Just had a heart sinking thought about ds(17)

[ssd]

Now, hes a great boy, am not worried about him. He's just started a part time job and did a long shift today then went straight to his girlfriends, shes lovely too. I'm happy for him. BUT I've just had a horrible premonition of the future and please don't pile in and tell me I'm wrong. I only have boys. Most of the girls his age I know are close to their mums and spent a lot of time with them. I'm presuming his gf is close to her mum and family. Ds is close to us but very independent too. I've just seen the future, him spending more time with her family than with us. I've always been at home for the boys and always been about for them. I'm just always here. If and when ds spends more time with his inlaws gf's family as a matter of course I will be heartbroken. I;ll tell no one but thats how I'll be. I cant actually bare it.

Will this not vary entirely depending on the relationships on each side and how welcoming each set of in-laws are to the incoming partner?

I love my parents dearly but given an outright choice of where I'd rather bed down for a week at Christmas (for example), I'd choose the in-laws every time for numerous reasons. My sister would say the opposite though, as she doesn't have the same relationship with her in-laws and isn't bothered by the filth of my parents house.

DH and my Mum wind each other up also which makes staying more than a day a fractious experience. I have had years of practice taking a deep breath and tuning out her twaddle but he engages - its not good for my blood pressure!

So OP, don't worry. I have 2 sons and I don't think it's automatic that they'll jump ship on meeting a girlfriend. And you never knew, they might have a boyfriend anyway

I have DDs and DSs, I figure out of the four of them, we ought to get a bit of attention in our old age.

Yes I am probably closer to my DDs (though a shopping day would be my idea of hell) but DS's long time girlfriend is actually a lovely, family loving girl who is very much like my own girls in personality, and fits into the family well. People always forget the fact that lots of boys choose girls like their Mums and sisters (which I think is why the MiL threads can be so fraught, when two similar strong willed women go head to head).

Anyway, my trump card in this is DH, who has the most amazing father son relationship with our boys. Our boys may not come back to see me that often, but they will come back for their Dad.

Oh, OP. You sound so cut up about this.

Your DS might be drifting away right now, but he's 17 - this is his first taste of freedom and the world outside of your home. But it won't necessarily continue along this trajectory and he will likely drift both closer and further, ebbing and flowing, as his needs and situations in his life change.

I know that I am closer to my parents in my 30s than I was in my 20s - not only am I more settled as a person, but enough time has passed between them being my primary carers/naggers that I can now regard them more as friends and equals, rather than my owners and keepers. Please don't think of it as a downward spiral, that if he's distant at 17 that he'll be a stranger at 27. Sometimes it is just necessary for young adults to put that distance between their parents at first to enable them to have a healthier, happier relationship further along the line.

Keep inviting him and his girlfriend to do things with you - perhaps do a roast for then on Sundays or something, or tea and cake on a Tuesday evening, and make it a little tradition, while giving them space to relax and do their own thing

Mackerel is very wise about the ebb and flow thing. Having my own DCs was a big wake up call for me, a real lightbulb "Fuck, my parents love me this much" moment.

Even now, when my teens are being horrid and I'm dealing with it badly, I think about how good my parents were when I was a similarly horrid teen, and I get the love and give my Mum a call.

You reap what you sow to some extent I think.

I'm a mum of boys and I worry about this too. However the fact is my dh and his brothers are much closer to their dm (and see her much more frequently) than I am to my own dm.

I know several women who have a great relationship with their dmils.
I'm looking forward to building a relationship with ddils in the future.

'Two teenage sons who both have gas'

Lol! They also have gfs!

I did notice it and forgot to correct it!!

I AWLAYS hung out at my boyfriends because he had a double bed. Just sayin....

I'd never heard of this phenomenon until I started MNing. I've got 2 boys and am not remotely worried. I am bringing them up to be independent adults who make their own decisions, which might include spending lots of time with us, but equally might not. In fact, I would hope they wouldn't and would be out seeing the world - I certainly will be once they are grown.
I am not by nature a very diplomatic person, so I am trying to choose my words carefully here - I wonder if the OP is finding this hard because her sense of self is closely tied to her children, having devoted so much time to being available for them? I am not knocking that in any way, it's great. Personally I find motherhood hard and have needed my work/life outside it to maintain my sanity. That might colour my opinion on all this. Equally, I am a person who has never understood what people to who speak to their mums every day talk about. I struggle to fill 20 minutes every 10 days with mine, not because we don't care or are not close, but because neither of us are interested in the minutiae. I am not close to my family in the sense that you are describing on here, phone calls, visits etc. but it doesn’t mean that we don't all feel loved or important, we just show it differently.

burning My two teenagers never stop flipping talking to me.

When I phone my mum I can easily be on the phone for 2.5 hours!

ds1 will phone up and talk about what's happening in the sport that we fiollow, mutual friends, where him and Katie are off to and what their plans are for the evening, what's on to, what gig are coming up and do me and DD fancy going. He will ring up or call round to chat with his dad about sport, his (DS's) car ( and get his dad to do any mani fence on it!)

Ds2 will talk about similar things but also about politics, current affairs, what's happened at school etc.

Sometimes I don't get any peace. They are always shoving the iPad under my nose to watch some YouTube clip about Ken Block or some NIHL clip!