Feeling sad about adult DS on his birthday

[Clueless12389]

DS is 31, happily married, lives 2 hours away. We used to have a very close relationship, he’s had some very serious MH issues and his dad (my DH) as well as his wife of course have been extremely supportive for many years.

i love my DIL btw, no issues there.

anyway, he’s done incredibly well with his MH and has secured a good job, after many years of DH and I financially supporting him to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. I KNOW this is not a transactional relationship and we have no right to a relationship just because of that, I’m just avoiding drip feeding.

anyway, they last visited us in Dec last year, they chose to spend Xmas alone and I was outwardly supportive of that, they’ve spent 2 Christmases with us in 9 years and I never moan or pressure him about it.

since then, he hasn’t visited and showed no interest in seeing his dad.

it’s worth mentioning that his dad is the one who turned around DS’s MH to where he is today, preventing him from committing suicide on several occasions, talking him through his feelings on a daily basis for almost 2 years.

DS has expressed his love and gratitude to DH when he came out of that very dark place, and they still have a long fortnightly call.

DS made it clear that he needed some space, he has this job now and they’ve moved to a nice rental house.

we’ve respected his need for space, I text him maybe once a fortnight with a positive bit of news or whatever and he usually responds within 24 hours, positively.

a couple of months ago he invited me to visit him (DIL was away) and we had a lovely day, night, and next morning. We both said how lovely it was to see each other. It had been 6 months since I’d seen him.

had a FaceTime since then and couple of texts.

anyway today is his birthday. Sent him some thoughtful presents, a voucher and a card nd asked if he might be free for us to call and wish him happy birthday.

no response.

I know his wife’s organised a breakfast and dinner out, think he could at least have spared 5 minutes.

DH will no doubt have chucked £5k or so into his account, again no acknowledgment.

I don’t know what I’m looking for here, I’m just really sad .

so many of my friends sons see them all the time, go on holiday together etc etc.

DH says they’re not the ones I should be comparing with, we do sadly know 2 families whose children have taken their own lives, nd he says he’s just glad DS is alive, happily married, free of MH issues and or doesn’t matter that we rarely see him in person.

can anyone relate?

This. And it also sounds as though you and your husband are tiptoeing around him on egg shells for fear of inadvertently upsetting him and him spiralling into another mental health episode. Does his wife have to tip toe around him too?
Relationships are reciprocal- he’s an adult man in his 30s who should also be looking at how he can be supportive to his parents. The bare minimum he can do is regular contact. But no - it’s take take take- financially and emotionally and then you are supposed to be grateful for whatever scraps he gives you of his attention. Mental health difficulties or not - this is not acceptable. Stop with the huge gifts. Stop chasing him, let him know that his behaviour is rude and hurtful

DH, DS and I do have very deep conversations about our emotions, spirituality and those conversations are best held at one of our homes rather than a cafe.’
Sorry, but I can see why he's pulling back. It sounds so intense. If he's just recovering mentally, he might just not want that as much, he might just want light hearted and not want to be "pulled back" and talk so much about his emotions and spirituality.
Even though it sounds like you have a lovely relationship with him, you saw him fairly recently and have face timed him with him as well. Plus you now say he's sent you a message today and a pic of the meal he's having out with his wife?
It all sounds a bit suffocating, that's without even bringing in the crazy amounts of money being regularly bunged his way.
I'd love to hear his side of the story.

It’s quite usual for sons to break away from the family and want to spend all their time with wife, friends and work. I would suggest that you change the dynamic to taking him and his wife out for dinner, everyone’s got to eat.

Hi OP. Firstly you and your DH have done very well. One of my sons experienced a period of significantly poor mental health. We helped him through it and there was a period at the end where he became somewhat distant. We spoke to him about this and what he said is that he felt a bit guilty for putting us under so much pressure and wanted to give us space. It took a bit of time for the relationship to return to normal, but is very close now.

I do wonder why you give money so freely. Is it because it is easy.

Can I ask if your DS went to boarding school?

I don't think the money is a red herring at all, I think you're over compensating for him being an only child, the loss of your older child, and his MH issues because you're scared you're going to loose him. It's a perfectly reasonable reaction given what you've been through but you also need to acknowledge that he's an intelligent 31yr old man with a job and partner and a life of his own. Saying you'll ring to sing happy birthday sounds like he's 8 not 31!!

Is there a possibility that it's initiating the contact that's the barrier? Why wait for permission to call him on his birthday. Just call! Worst that can happen is he's too busy to chat.
My DS is lovely but crap at communication. Rarely replies to texts from parents or sisters. But if we phone him, 50% of the time he's v happy to chat. The other 50% he's busy, which is fair enough. But if we waited for him to confirm a time that we could call him, we'd barely have any contact at all.

DH, DS and I do have very deep conversations about our emotions, spirituality and those conversations are best held at one of our homes rather than a cafe.’

That sounds intense as others have said.

I'd dread and avoid meeting with people where that's a possibility.

2 Christmases in the last 9yrs?

Where were they for the others?

Are they particularly stressful because of losing your other son?

I’m sorry but…you fucking what? What is this?!

It's very sad but as someone who has had significant mental health issues it could be that your husband reminds him too much of the difficult place he has been. Hopefully time will heal this.

I think there is also a need to let him stand on his own two feet, so less money.

Why would you rather die than go on a cruise? Maybe you might enjoy it, you might meet other people from different walks of life. My parents loved cruising even my dad with advanced prostrate cancer lived for it for 16 yrs I felt it was his greatest pleasure ( ex Navy) he died last year.
if you are only gauging the money giving against others who are giving much larger amounts that is is giving you a certain perspective on relationships. Find somthing else to love, foster or adopt some dogs, or volunteer somewhere don’t just focus on your son, isn’t there saying

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it's yours. If it doesn't, it was never meant to be,"

When I suggested a ' cruise' I only meant find something else you love and want to do. A pet, volunteering or an absorbing hobby are all good things

£5k for a birthday? Isn't it a bit... excessive?

Unfortunately, I think it's more common for sons to distances themselves than people think.
My DH speaks to his mum maybe once a month. My sisters partner is the same. Both are perfectly pleasant, normal women, it's just that the boys are now grown men with busy independent lives.

As for visiting you... Was he living with you during this mental health crisis? Perhaps he associates your house with a bad time in his life?

I admit, I find it harder than I used to visiting my mums house... It's the house where I saw my dad have a mental breakdown, and it was subsequently the house he died unexpectedly in. My mum still lives there, and has done an amazing job rebuilding her life, but I find it quite hard being there because of the memories.

That's what I thought!
My mum, who is a millionaire on paper, drops my sister and I £100 on our birthdays, and that feels super generous!

Gosh, lots of updates this morning! Too many to answer directly, but to answer a few questions:

1. DH is the one who gives money. His theory is that otherwise, DS is going to receive approx £4m after tax when we pop our clogs. That would be worse, for someone with past MH issues, when they've just been bereaved, than getting used to receiving and managing small gifts a couple of times a year. I can't control what DH does with his money, but he did say last night that he understands what I think about it being infantalising to give what, to many people, would seem to be large sums. Whether he actually takes that on board is up to him. The £250k or whatever it was was given in chunks over the 5 years he was in full time university (inc post grad), a large wedding gift, paying for a lovely honeymoon and a few other holidays, a car etc, and to pay the rent and bills for a couple of years when he was too mentally ill to work, and we didn't want him to have to apply for benefits when he was already feeling absolutely shit.
2. No DS didn't go to boarding school, but he went to a grammar which was very pressured, and he wasn't happy there.
3. It's DS who wants meaningful conversations, not small talk. He finds small talk boring and hard to engage with. We don't talk about religion. Spirituality is perhaps the wrong word, it's more about emotional growth, that sort of stuff.
4. Eggshell treading is exactly where DH and I both are. You can't have a situation where your DIL is calling you in the middle of the night because your son is going to chuck himself off the top of a multi story, or she's having to hide the knives, so you're haring down the motorway at 3am, and then a year later everything's cool and dandy. I'm glad that most of you will never have that experience and hope you never will.
5. When we are together, we talk about films, TV, mutual family friends, work, etc the same as anyone does, but there's definitely an undercurrent of having to be careful not to say or do anything which is going to put us back where we were.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now, thank you so much for all of your responses, whether you "get" the situation or not, it's been very helpful. I am going to take the advice of those who said to keep things light and friendly by way of regular texts etc, but I'm going to leave it to DS to reach out when he's ready to meet again face to face.

Is he Autistic? If so could explain his hyper focus on current life.

What’s the problem? Are my female relations making arrangements a problem for you? What’s your beef with my family? My pals are the same. Always the women.

@Clueless12389 I just read your last post and if you are still reading I wish you all the very best for you and your family. You sound like such a lovely lady. 💐❤️