Adult son keeping in contact with abusive ex-husband

[BeCandidQuail]

Hello, would like some advice on how I can process this. After 32 years of marriage (emotional abuse, infidelity by my ex) I finally filed for divorce last year and it just became final. My adult kids, daughter 26 and son 30, knew and witnessed everything and disliked and disrespected their father. They were estranged from him since then and the ex didn't seem to care and moved on with his new younger lover. Since then, my son got married (ex didn't come to the wedding) and the three of us were slowly beginning to heal from the trauma. The ex contacted my son a couple of months ago, crying, saying he wanted to be part of his life. My son has been wary (he's a soft caring young man), and met him for coffee and since then has seen him around 3 times. My son remains stand-offish with his father, but my question is how do I process this? I know he's an adult and it is his father and he knows what he has done to me and his sister. My daughter is trying to understand why her brother keeps in contact with such a toxic person. I'm not blaming my son nor do I feel angry, just confused and a bit hurt but yet I know that ultimately he's his father etc. Would like some advice so my daughter and I can understand and obviously not fall out with my son. The three of us are very close. Thanks for reading.

Your son is an adult. You are allowed to have your own feelings about it but you can’t prevent him from seeing his own father. And you shouldn’t attempt to guilt trip him about it

It took you 32 YEARS to find the strength to leave him. You really can't understand the complex emotions your son must be going through here? What would you have said to people who couldn't understand why you were staying in a relationship with a 'toxic person'?

Not only that but being brought up by a man like that means your son's boundaries are going to be fucked.

This isn't about him not caring or understanding the abuse you went through, this is about your son being a victim of that abuse too.

I think if anything you should be concerned about your son not hurt by him.

Child/parent relationships are complex. It's difficult to understand from an outsider perspective but children even love abusive parents.

You'll see many posts on here from adults who are still hoping that their abusive parents will change and become the parents they need.

I would imagine that your son feels sorry for his dad and is acting out of a sense of duty. It is, after all his father.

Thank you and I would never ask him to stop seeing his father, it's really about how I can deal with it silently and wanted to know how to go about that. I totally understand it's his father. I agree with the last post, he feels sorry for his father and is acting out of a sense of duty.

You need to let your son make his own choices around seeing his father.

If you’re upset by it though, I would say that giving your ex headspace, talking about him or knowing about meetings hurts you and could he just keep his relationship with his dad to himself and his dad and not discuss it with you.

Thank you, my son never discusses it with me (my daughter found out after having dinner with him). My son is very symphathetic towards my feelings and wants me to move on with my life as he says I deserve the best. Thank you again.

I think there is only one way you can deal with it. The same way we deal with anything that hurts us which we have no control over. We just have to accept it is happening and make a real effort not to dwell on it. It’s not easy but doing that does take the sting out of it.

This might be too difficult, but do you think you and your daughter might be able to reframe this and sympathise with your son for the difficult position his selfish father has put him in. As he didn’t contact your daughter he may well be using your son to continue to hurt you and DD. He’s made it clear who he cares about. Sadly, I suspect it won’t be long before your son realises he has been played one way or another.

You see it on here all of the time- the biological pull to be loved by your parent means that some people can’t help trying to excuse or overlook terrible behaviour.
It took you decades to leave him, if anyone is going to be sympathetic about how hard it is to break free then it should be you.
I think that your ex knows exactly how to manipulate your son and probably think that if he folds then he can enlist your son to help dd fold too. Your son is a kind person so probably thinks that he should hear his dad out etc but I think that he will see more evidence of his true colours before long.
I think that not discussing it is the right way forward. By respecting him as an adult, you are showing that your love for ds is the most important thing to you which is how it should be. Is there someone else in the family who could talk to ds in confidence? I suspect that ds is having lots of conflicting feelings and will eventually need some support.

You got this OP. All you need to do is model all the good things you want for him. You don’t need to talk to him about the abuse or about how we recognise and be safe people you just model it and carry on with the general parenting chats in the car about things he’s likely to have see on the news. Just be that safe and steady parent you don’t need anything more than what you clearly already bring to them.