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IT COULD BE YOU….
My son has gone
A mother writes:
My 22-year-old son has always been
close to me, but now he has rejected me altogether because of his
new girlfriend, who is 24 and has a 2-year-old daughter. He tends to
fall in love very easily, then get hurt. I’m afraid he is about to go
through it all again.
The new girlfriend still sees the
father of the child when my son is at work. She is unemployed and
very lazy. The daughter spends a lot of time with her father or at the
nursery where her child attends. Now she says she is pregnant with my
son’s baby, but when they were living with me in January, she told me
she had slept with the child’s father too.
Unable to deal with someone using my
son, I asked them to live elsewhere. They left, but my son refused
to let me know where they live and doesn’t answer my calls. I can’t
bear his rejection or that he is being exploited by the girl. It is
breaking my heart, I feel bereaved.
Maggie replies:
What a sad state of affairs. You have lost touch with your son and
you feel his new partner is the reason for this.
You were absolutely right to ask them
to leave your house when you felt she was using your son and using
your hospitality. It must have been very disturbing to know she was
still having a relationship with her child’s father at the same time
as living with your son and carrying a child whose paternity cannot be
established without a DNA test.
Letting go of a child is one of the
hardest things for a parent to do, but it looks as though this is
precisely what you have to do. The more you try to reason and persuade
him to see things from your point of view, the more he will feel you
are criticizing his choice of partner. He is 22 years old and a grown
man, even if you do see him as a bit na?e and easily influenced. He
needs to go out into the world and make his own decisions and his own
mistakes. That way he will learn from experience rather than do what
his mum tells him is best.
This is very tough on you, as you say you have always been very
close. But it’s also a difficult relationship for a new woman to
handle, as she will fear she can never have first claim on him.
Mothers are powerful – although you probably don’t feel it right now.
But there are many ways to use that power and one of them is to
recognize your son’s responsibility for his own life. You can do this
and still allow him to know you will always love him and be there for
him, whatever decisions he makes.
Ask only that he somehow lets you know how he is now and then, no
matter how things work out between him and his partner.
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Tell him that there will always be a
welcome in your home for him.
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Keep the message brief.
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Say it clearly, warmly, calmly and
without any reference to his girlfriend or discussion of events.
If you have been as close as you say,
he will listen to your message before deleting it. If the only way
to tell him this is in a ‘phone message or text then so be it. Perhaps
you know one or two of his friends and you might ask them how he is.
Don’t however ask them for his address, or tell them everything about
the relationship, or criticize his girlfriend, as they will feel
compromised by your words.
Sometimes a child who has been very close to a parent has to
completely cut loose to find out who they really are. He is young and
has a lot of finding out to do.
In the meantime your grief will be painful to bear, so do find
someone to talk this through with. Are there any voluntary
counselling services nearby? Perhaps you could find out through your
doctor’s surgery, local Social Service offices or on the internet.
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