Is my son out of line and am i over reacting

[Undervaluedmother1972]

Hi,
I have joined this for advice because I am at a loose end, to cut a story short, I have moved to France with my DSH and my two children, 7 and 10. My eldest went to University, which he had planned to do before we planned to move.

After 7 months of us living here, we now have fallen out as my eldest beleives that we no longer care about him and he feels abandoned by us. His main arguements are that, firstly we didn't put that much effort in when it came to university, (as in going on open days with him), or where he chose to go. He is also upset over the fact that we have not been to see him whilst he has been at university.

Along with this he also feels aggreived with some of the status updates I post on Facebook about France, his line has changed from liking France to hating it completely, he argues this is because of all the comments I make about how i prefer France to England and how I never wish to return, I personally feel this is out of order since I am entitled to voice how I feel just as much as him.

There is much more but I do not want to bore you, a final poignant point I feel is that my son also feels angered by the lack of money we have been able to give him. As with our move we set up a business, which has swallowed up mostly all of our income, he argued whilst this may have been a neccessity it could have been slowly phased in so the funding would have been available to him if he ran into difficulty, as currently as it stands we have not given him any money for help at University.

I have now told my son to apologise for these comments and saying them to me in a harsh and rather hateful way, he is not the son i have raised to respect his mother, and I have told him he is not welcome until i receive an apology for this outburst.

Golly - I think its probably best for your son if you just fill out the forms so its clear he gets no support in anyway from his parents and can claim all the loans etc he can.

And seriously you have behaved horribly towards your son.

My mother came to visit me at university as did all my friends' parents - this was very very normal behaviour.

I do not see why i should have to work, as i do not feel it is my role.

???!!!

Of course he doesn't feel it's his home. It isn't. And he's quite right about your husband abandoning his kids.

If this was in AIBU I'd guess it was a reverse one.

I REALLY hope it is a reverse AIBU!

I feel for your son. Many young adults are totally fine with minimal parental contact. He isn't one of them. First year of university can be quite stressful and sure he can suck it up but it may well have been a lot easier for him without feeling abandoned too.

Wow, as a mother of a 17 year old ds who will be going to University next year, may I echo the poster that said you sound vile.
You sound utterly selfish.
Your poor, poor son

You and your partner seem to have similar views, he's abandoned his four, you have cut ties with your eldest.
Although your life does seem a bit on the confused and selfish side, including :

'I do not see why i should have to work, as i do not feel it is my role.'

Your current partner is supporting you and your dependent children that are not his? is he contributing anything to his former family, or does moving to France take care of that?
I hope your eldest learns how to be independent, emotionally and financially and finds a partner who loves him. Then he can start building a better life for himself.

This is all a bit weird. For remedial purposes, perhaps it might be useful to describe things, like visits at university, that are absolutely usual and that he would have good reason to hope for, if not to expect.

I'll start, re. exams:

The most important thing my parents (separated) ever did that made me feel supported was to KNOW when my exams were, at the level of the individual papers; that meant that without being overbearing or interfering they could keep in touch about them, asking informed and helpful questions about how I was getting on with specific bits of work preparing for them, and generally making me feel like they cared about and encouraged the specifics of what I was up to.

In terms of gestures, periodic cards of encouragement, a nice good luck card before the exam periods started, and celebrations (a bottle of fizz, or being taken out to lunch, or a nice dinner for friends at home) after they were over and after my results all helped. I had a mate in the same flat whose mum used to send hampers during revision periods - we all loved that!

His peers will have had all sorts of things like this; some may have had even more fuss made over them. Can you not see that in that context he might feel pretty miserable and uncared for just to have been asked how his exams went?

Poor, poor ds. You are coming across as being incredibly selfish and unfeeling, tbh. I don't know if you are like this is real life, but we are all only able to go on what you are posting about yourself and the situation. Of course he feels hurt, upset, and worried .

Hi all, I am glad you have responded the way you have because I now feel I am completely justified.

Let me clarify I am the son, I have tried to be as open as possible and as unbiased, I have had to apologise to my Mother for my outburst before they would help me at all with my student finance.

I do not want to see them at all in the future, this may change, it may not, my Grandad also feels the same.

I feel bad for my Grandad as he should not have to step up to the mark when my parents have failed me.

To further give you an idea, my mother does not work, she does simply live off my new step father (they met 3 years ago ?) married very quickly. My Step father is very involved with my Brother and Sister, as for his children I do not know, He sends cards every month which get ripped up by the children, quite honestly i do not blame them.

When ever I have been over I receive a barrage of France this France that, I feel so out of place, I miss my Girlfriend, my Friends and my other remaining family.

So to get your opinion further, am I not being unreasonable in what I have done and said to my Mother, I feel she should make the effort to come and see me, support me emotionally as well as financially.

Undervalued I'm sorry but really?? I feel sorry for your son. My parents lived abroad for the first five years of my uni life. They left before I started uni and we saw each other maybe twice a year. BUT - and I think that this is the important things - my parents made me feel loved and supported throughout that time, called me a lot and were sensitive to my feelings about them being far away.

The money thing is also a big deal. He's assessed based on your family income, so gets very little in terms of support and yet gets nothing from you. I do feel that there are huge problems with the way that parental financial contributions are seen to be a given but this is the system that is here. And frankly if there was a different option, then yes, I do think you are pretty 'me, me, me' about the whole situation.

You're surprised by everyone's reactions? Perhaps then you need to reavulate your attitude to your son.

I'm so sorry to hear that Op.
Have they agreed to help you financially yet?
I think you're best to keep a distance for the time being, I'm glad you've at least got your grandfather.

Dammit. Never post without refreshing the page.

Weird thread

Very weird, but the best outcome is that it really is an 18 year old student, rather than the OP who didn't like the responses and has decided to back-paddle through pretending it really wasn't her after all.
Good luck to the boy!

Oh dear, I feared as much.

Is your mum on here? Are you hoping that she'd see this and change her attitude? I can see why you'd want to, but it's no substitute for talking things out, however angry and hurt you're feeling.

Listen, I don't mean to be condescending, or to minimise the impact of what's happened, but things are very black and white at your age. Just because things are really tough now doesn't mean they always will be - there may well be some way through in the end.

The most important thing right now is to keep everything together enough to get the finance forms sorted, and make university your absolute priority - don't lose out on the opportunities it will bring you by fighting a battle that will only distract you from studying. Work hard, build your community of friends, treasure this time even if it isn't quite how you'd imagined it - and make the most of every bit of help that the university can offer you.

Is he the oldest?

I was the oldest and my parents got my transition to university a bit wrong.

They were v of the mind that I was an adult and made negative comments when ever I came home and referred to me 'not living there anymore' and allowed my younger sisters to be v unpleasant to me about this fact. ie they had 'priviledges' at home that I didn't like chosing what to watch on tv. Sounds trivial but it was used as a stick to beat me with.

I also went to open days etc by myself as my parents didn't expect anything else, to be confronted by more parents than prospective students (I don't actually agree with this but it was the way that it turned out) and had friends whose parents visited a couple of times a term when we started uni whereas mine thought this an odd idea and only came up after much cajoling and still talk about it like it was the biggest favour EVA!

It makes me so, so sad to see these threads by parents of several children who really resent their oldest child.

It's made me realise how my parents must see me . I know you think you are doing fine, and cutting children off at the age of 18 is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, but it is not the norm and you have to recognise that your child is seeing his friend's parents be far more affectionate and considerate towards them and measuring them up with you. It WILL make him think you don't like him very much.

Do you?

Have only read the OP but:

A good friend's parents moved to Ireland the week she went to university. It was awful: she couldn't go home for the weekend like her friend's, and during the holidays she either had to go and stay in her hometown (relying on the generosity of her friends' parents to put her up) or go to her mum's house in the middle of nowhere in Ireland where she knew nobody. I think she did feel abandoned, as though her parents had been waiting for her to leave so that they could start a 'new' life without her. She dropped out of uni after a year and I'm sure that this was a contributing factor.

So yes, to some extent at least, YABU.

Just realised this isn't YABU. But you are, really.

oh sorry. now i realise why I identified so much. so maybe it wasn't totally unbaised....

i do feel for you though. Focus on your girlfriend. Does she want to settle down? i feel a lot happier since I moved in with my boyfriend (we were 22 though).

You have been very let down by your parents. They sound selfish and self-absorbed. I hope you can now move on and succeed in spite of them. You will certainly be able to say you did it all by yourself. Good luck!

I am sorry for pretending to be my mother, look at it from my point, if I just came on here moaning and slagging off my mother and father for what they have done that would have probably led you to building up an image of me in your mind.

I did this to see who was in the wrong, I feel like i want nothing to do with my mother anymore, she has not put any effort in, she has been unreasonable to me, and she seems to be poisoning my brother and sister and twisting them into mini versions of her.

Have you got the paperwork sorted yet?

If you have, then I think the only thing you can do at the moment is to let things lie for a while. You won't change her mind while she's feeling under attack - all you'll do is upset and distract yourself even further.

The kids will come round in the end - just try and maintain a relationship with them that's separate from anything going on with your mum. Send them cards, emails, little jokes - keep the doors open so they can reach out to you when they're old enough.

I know I've said it already, but really the most important thing is to concentrate on university now - don't let all this upset distract you from that.

Work hard, focus, enjoy yourself - good luck.

I am trying, but with the kids, it just seems wasted as my mother and her corruption of them is so blatent, she forces them to answer the way she wants, they are practically planning their life now (bearing in mind they are 7 and 10)

The next big issue will be Christmas because I am refusing to go, I went last Christmas and hated so I do not want to repeat the experience. When they found out I am not going to go I think it will kick off again.

I am struggle now with my Girlfriend literally for no other reason than I can't see her, she is from Dorset, where my Mum first moved to, and I now have no family there and at Uni we are again quite apart, I don't wan't to be the sterotypical teenager/ Young Adult blaming my parents but looking at this situation I can't see anyone else at fault here.

They do not support me financially now, I receive shopping sent by my Grandma, they do not contribute, they do not come and see me, they have never been to my Uni and to cap it all off they bang on about how great their life is and how they could never return to the UK as the perceive it to be crap, a view I do not share

Well, they can't have it both ways, at the simplest: family obligation goes both ways. If they were contributing financially and taking an interest in your life, one would hope you'd be willing to go to their new home now and then even if it wasn't much fun there, just because they had input into your life still. but if they're not supporting you either financially or emotionally, why should you?
I don't think you can directly blame your parents for the issues with your girlfriend: LDRs sometimes work and sometimes don't, and families can move away from areas for all sorts of reasons; of course it's harder if you have no family there now, but can you go and stay with your GF from time to time in the vacations, perhaps? However, in every other aspect I think your reaction is entirely appropriate, and I feel very sorry for you.

I've sort of changed sides reading this.

I started thinking fair enough, your money is in the business, he's an adult, you're entitled to live where you like.

But not filling in forms because they cost to send to the uk??? Really? Come on that's just basic help anyone would give a child without a second thought. And whilst I don't think you should have to support him if remotely possibly it might be a nice thing to do in some small way. Or for him to feel you would support him if he hit rock bottom.

I do think you are in danger of losing your son, and while you might not like what he said I don't think you can demand an apology (he's an adult after all) for that way he feels.

Oh just realised this is a reverse AIBU

Seriously op I would get some counselling - it will really help you. I do think you have been treated unfairly but you don't want your justified anger towards your mother to eat up the rest of your life. And that will be very difficult to deal with without some sort of outlet.

Good luck to you though!