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..........

That's bloody awful. So sorry that happened to you. Maybe all this is a positive thing to look at OP - if you can see how the pain of your inner child is just like how your son feels, it may help to empathise with how he feels about his childhood. The thing with trauma is it's not a sliding scale. Some kids can be burnt with cigarettes & beaten but come out of it comparatively less damaged than someone who was psychologically abused & never hit. You don't say you hate your mother....because you're deeply hurt, not hateful. It's hard for you to be around her because she triggers you & your siblings seem to have a different experience of things... that's too much for your hurt inner kid to bear. What kind of conversation do you wish you were able to have with your mother ? maybe unpacking all this may help you understand your son more.... I don't suggest you traumatise yourself reopening old wounds, but if they have never had a chance to properly heal, it could be the way forward.

Best xo

Also what @prawn said.

*agree that is.

Fuck sake! Some of you should be ashamed of the vile comments you have posted on here.

Op you did the best thing for your children by getting away from him. It is unfortunate that he died but if you stayed with him you or your children could have died at the hands of him.

I'm so sorry your son is acting like this and I can only hope that one day things do work out for you.

dishing I didn’t say op had said that. But other posters have tried to make op feel better in the short term by telling her the problem is with her son.

And I would have thought it was clear from the sentence that followed that I was simply acknowledging the fact that it can’t have been very nice to hear that actually her son might have his own valid issues.

Simply that it isn’t doing her any favours long term to pretend otherwise as some posters seem to think.

I’m not sure how the fuck you decided I was accusing op of having said it. But hey ho

OP it’s very unfortunate you’ve had such a rough background. You should pursue therapy for that. However please don’t ever use that as excuses to your son. My mother did this to explain away why she stuck with a man who held my head underwater and forcefully grabbed me round the throat and chucked me out the house. ‘I felt like I was brainwashed’ was one thing she said. All of the excuses made me more angry. I didn’t want anything excused or anything waved away, I wanted her to take full responsibility and that’s it.

There also seems to be a mentality in mothers who escaped abusive husbands that he ‘hurt us and we escaped together, and now we are ok’. As I told my mother, being in a relationship that’s abusive is never the same as being a terrified kid who feels that nobody in the world is protecting them or making them safe. I know because I’ve been in both positions.

He is hurting and needing space, and maybe one day he will come back. Please don’t write to him telling him the reasons why he should cease being angry with you. It will make everything so much worse. His feelings are valid and not to be batted away.

As an aside, I find is illuminating the amount of posters who think these honest answers are mean and cruel to the OP. Try being an abused kid for a few years and then let’s see how you feel. This is the truth of it.

As an aside, I find is illuminating the amount of posters who think these honest answers are mean and cruel to the OP. Try being an abused kid for a few years and then let’s see how you feel. This is the truth of it.

❤

Evening, everyone.

We've deleted several posts on this thread that we felt were victim-blaming or just not in the spirit of the site. While we're sure the OP appreciates the insights offered, especially from Mumsnetters who have sadly been victims of abuse as children themselves and therefore have a particular understanding of situations like this, we can't allow posts to stand that break our talk guidelines in this way.

If we have to delete too many more posts, we may end up having to take down the whole thread so we'd really appreciate it if everyone could be thoughtful about what they're posting. Thank you.

Maybe I'm longer in the tooth but I no longer blame my mother for not protecting me. I kind of bear my own pain now. I'm an adult.

Yy I'm still an abused kid in some sense, of course. But I am essentially an adult and I can't go on perpetually blaming sineone else - who clearly did the best she could, even if her best filled me with contempt, blame and judgement at times. Which were essentially my problem, as I am an adult.

I could conveniently park all my damage and ire on my damaged mother (why else would she have ended up with someone like him?) rather than my abuser father. Or I could, and did, get out all the puss on /at a professional who is trained to hold me in a safe space while I thrash about. I couldn't possibly expect my ordinary, untrained, damaged mother to hold that space for me - her own damage was too great. Love wasnt enough at the time - though I now see it goes a very very long way.

So in the end I had to accept that shit fucking happens and it happened to me. I had to take up my cross and walk if I wanted to live the rest of my life in freedom (to the best of my ability). It's not my parents job to pay for my life - I'm an adult now, it's my job to pick up the reins.

You're right springydaff but the OP's son is still very young and possibly even only just coming to terms with it. He's a long way off from that.

Abuse is solely the fault of the abuser but many will jump to blame women for the actions of abusive men. In fact, many sons who grow up witnessing their father abuse their mother will become abusers themselves, and blame the mother on some level for her weakness/for being a victim. However, this is never the fault of the abused mother. In some cases, a woman may even be putting her or her kids health or lives in danger by leaving - which is something overlooked by many on this thread.
Of course being the victim of abuse as a child is one of the most traumatic things a person can go through. But don't underestimate the trauma and confusion that an adult abuse victim can also experience. Abuse is the fault of the abuser.

I think that you are kind of missing something here too. Your son is two years older than your daughter.

What your daughter recalls as a 6 year old leaving that situation and what your son recalls as an 8 year old leaving that situation are very different.

The fact that your daughter has been able to move on doesn't preclude that your son can do the same.

I truly do hope that you can work through this with your son, it sounds like you love him and want what is best for him. At the same time I think you need to look deep inside and think about whether you have truly apologised in a completely non excusing way and understood exactly what it is that he holds you responsible. I say this based on the times I have tried to discuss things with my own mother and it is always met with 'I am sorry but..... or .... there are things that you will just never understand or remember and that's why I was the way I was' and it has driven an unpassable bridge between us that will never come down.

If you think you have then it is up to him what he chooses to do next, if you think you haven't then write him a letter, give it to your daughter and ask she pass it along so he can read your apology when he is ready without any confrontation.

Why were you with him when he died?
Maybe your son is upset that after finally leaving him you were still in close contact.

How old are you OhHim?

@Treesthemovie nope. My stepdad could have been anyone. He had no emotional ties to me whatsoever. He was just some angry arsehole who targeted a kid. My mother however gave birth to me and was my mother for seven years before he cane along. Yet she watched everything he did, motionless, never comforted me, for years and years, and kept on begging me to call him dad and sit on his lap and cuddle him.

So she’s not at fault at all then?! Please.

@springydaff well done for getting to that point in your life. But don’t expect others who are still working through their painful shit to be where you are.

Great post @StoppinBy

Doesn’t matter how old she is @springydaffs people are all at their own stages of working things through.

Wilf, I really feel for you and your children.

I also really appreciated SpringyDaff’s post after a long thread of posters projecting their pain onto your situation.

I do think it is important to note that most of the abused posters suggest you should give your son as much space as he needs and just listen to him openly and sympathetically.

I understand it’s human nature to want to explain why you made the decisions you made at the time you made them. They are not excuses, they are reasons. As an abused woman, you had reasons for leaving/not leaving at any given time and it’s unlikely that you felt you had the agency to get up and go that your son would expect an adult to have. However, son doesn’t need to listen to these.

You say a number of times that this thread isn’t about you. Why shouldn’t it be about you? You are allowed to feel sad and upset that your abuser’s actions are still dictating your lives in this way. You are allowed to have a thread that’s about you.

*My mother however gave birth to me and was my mother for seven years before he cane along. Yet she watched everything he did, motionless, never comforted me, for years and years, and kept on begging me to call him dad and sit on his lap and cuddle him.

So she’s not at fault at all then?! Please.* Yes, but that's YOUR mother.

Some of those posting appear to have a mother was was complicit. That is not the OP, she said she tried to put herself between the abuser and her children and she left as soon as she could. Can you not see there is a difference?

Your mother being abusive to you does not give you the right to blame abused women for their abuse @LukeSkywalkerHood
Appallong attitude, hope you never find yourself in that situation as you'll be in for a nasty wake up call.

OP, your son was hurt by your refusal or inability to leave. Sometimes trauma isn't immediate and has a delayed affect. By that I mean a person can block it out, and it can all come back later ie when a person is getting married, obviously they reflect on marriage and then their own upbringing. Sometimes it can come at you from nowhere. I've read about many past victims of sexual abuse who only realise they were molested when they are much older and when they themselves become a parent for the first time. I imagine the affect of DV is similar. I would perhaps write him a letter (I wouldn't send him a wedding card or wedding present, as to me that would seem too forceful and forward, and you run the risk of it getting returned) and explain how things were for you and sincerely and truly and genuinely apologise to him. Then do not attempt to contact him. Allow him to contact you some time down the track.

*appaling

@something2say but your own example shows it is not just about 'the patriarchy'. It was your mother in your situation. Which to me says either gender can be the perpetrator, I think suggesting women are always victims of DV and cannot extract themselves is really sexist, at least to my feminist mind.

Tbh, Dishing. The impact on the child is the same whether the mother is complicit or not.

That's the sad part of it all - it doesn't make a difference to the experience of, and the impact on, the child.