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.

You really don't want to spend money to post his forms.? Are you for real? Your poor son I would be so proud if my son went to uni. No wonder he is about your husband, sounds like you deserve each other.

Never understand people who put partners before their own children.

When i went to Uni my parents never visited. I also had to go and return home at the end of term by train so i had to carry everything I'd needed for the term in my rucksack. ( everyone else seemed to arrive in parents cars loaded down with tvs etc ) My parents also lied about how much money they were giving me to get tax releif on it but didn't actually give me the money.
It's a hard lesson in life when parents dissapoint.
If you are the son try not to feel too bitter. This is your life and your choice how to live it.. look forward , get a part time job, value the relative you are staying with. I found by choosing to have zero expectations from my family I couldn't be dissapointed and It taught me how to be autonomous which is a useful skill in life. ( also I think the fact that your mum needs to boast about how great france is suggests the opposite might be true)

I do feel sorry for your son, he is not really an adult and is still very young

I can't believe this is a serious post.

If it is, I can see that it is really easy to think that you are at the start of something new and forget other obligations. But they ARE obligations. Your son needs support - financial and emotional. Before you develop your life you have a duty to top up his grant and loan to the right amount, and you always, always, have to show them love and support. Please try to look at it from his point of view.

You can't be bothered to fill in the student finance forms, even though you know that this will helpyour son get some money, you are aggrieved that you will have to pay to post them back to the UK. You do know he will get no help AT ALL if you do not fill these in and send them - leaving him to withdraw from Uni as he will not have the fees paid. He has visited you 3 times since you went to France, but you have not visited him.
From what you have written on here you come across as a a totally self-centred nasty piece of work, and I do feel sorry for your son. I truly hope he is more welcome at his grandparents.

Your mum sounds truly wicked op I look at my boys and cannot understand how she can behave like this to you.

I have no advice about her as it oh just so shocking. Some how you have ended up a polite articulate young man. Surround your self with positive people and one day you will have a family of your own, and will treat them far better than you have been.

I'm actually pretty sure this is a troll.

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I wouldn't mind hearing the real mum's actual side of the story, though. Hope you work things out.

Ah, that'll teach me to skip a page.

No, not unreasonable. However, as lljkk says, we haven't got your mum's side of the story. One thing that you will gather from the responses is that everyone thinks mum is unreasonable - and that just isn't all that likely. So you need someone else to help you sort this out. Is the grandad you stay with her dad? Could he talk to her and help you to sort it out and help her to see things as you see them? Why not print your post and ask her for her point of view?

Me too, sleepy.
I'm thinking Zebrugge.

In reply this is not a trolling, I cannot be more genuine.

The reason why I adopted the guise of my mother was so you could maybe hear a less biased version of events, I can't exactly place the woman on a pedestel for you but I attempted to give you an insight from her perspective.

I am not saying however that I am perfect, yes maybe i was blunt with the comments I made about my Step Fathers children, however bar tell the truth and how I feel, I feel I had every right to do this as this is what a normal family is supposed to do, talk.

Sleepy yes I am staying with her Father and my Grandfather, he is of the same opinion as me, he himself does not want to visit them out in France because of this, my Mother feels that she is completely in the right and she has not abandoned my despite telling me when I brought to light how I felt that i was no longer welcome until I apologised.

The thought of showing her this would again send shivers down my spine because of the nature of my mother, she would completely flip and rather than being sympathetic she would again see it as an attack and shun me further and most likely right me out of her will

OP - you and your mum have differing pov. You think you have outlined it from her pov but you won't have.

I get that you feel abandoned. I'm sorry about that but you need to consider a way forward. You cannot change her but you could try and talk.

Op, your mother will reap what she's sown - remember that!

I am by no means the perfect mother BUT , I AM a totally 100% supportive mother to my children.

I don't think it does the OP any favours to entrench him. Seriously, how many totally unreasonable mothers are there? OP, has she always been unreasonable? Something has to explain her behaviour.

I totally understand that you are afraid of making it worse, but as things stand you are not talking, and - as you say - that is what families do. So you have to talk to her, and it certainly is easier now than in six months. To be honest, it couldn't get much worse, could it?

So, I am sorry not to vindicate your pov, but in my view there is something you are missing. The odds of having a mother as bad as you paint, and not be a total screw up at 19, are infinitesimal. Find the missing piece.

Your mother sounds even worse than mine!

Mine is cold/unemotional but provided me with money and phoned me monthly from SE Asia.(I lived in London)

Before I'm pounced on, my mother provided me with excellent food/shelter/educational opportunities etc but is uninterested in me as a person. Since the day I started secondary and started using public transport to school she would not have known details that are important like who my friends are, what my teachers were called, what I liked and didn't like... As a consequence she doesn't know me as an adult and when we are together it's like 10 year old me and her in the room. (I have an 11 year old so trust me, that's twisted).

I am considerably older than you so have come to terms with the fact that my mother is cold/unemotional. I have spent time feeling jealous of people who have mothers who enjoy their company and are genuinely interested in their children's life but it's time wasted as my mother is hardwired that way and was/is the same with my three younger siblings.

I've dealt with it by becoming independent as soon as possible (I went to uni in the Blair years so jobs were easy to find) and having as little contact with her as possible. All I can do is try and be a better mum to my own kids. Hopefully I'll do better.

It sounds like you have a great grandfather so I'm not surprised that you prefer to spend time with him rather than your mum. Good people are hard to find so cling onto him tight and make him proud.

Poor you!

On a practical note you can apply for student finance as an independant adult on he basis you have no contact with your parents. You need a tutor, gp or similar to write a letter in support, but on the basis they wont fillin any forms and have left the country, I think this should be pretty clear. go and see the student finance office for help.

You are lucky to have your grandparents, good luck

I can't help feeling most of us are being a bit naive. Now it's been revealed that this is the son posting, not the mother, has it not occurred to anyone else that we might be getting a slightly biased version of events? Seriously, if you are the mother of a teen, how many times has your DS/DD told you that you are totally mean, unreasonable, selfish and evil?! If your DS/DD got the chance to describe your latest conflict, do you think you'd get a fair hearing? Do you think you'd come across well?!

OP, my mum died 8 days before I started uni, and my dad had a mental health breakdown. He dropped me off, visited me once in four years, and moved house without telling me. I had no grand parents to stay with, and I had to fill in a form saying I didn't know where he was, because he wouldn't or couldn't fill in the forms he should have done. He forgot my 21st birthday entirely...

It was really hard, and I echo what some other posters have said, and recommend counselling. But my (long) experience tells me that Shit Happens to most people, sooner or later; and if you feel your parents are not as supportive as you'd like - well, that's your particular bit of shit to deal with now. You can either feel sorry for yourself, which will get you nowhere and will waste lots of emotional energy... Or you can use your experience positively - because seriously, if you can learn from it, it is likely to make you stronger and wiser than your peers... :) Good luck!

Hear, hear. Says more eloquently what I was trying to say a few posts up.