I haven't written for a couple of years. I have a link to my original post explaining the problems we have had/are having.
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?action=profile;u=105627;sa=showPostsThe last time I wrote was in 2018. Since then, we have only seen my son and his wife twice. We had asked them over for several dinners but they either didn't answer our emails or said they didn't "feel like" coming. The last time we saw them was in February 2019 when my Dad was dying and he requested to see some family members. I called my son and he and his wife drove 3 hours to see my dad in the hospital. There were about 12 of us there, crying and saying good-bye to my dad. My son and his wife came in and were very aloof, did not shed a tear and then left without gathering with the rest of us afterwards. The last thing my son said was to make sure we let him know when the funeral was going to be. I didn't hear a single thing from him after that and was very hurt by it. He didn't care to know how I was doing or how my mom was doing or anything and it angered me. So I decided not to contact him directly about the funeral which was a month later. Perhaps that was kind of immature of me but the obituary was posted online and I figured he could call me if he really wanted to know. In the meantime, my sister was having a gathering at her place the day of the funeral so 5 days before, she contacted him to tell him about it and he said he didn't know about the funeral, had made other plans and would be unable to come. I see this as game-playing.
That was in February and then in August 2019, we received an email that was sent to a group ( my sisters and my husband's parents and us) saying they moved about 14 hours away from us and gave us their mailing address. We emailed them back congratulating them and wishing them well.
My husband and I have worked really hard to cope with the situation and in fact have gone together to see therapists on 2 occasions. Our son is 30 years old and basically the sentiment from the therapists are "he is an adult, he is making his own choices... even if he is in an abusive relationship, there is nothing we can do if he doesn't want us involved - carry on with your lives and move forward".. We have taken that advice and are doing ok. We have sent them Christmas cards and birthday cards but have heard nothing from them.
Suddenly this summer, my son sent me a note on Linkdin saying he wanted me to stop looking at his profile on there and he wished I had handled "this whole thing differently". I tried to engage him telling him I missed him and that we would like to work things out with him and his wife. But he just said something nasty so I left it alone and didn't answer.
Then my husband and I received an email from him about 2 weeks ago ( them - but signed by him) saying he is wondering why we haven't been curious about them. He said quite a few things about the environment he grew up in with us and the reason he is having problems in his life is because we didn't encourage him to "be himself", rather he was trying so hard to be a "good boy" and not encouraged to show emotions and because of that he is having relationship problems. He wanted us to acknowledge our role and take responsibility for what we did. He said he is afraid to talk to us because he tends to say what he thinks we want to hear. He said being away from us has been empowering and he is learning about himself and correcting some of his harmful ways. But he says history shows that we don't try and examine our own patterns to change them and become healthy. He also said we've been 'blocking' his wife and he loves her and wishes we would treat her with more respect. He mentioned that he can't trust us to tell him important things that are happening with family members since we didn't tell him about my dad's funeral. He noted that all he wanted to be was loved and accepted.At the end of the note, he said he wanted us in his life but he didn't know what that would look like. For the time being, he was interested in communicating with us - so we saw that as a positive thing.
We wrote back the next day and said we would prefer to communicate over phone or skype because we haven't had success with emails in the past.
Then a few days went by and I thought maybe he changed his mind and we were going to go back to no contact, so thought it would be important that at the very least he knows that we are interested in communicating, that we do love and accept him, we acknowledge that we made mistakes and we have spent many many hours trying to figure out how to fix things. We mentioned that it mattered a lot to us, we saw 2 therapists on 2 different occasions and took their advice. We told him we loved him and would love to resolve things with him and his wife.
So 2 weeks later, we did get a letter. It started out by saying they want to communicate by email only as that gives them time to think about their answers.We feel like this one was written completely by his wife (psychologist- just starting out) because of the style of writing and the terminology that was used.
quote "We all know there are strong tendencies in this family to avoid emotions or conflict at all costs. Letting someone follow their path does not mean drop off the face of the earth, or have some conditions to your communication (ex..needing us to respond at some frequency, attend certain events). I believe there was pettiness / cold- shoulderness/ meanness in your silence and you used the advice as an excuse to not be accountable to that anger. I'd also note that I believe going to 2 counselling sessions over a 2 year period is not considered doing your part or work. I have been in therapy for 2+ years, bi-weekly at a minimum, alot of which has been work on my relationship with you. " unquote
They said we are just using our 'leaving him on his own' as an excuse to ignore the whole issue and tell ourselves that they are the ones with the problem and we are the victims. (it should be noted that they have no contact with anyone on our son's side of the family OR any of his friends- it's not only us).
They said they don't think we handled this in a healthy or mature way.
The reason I am writing today is because I am at a loss as to how to respond to this.
This was the reason we didn't want to use emails - everything gets twisted. I can't believe they are making it sound like we are the ones who decided to go "No contact" . I think they are looking for a very specific answer from us but I don't know what that is. There was one occasion (back before their wedding in Sept/17) that I called my dil to apologize to her for not supporting her and she said the only way she would accept my apology is if I promised to support her in all circumstances going forward. I told her I couldn't make that kind of promise but that I value our relationship and would try hard to make it work. She said that wasn't "good enough". It seems like there is no compromising at all in this relationship.
I feel bad for my son. It seems like because they are having relationship issues, all they are ever doing is trying to 'fix' him and now that has spilled over to being our fault too. She has never taken any responsibility for the problems they have, as far as I can see.
Please help.
