Did we mess up? (Looking for your replies).

Original Post from 2018

My wife (42F) and I (45M) were having dinner with our only son (23M) two weeks ago. We're celebrating the fact that he got into one of the top ten Ph.D. programs for physics. We were having dinner with each other at our house.

My son has no past issues. He's smart, social, caring, and hardworking boy. He has a good set of friends and an amazing girlfriend. I am just completely shocked at what happened.

The Argument: Both of us were congratulating him on his achievement and told him how we were so proud of the fact he was the first to get a PhD in the entire family. He said thanks as usual. My wife reminded him to make it a priority to maintain contact with us when moves to start his PhD. For some he just snapped at that moment. He stopped eating for a moment and with a stern look he asked "why". I didn't know why he was angry I just wanted to defuse a potential fight and jokingly said "cause we're your parents silly". Then he said "well your job is done now, you don't need to be bothered me, you have more time for each other now." His mom asked what's the matter. He said he doesn't understand why does he have to force himself to maintain contact with his parents who loved each other more than him.

We were shocked and asked what makes him think like that. He went on his rant. And said we may love him but he was mostly a job for us that we needed breaks from. He mentioned up till starting college in the three to four vacations of two to the three weeks we take in a year, we mostly went without him and "dumped him at our parents’ places" (it’s true though most of our trips have been as couples since the beginning).

(This isn't his first time bringing it up.) He mentioned for majority of the weekends we had we looked forward to our date nights more than spending time with him. He said he felt that while we did love him he was always at the backseat of our relationship. I told him needed our own couple time too. He said that he understood that but it seemed for him that moments of fun we always preferred to spend it as a couple.

 The major thing that kicked me in the balls was when he said one of the major reasons he enjoyed college is that he longer needed us for emotional support. He said he enjoyed spending time with his friends than spending time with us. He said that's why he wanted to dorm for his four years. Before he left, he said he was tired of being part of a family that placed him second when it came to love, especially when it wasn't his choice and he wanted to equally loved.

He left dinner that night without a goodbye and hasn't contacted us since then. Me and his mom were bawling our eyes out every day since then. We can't sleep at night at all. The worst part is that since he doesn't need us financially anymore he can cut us out his life with no drawbacks.

Did we mess up with him as parents? In our eyes we did everything we're supposed to as parents. We loved him, fed him, sheltered him, paid for his tuition, and spend time with him (apparently not enough). Forgive me if I didn't articulate myself properly, it's hurts righting this. What should we do? Did we go wrong? Advice is needed. Thank you all

Comment 1: I totally side with the son here, I’ll call him Nelson for sake of the comment here. OP doesn’t give a flying fig about what his son said, everything is about him and his wife. There is no reflection at all.

All you care about is how you look and are so defensive, I can’t believe for a minute that he could come to you with how he felt. You gaslit and downplayed him consistently

Poor son feeling conflicted over not missing the parents that neglected him! I’m glad Nelson is doing better now and will be clear across the country now.

Comment 2: One thing that concerns me with your post is that you're very defensive in it. There's no spot where you try to see it from your son's POV, and everywhere your son's POV is mentioned, it's followed up by how it isn't correct or that it doesn't look at the full picture.  

This is concerning because when most people are confronted with an accusation, a blanket dismissal that doesn't display a thought process of whether or not the accusation is true usually indicates that the person knows the accusation is true, so they want to discredit it.

I don't know if the above is correct in your case, but it really looks that way to me, which means your son has probably come to this conclusion.

If you're actually remorseful of your actions as a parent, then I'd recommend writing a letter or an email with your apology. Don't contact him if you're not truly remorseful, because that will just cause more problems in your relationship.

Comment 3: Oh. My God. I had to stop reading when it was mentioned that a three-year-old child woke up scared from a nightmare and the parents couldn’t comfort him because they wanted to finish having sex. My heart aches for their son. I hope he is able to find peace and build his own family that he can have a meaningful bond with.

You don’t deserve children at all.

 Update

It just last Friday, my wife and I just came in physical contact with our son. A lot of stuff has happened between the time we last him storming out on us during dinner and meeting him last Friday. First week we kept calling our son five times a day and leave him three voicemails daily. We never heard him pick up the phone. Within the second week his girlfriend picked up his phone one day and told us he living with her at her apartment but doesn't want to see us. She told us to give him time to cool down.

Meanwhile our lives at home was getting screwed over. The first couple of weeks, all of our energy was put into getting into contact with him and visit us. We knew where his girlfriend lived and my wife wanted to make personal visit but I warned her showing up at his doorstep uninvited is only going to make the situation worse. We called our family members to persuade him to talk to us. It didn't matter if we had his grandparents, aunts, uncles, to call him but his response was politely telling them he is willing to talk to them about anything but us and apologized if he inconvenienced them. We realized our method wasn't working.

We decided to go for counseling and therapy for not only for trying to reconnect with him but to also process our emotions through the difficult times. We slowly stopped overwhelming him with our attempts to contact him. Both our counselor suggested we respect his boundaries and let him make the first move. So, we decided to leave a voicemail to his phone that we will bothering him but our door is always to him.

These three months was painful to say the least. Our sex life decreased significantly. There was time my wife started crying in the middle of it since it reminded her of the time we let him cry out his nightmare when he was 3 years old but still didn't let him enter our room because we were in the middle of having sex and we wanted to finish. We didn't go on any date nights or outside of the house for that matter.

My wife and I became homebodies. A lot of guilt was plaguing us. That guilt led to a time of introspection. We started doing research on family dynamics during our spare time. We asked questions to ourselves such as: Did we spend enough time with him? Did he feel like a burden to our relationship? Were we wrong to put our relationship first over a relationship with him? We wanted to be aware what was going on his life so we used to follow him on social media. We checked his Facebook page every day. That was big mistake. We found out that he proposed to his girlfriend last month and she said yes. We found out through a post on his Facebook page. Yes, that's right. We, the parents, found out the engagement of our only child through fucking Facebook. Jesus Fucking Christ.

As if we weren't already in enough pain. We were stuck in the same cycle again for the past until he finally reached out to us. We got a call from our son this past Monday. and it was like a positive sign from the Universe. He said he wanted talk about our relationship. He asked if he could come to our house this Thursday with his girlfriend for support. We obviously said a resounding yes.

We anxious I didn't expect it to be a tearful reunion but definitely a good step in reconciliation. My wife and I discussed with each other about how to lead the conversation. We both agreed to apologize any anguish we caused and to listen to what he has to say first. When came this Thursday. We sat impatiently waiting for him after we came back from work. When he ranged the doorbell and he opened the, there was no sense of warmth from him but a reluctant smile.

His girlfriend almost felt sad being here. I had a feeling that night. They both refused any drinks we offered to them. My son felt extremely uncomfortable being there. My wife told him that if he wanted to speak first that he should.

This is what he said to us: He apologized to us if he caused us any emotional turmoil. He said his resentment started building up ever since he was little. There were a lot about our behavior that contributed to his point of view. He felt like having kids was more of a checklist that we wanted to complete instead of being actively interested in being a parent and having a deep bond as a parent. He said that whenever there was a disagreement with one of us that had always take each other sides over his. It felt like there was an us vs him type family dynamic.

Whenever we came back home from work we looked forward to seeing each other than him. When it came to spending time with him it felt like doing stuff with him was physically and emotionally draining with him. Like we needed a break from him after having a break with him. One on one time felt like it was even more taxing to us according to him. He also said that there were time we wanted to spend with each other He also said that we lit up when we wanted to spend time as a couple. He said that we made that we put more effort into having our date nights and couple time than spending time with him. He said we seemed more upset when we couldn't have couple time over having family time.

The fact that we spent our vacation as a couple than as a family compounded the problem. He found it bizarre when we claimed we missed him after he came back from our trips. When he was young he cried when we showed him pictures of our trips. We comforted by saying we love him but we need our couple time. He said that even made him more upset. He felt like we were using our parents (his grandparents) as our impromptu babysitters. He said that this feeling was further corroborated when visits significantly decreased when he grew older.

He said he gave up on having a relationship on us when he entered high school. He said he put more effort and time into his academics so he could use his energy in a more productive manner than on us. He said it didn't come as a surprise we didn't notice because we never formed a close bound with him to notice such things. He said his academics and friendships satisfied him more than spending time with us. Eventually we were just roommates to him. He became apathetic when we didn't spend time with him and turned us down many times.

We always thought he was too busy for us. He said that his bond with us weakened even more during college. He never missed us and he got annoyed when we asked to meet him and complain about him not calling us often. He said he cried sometimes because he felt guilty of not missing us. He also said one of the reasons he did well in his academics was because he wanted to do well in other aspects in his life such as following his passion in his physics and he wanted to lead a happy life with us barely or entirely out of it. That's when he started tearing up at that moment.

It still hurts him that the reason he successful is today because he wanted to get away from us. He said he felt free when he went to college and now he is soon going to grad school this fall on the other side of the country. The past few months. he realized a lot of new things.

He concluded by stating what wants for the future. He said he is very grateful for what we did for him such as paying for college. He will financially support us if we ever need it or be present when an emergency or family crisis occurs. Aside from that, we are not a priority in his life at all. We shouldn't be demanding phone calls and or him visiting us anymore. He said he shouldn't be forced to maintain a strong relationship with us but we never cultured it while we raised him. He states that family or not, an adult isn't obligated to have and maintain a relationship with any other adult.

He said he was stuck in a relationship with us he didn't want to have until he became independent. He no longer regrets his decision. He said in the end of the day we chose to be his parents not the other way around. We could have found ways to bond him and find common ground and stuff to do with him so it didn't feel like a burden to be a parent to him.

We never incorporated him in our lives and saw being a parent akin to a job. We had every opportunity to form that close bond with him and we never took it. Before he left he said he wished us a happy and healthy life for us and we're invited to his wedding if we want to come.

Time froze after he left and we were flabbergasted to what happened. It was like he divorced us. My door is always open to him and I hope one day he can forgive us for the way we treated him. However, I don't how to move on with this possibly permanent estrangement. Any suggestion? Thank for reading this. Writing this alleviated my anxiety a little bit. Jack, I still love you son. Please come back. I'm sorry.

Update: There is so much judgement from you guys. I believe that the spouse comes first. Your kids eventually will leave you but the spouse stays with you till the end. I maybe didn't have a proper balance, but no parent is perfect. I need help to get him to understand that we love him and we're sorry.

Comment 1: Notice how he continues to say, “I need him (son) to understand.” Son understands that he’s not a priority for you at all. You just want to be proud of his Ph.D. but not the fact that he did it so he would never have to depend on you. Why? Because you've shown you're unreliable. You've neglected him!

Comment 2: They took multiple multi week vacations without him. Go on your date nights, that is still important. I don’t agree with leaving kids out of vacations because it tells them you need a break from them, but at 6 months old? Enjoy yourself, there is time to take them on a vacation they’ll actually remember.

Comment 3: The son here is kick-ass.

What he says resonates so strongly. Yet after a childhood and lifetime of emotional neglect, he had a strong and mature plan to move forward and build a healthier future, while maintaining a far more healthy and loving relationship with his parents than they ever gave him.

For the rest of us parents here, this is a really strong reminder that we will all reap what we sow.

I am not the op but figured Josh may like this as I know he enjoys this subreddit. And this is the most insane thing I’ve seen

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Original Post

Not OP, just want to hear the boys opinion on this. (Probably get therapy to the man.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/amiwrong/s/oaNOtTcSeS

https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/comments/1w3qhud/my_daughter_blames_me_for_her_paralysis_maybe_it/

AITD:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmITheDevil/s/mCRxuIEPy7

Original:

https://www.reddit.com?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1

Porn:

https://www.reddit.com?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1

Latvia:

https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/s/l2947Kt0st

AITA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/hVcVzkTRS5