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H and I have been NC for a couple of months.  We're living apart.  H's brother has made H "promise" to not contact me (long story, but H's brother has been told many huge lies about me).

H and I have a 24 year old son who's on the quiet/shy side.  When H wants me to be told something (usually with an insulting and untruthful accusation), he'll call our son up and say, "tell you mother _____."  Since our son is shy and he doesn't know the details, H is able to get these insults out to me thru our son.

Our son hates this.  Plus, when our son tries to speak, H doesn't even hear him.

Today, H told our son that I had our mail forwarded to our vacation home without his consent.  The truth is, I had the mail forwarded to our vacation home 12 months ago because we had been spending a LOT of time there... . and H was fully aware of this, but seems to have forgotten this. 

A month ago, H called our son up and told him that I "stole his golf shoes" from our home.  Our other son went to our home and found the shoes within about 10 minutes.

My son wants to stop this "go between" nonsense, but doesn't know what to say to H. 

Have you discussed boundaries with your son?

"I want to continue to have a relationship with you.  I understand that it is difficult for you to communicate with Mom directly.  Perhaps you can send her an email or a text message if you need to communicate with her.  I'm not comfortable being a go between and will no longer participate as a messenger between you two."

Supportive statement

Empathy statement

(solution suggestion)

Truth statement (boundary)

Yes, I have discussed boundaries with our son, but neither of us knew the right words to use.  The ones that you've provided sound good.

It is very unhealthy for our son to be 'in the middle.   Our son is already the nervous type and this stuff just makes him more nervous.   Son's doctor told him that he has a lot of tension in his shoulders.  Likely, this nonsense just contributes to that.   

uBPDw been gone 3mo. nc . S25 lives with us , he's mentally challenged. he's been in the middle of a marital war and it's been bad for his issues . W has had many failed romances( i belive in monogamy ) and has left twice . S has felt abandonment and anger towards his mom and coupled with my anger towards her we made her worse  . S and i are seeing T and concentrating on her illness , leaving the anger, bad for he and i . she refused to reach out to him and they are at odds . i too offered to e-mail or text his mom , but he can get very ugly and i told him no contact w her to spew anger. she has refused the past few years to return to T. i want both my son and i not to " kick her while she's down " but told him my boundaries are for her to seek professional help to be welcomed home . he agrees .

What son and I don't like is that H is using these contacts with our son as an opportunity to throw insults at me, "tell your mom (fill in the blank)."  H knows that our shy son isn't going to lob any comebacks or even know the information to defend me, so it's just a continuance of before where H would insult me directly, but never allow me to respond/defend myself.  

In the response that lbj wrote, I would add something like, "dad, I want our conversations to be about us (what you're doing, what I'm doing).  If you have something you need to communicate to mom, then send her an email."


In H's crazy mind, by going thru our son, he's maintaining "no contact".  As far as I'm concerned, as soon as he says, "tell your mother _____," then it's no longer "no contact."

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Good!

I know that my son will be glad to have this nonsense end.