If your son is an abuser..

[ThatDenimExpert]

if you were a mother and your adult son had been despicable towards a woman in a number of ways, and that woman came to you to tell you, how would you react? What would you say or do?
And if you were the woman who had been affected, what would you want the mother to say or do?
I’m not the mother or son in this scenario

It really depends on why you’re telling her and what the horrible things really amount to. I mean a woman isn’t responsible for her adult child’s actions so I’m really unsure what you would be hoping to achieve by telling his mummy. If it’s true abuse go to the police surely?

I would be furious and disgusted with my son, and would ask the woman he’d hurt whether there was any form of support she would like from me (if she preferred that I bugger off, I would respect that).

I wouldn’t disown my son, but I wouldn’t be mincing my words around him either. His dad and I would do anything we could to get him to address why he was behaving in such an appalling way, and to get help to do better.

I think that the kind of families who raise thugs probably have a distinct approach to this question.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if life were that simple 🙄

Unfortunately children are not Lego.

I would absolutely get involved and I would try to speak to my son about boundaries and abuse. However, a mother knows her own child, and she should already be aware of his behaviour… men don’t just suddenly start being abusive.
If my daughter was the victim, I would make it my life’s work to get her away from him and protect her financially, physically and emotionally from him.

Is the woman still with the abusive man?

I found this in my experience. Abusive exes mother would appear sympathetic and also unsurprised as she had heard it before but kind of skimmed over it and would act very sad and make it about her. (Just more manipulation) She had his back way more than mine (helped him strip the house to make sure I was left with nothing apart from our child) I think if you are the sort to raise a decent human being you’d be appalled if your offspring abused another human but some people are not equipped to parent to this level and not capable of looking at themselves, maybe it’s too painful and she herself had been abused so it was just a continuation of the same cycle. Very sad but hope my son won’t be the same, I left when he was 8 months old - he doesn’t remember the abuse.

My exMiL refused to believe it. To acknowledge it was true would have meant she'd raised an abuser and wasn't a perfect mother.

I think it can be very difficult for some people to accept that their child can have done something objectively vile without some “provocation” or “mitigating circumstances”. Something similar happened in my family and the mother in question - while accepting that facts were facts and what had happened was undeniable - found all manner of ways to minimise it and sweep it under the carpet.

I’m a parent to young adults myself and if the same situation occurred with one of them, I think I would still love them as much but I wouldn’t be making excuses for them.

there is no way to answer this until it happens to you personally. i have a SS who has done some terrible things, and i despise him but he is still my husbands son!

My mum disowned my brother. She tried and tried and tried to change him, but he was just a nasty piece of work through and through.

I’d find another outlet. Blood tends to be thicker than water, even in awful circumstances.

I would listen to both sides and keep an open mind.

In my case, my DS was being abused by his DW.

We paid for professional counselling for them. We let him stay with us and then supported them financially, short term, so that they could live apart. We kept in touch with them both.

When the police and solicitor's were involved we weren't involved.

It was difficult to see our DGC and important that we weren't taking sides.

This.

I hope I'd be like my Nana. She read the situation perfectly - my mother was never going to leave (she was arguably just as bad to us kids) so Nana gently offered them both space to escape if needed and basically stayed quietly in the background until there was enough outside support for her to remove us kids to safety. Then she disowned him forever.
She wanted to go in all guns blazing but knew it would just result in her being another person cut off from us and she couldn't protect us that way.

My exes mother had a big birthday a couple of weeks ago. I was at the party with my (now adult) girls. His two other exes with children were there. He doesn't see any of his kids. His Mum took him to task years ago and built relationships with her grandchildren away from him when allowed, and now has a lovely relationship with all of them.

I hope I'd match them

As a mum your not responsible for your adult children's behaviour. However if my son was out of order I would speak to him about it privately. Hopefully you could have an adult discussion with him.