AIBU to think my son should forgive my youth.

[AmberBear22]

Firstly I am not here to say I’m the world best mum, I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes but feel that I’ve lost everything.

I have 4 children aged 15, 7, 4 and 2. I had my DS aged 15 when I was 16 way too young. I struggled a lot with raising him, me and his dad stayed together till he was 1 but couldn’t work out. Dad was 18 and I was 17 when we broke up, working full time and always out of the house whilst I was a SAHM.

I had a string of BF as you do when young. I also experimented with drugs, smoked and drank. Unfortunately when my DS was 5 I met a man who physically abused him and my next 2 BFs did the same. I’ll be honest I did also hit him throughout his life until I got pregnant with his brother and realised I needed to grow up. We didn’t have a lot of money and mainly relied on benefits and what his dad gave us. I had a lot of angry BFs so we moved a lot.

Doesn't paint a great picture but I’ve changed. I’m now 31 and an adult.

I still vape and occasionally smoke weed but not like when he was young.

5 years ago he made the decision to live with his dad and stepmum full time and I haven’t seen him in 2 and a half years. He recently posted a video on TikTok which I was shown from his 15th birthday. It was saying how much he loves his mum and dad and I feel like she’s trying to replace me.

I sent him a message saying I’m his mum not her and he needs to forgive me and come home. He ignored me.

I feel he is been pathetic and needs to realise I was a child and I’ve matured. What can I do to get my son back?

So you deeply regret your behaviour and the decisions you made as a child but you call him pathetic for not forgiving you for the harm he has suffered?

I think you need to do a lot more work on understanding the harm he has suffered and positive ways to rebuild your relationship- not judging him badly for not forgiving your actions.

If he’s found a place where he now feels safe you need to respect that and work on his terms.

Adding to my previous comment.

if you’d matured and understood how badly you’ve failed your son, you’d be happy he appears to be in a safe and loving environment. Be glad he has found peace rather than creating unecessary conflict.

He doesn’t owe you anything. You’ve been a poor parent so saying “I’m his mum” and getting jealous isn’t going to paint you in glory here. In your shoes I’d be grateful to the stop mum for doing what you haven’t.

No, you sound awful. Your poor son.

He definitely made the right choose in cutting you off. You clearly have not grown up and take no responsibility for the terrible upbringing he had because of you!

You are the pathetic one who needs to realise they have a lot more maturing to do.

Why would you want a relationship with him if he's pathetic. Is this post real? You smoke weed and vape and you have a two year old. Yeah sounds like you've learnt a lot. Wishing your son happiness.

It was saying how much he loves his mum and dad and I feel like she’s trying to replace me.

She's not 'trying to replace' you. She has replaced you.

Good on your son for not wanting an abusive mother in his life and being able to find someone else who does love him. Not all kids are that lucky.

I hope you have now learnt from past mistakes. You should be happy that your son now seems to have a safe and happy home life. I think you should be grateful to his step mum. Hope your younger children have a more stable childhood.

He owes you fuck all.

I'm so glad he has a secure home with a good female role model. I feel for your other kids.

Wow. I had some sympathy for you at the start of your post but as soon as you got to the part about allowing various boyfriends to hit your son, and then hitting him yourself all sympathy went out the window.

It's one thing to have a child young but even in your teens and early 20s you must have known that was disgusting behaviour! My heart breaks for your son and I'm really glad he found the strength to leave your house and go and live with parents who sound like they really love and care for him. Calling him pathetic for ignoring you is pretty pathetic of you. You need to grow up and take some real responsibility and accountability for your past behaviour.

Your young age doesn’t excuse the behaviour, but only goes to partially explain why it happened. Regardless , I think most 16-21 year olds understand right from wrong. You weren’t 12 years old.

Your son is younger than you were when you perpetrated your abuse towards him, yet you expect him, the victim, to have the emotional maturity to not only understand his abuser, but also welcome back his abuser. You’re giving yourself more grace for abusive behaviour than you’re giving your son for his decision to protect himself.

You still have lots of growing up to do, and I hope for your other children’s sake you do it quickly. As his mother you should be happy he’s safe and loved and has a mother figure that can give him what you didn’t and still don’t.

OP I've not read the full thread but I can assume the replies aren't kind (unsurprisingly). I won't pile on, but you need to put your ego aside and take full responsibility for your actions. He may never forgive you, but true accountability may pave the path towards a relationship with him.

You put your own child in harms way and actively abused him - that's not insignificant, and you need to own that, however traumatic that may be for you, it's not as traumatic as your child being unable to rely on the one person who should protect you. Don't call him pathetic - it may take him years to unpick the trauma and you need to be okay with that.

Op I have a funny feeling you are in fact the son here or daughter and are considering if your mother is right to expect forgiveness?
If I am right I would advise you to seek counselling and to forgive in your heart so you can move on. That doesn’t mean you need to see her again or forget but it means you can let go of the past trauma and accept it.
I’m not a counsellor but I’ve read about forgiveness to set your past free so you can let go of the resentment and anger for them which hurts you more than them and prevents you from moving on.
I think I read this in a book called you can heal your life by Louise Hay.

Is this true? It's absolutely disgusting and shocking that you allowed 3 men to abuse him plus yourself. Four abusers in his young life including his "mother". Of course he wants nothing to do with you. Leave him alone.

I actually know a woman who is quite similar to OP.

Her oldest 2 are in their 20s and have lived with their dads since teenage.
The next one is a teen who lives with her dad but does see mum sometimes.
The youngest is primary school age and lives with her.

The oldest 3 were placed with dads by the court.

She would write a similar op as this. She does not understand why her kids feel that their step mums are more of a mum than she is. She doesn't understand why they don't come and visit, keep her at arms length and basically are embarrassed about her and would rather just be left alone with Dad and stepmum.

The worst part for her was when one got married and didn't want her there.

But she has abused them all their lives. When the oldest were little she was in a long abusive relationship, which led to them being removed to live with their dads. She has zero understanding of how her choices ruined their lives.
Or how wonderful, calm and ordinary their homes with their dads must seem compared to her chaos.
She says - But I am their MUM!!

And sadly, this is why I'm reluctant to believe this is a wind up. As much as I wish this entire situation couldn't possibly be true, such people do exist and the OP sounds authentically narcissistic and abusive.

You need to back the fuck off and leave your son alone.

That poor boy. You should be ashamed of yourself, and thinking about how you wronged him, rather than calling him names 😠

As much as I think this thread is a windup, as a children’s nurse I also know I’ve met parents like this.

Oh, of course. It’s another daily goady first post. I fell for it as well. Well played whoever is doing this.

I can believe it as that is the ‘mum’ I was landed with .
perpetual victim, never truly sorry for her actions, always an excuse or someone else’s fault plus ‘god had forgiven’ her and I was ‘hard to love’ and she used language about me, like the OP’s ‘pathetic’ comment as did my much younger siblings who for whatever reasons had very different experiences of her than me, still not good experiences but so different that they didn’t believe my story was impactful at all.

I’m still dealing with multiple repercussions from her abuse a neglect including physical health issues .
I was expected by family members to forgive and forget about my trauma and hugely life limiting disabilities because she’s just a dying mad old woman.
i parted on good enough terms with her the last time I saw her, prior to that I’d been nc for nigh on a decade

Yet another thread when the op never returns.

Set them frothing

I think it’s the same person doing them daily. I fell for this one but spotted others

Perhaps they're supposed to generate traffic, it's pretty bottom of the barrel.

I'm looking out for today's effort.

Probably away getting more vapes, her acrylic nails, lashes, and brows done.