in a vegetative state in a nursing home for four years until he died in 2013.
The three of us were always close until my son started going out with his girlfriend 3 years ago. He walked out 2 years ago and I have not really seen him. I have tried everything to try and be included in his life but he doesn’t want that. He totally despises me and blames me for his childhood. My daughter told me yesterday he is getting married in February and will not be inviting me.
I miss him so much, can’t help but think there is something wrong with me. I have a rubbish relationship with my own mum and didn’t want to end up like that.
I feel tired, the people close to me treat me like rubbish and I don’t think I deserve this. It is just one thing after another, I just want some peace and be a family. It feels like I am always picking up after other people and have no say in things. I feel so sad..........

Should be flowers btw not gin!!💐

You are both arrogant for thinking you are the only posters on this thread who are 'qualified' to give any advice to the OP and unable to take on board anything that doesnt fit with your own perspective.

There's been plenty of advice from dozens of people, your issue here is you disagree with our opposite stance. You've been aggressive, calling me ignorant, biased, goady, judgemental and arrogant.

It's a fact when estrangement occurs, the parent(s) know the reasons, they simply refuse to accept it, instead preferring to re-write history. Did you even read the Issendai piece I linked, or was it more compelling to launch an offensive. Then there's the MRA and troll insults.

Here's the link again: go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

jaffa please quote where I have expressed anything that you have accused me of. You won’t, because I haven’t. For starters, if you’d actually read my previous posts from earlier in the thread you’d notice I wasn’t the child victim of dv. Nor have I once compared op to my own mother, which is very easy because they have fuck all in common, or suggested she should take full responsibility. In fact I’ve not even said she needs to take responsibility for the dv at all, let alone in full. Fuck knows what you’re reading.

And in response to your attempt at psychoanalysis, you couldn’t be more wrong. If I saw any similarity between op and my own mother, my response would be to actively encourage her to continue down her current route, and to follow the advice of those saying her ds is like his father, explain to him how it was for you and so on. Because regardless of what specifically his problems are, being dismissed is a good way to ensure he can walk away without regrets.

Nor am I assuming anything I say may work. But as it’s quite clear that expecting him to understand ops side hasn’t worked so far, it’s hardly revolutionary or limiting other alternatives to suggest she needs to approach it from the angle of needing to hear his side in full before offering hers.

And to answer your question, yes, I have been an adult victim of dv but I don’t think sharing the details of the way my own childhood shaped my response to it would be constructive or supportive to share with op.

And as an aside, your assumptions, presumption, judgements, lack of comprehension skills and ignorance are nothing but amusing to me, but somewhat concerning if you’re coming out with such drivel to more vulnerable people whilst declaring to be an expert.

And as an aside, your assumptions, presumption, judgements, lack of comprehension skills and ignorance are nothing but amusing to me, but somewhat concerning if you’re coming out with such drivel to more vulnerable people whilst declaring to be an expert.

don't you think you could take this to PMs with the other person instead of derailing the OP's thread even further?

What strikes me as interesting about this thread is that, whilst the positions are very polarised and that has, clearly created tensions, there is some useful advice that the OP can use to take the situation forward.

The interesting thing, to me, is that most of the actual advice has been from the adult children who grew up in similarly abusive households. The advice has also been fairly consistent. Why? Because we understand what either helped us to move on from it or, by the same token, prevented us from moving on from it and families becoming estranged permanently.

The people who are 'supportive' of the OP are either echoing the same advice with the caveat of "as said by previous posters" (e.g. the adult children I mentioned above) or empty, useless meaningless platitudes: "I hope your son comes round"; "I hope things work out for you"; "You're so brave". All perfectly acceptable and well meaning sentiments but utterly, utterly useless to the OP in resolving the situation she finds herself in,

Or, worse than that, bad advice e.g. "write to him and tell him how you feel"; "explain to him why you made the choices you made" which will, literally, be like pouring petrol onto a barbeque.

I'm sure that you all feel very proud of yourselves for defending the OP and being 'nice' but has any of it been 'helpful'? I doubt it.

Oh and as for the accusation of people being MRA trolls, I'm well aware that you are being a gf and just trying to get a rise out of people but, on the off chance you actually believe this, do you really think MRA activists have a great insight into and empathy for child victims of abuse? Grow up.

Mm. Seems to me that the children of abusers can also be so full of anger (understandably) that they can't see things from another perspective; in fact on this thread some individuals (not all) their perceptions are so influenced that they can't see beyond their own experience.

Many people who have been in a DV relationship or worked with people trying to escape DV also have a valuable perspective. Dismissing it is unwise, since they have the direct experience of trying to flee or help people flee DV.

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On another note, you might want to look at yourself "ohimagain. Suggesting that PPs must be proud of themselves is you assuming that you know how posters with another POV feel. You don't. It's your assumption and projection. The OP clearly has -some- unhelpful patterns of thought and reactions; so do you.

Btw you have no idea of people's backgrounds. Just because people don't mention that they've come from an abusive background doesn't mean they haven't.

The people who are 'supportive' of the OP are either echoing the same advice with the caveat of "as said by previous posters" (e.g. the adult children I mentioned above) or empty, useless meaningless platitudes: "I hope your son comes round"; "I hope things work out for you"; "You're so brave". All perfectly acceptable and well meaning sentiments but utterly, utterly useless to the OP in resolving the situation she finds herself in,

I would argue that wrapping good advice in 'empty, useless meaningless platitudes' . Is much more effective that writing it with insults, allusions to your own mother (who is nothing like the op) and victim blaming.

I would argue that wrapping good advice in 'empty, useless meaningless platitudes' hmm. Is much more effective that writing it with insults

Maybe, except that, in many cases, there was no accompanying advice.

Just a lot of, "OP, i'm sure you did your best. Your son will come round".

How is that helpful?

It is hardly helpful to keep attacking her under the guise of 'helpful advice"

Isn't that because there is very little that the op can actually do though? It's awful for her to not be able to speak to her son when she his worried about his welfare, but pushing him is only going to make it worse isn't it? Space and time are not exactly easy solutions. Or even effective in all cases.

Maybe a text that says 'I'll always love you and when you're ready I'm here' would be ok.

But beyond that what can you say except for 'that's a shit situation op I'm sorry'. I don't think it's empty or meaningless to read that from a stranger in the internet personally.

seaeagle yes, it would have been better if the poster that initially attacked steve and I had done so via pm, so we could have responded to her/him by pm rather than distracting from ops issue.