Chatty...I feel your pain...as well as Edelweiss's. I am, once again, estranged from my sons. It seems if they have a Mother in their life they can't 'be the man'. I did not go to my son's wedding last year and will probably never see any grandchildren. Chatty, I hope you reach a place where you can accept where life has brought you and let go of the anger. Grief carries with it many stages and I've been through all of them concerning this...but, since I've gone through this three times with my boys I've got some battle scars and saw this coming, again. Some of what happened completely blind-sided me and one of my sons, according to a counselor he suggested I see, told me that he's never forgiven me for the divorce and breakup of his home as a little boy and he's been sabotaging my relationship with his brother ever since...resentment? Jealousy? Payback? I don't know. With the other son it always stems around the woman in his life...first, the stripper...oh yes...the kind of person you bring home to mama. She made me public enemy #1 when I asked her to leave my home for her vulgar behavior. He didn't speak to me for about a year...not until he broke up with her. Relationship #2 made me enemy #1 when I voiced (in private to him) my disapproval of this girl's flatuating and loud burping at the dinner table while she laughed and thought it all so funny. Again, he didnt' speak to me for quite some time. Both sons ganged up on me and said I had no right to judge despite this stuff happened in MY home. Girl 3# is someone I won't discuss here because she's now married to my son and I don't want to go there. But, between his brother and his wife I stood no chance at all and am again enemy #1. I was accused of things I didn't do. I was accused of always playing the victim and about the cruelist things sons and DIL could say to their mom and MIL was said to me.
Mother's day comes and goes with no contact. When your son thinks nothing of telling you you're "F'd up, you F'ing need help, etc.", it's time to cut ties from that person.
Christmas/birthdays/holidays...will no longer be shared with my sons. It's all gone and all over. The last thing that was said to me by one of them or my DIL is "HA, I win. You lose. Maybe you should be worried." in a private message to this forum several months back. I have an idea who it is but will never be 100% sure. It was cruel and to kick someone when they're down like this is beyond cruel...it's malicious. I mean, what kind of person does this and feels good about themself?
I'm bringing this up, Chatty, because you are never going to change your son and how he treats you...he may come around for a little while but in the end their true colors will come through and you will be disappointed again and again. I've gone through the heartbreak 3 times and frankly am tired of it and if my finding peace means I never see them again then so be it. If they prefer being this way over showing respect for their Mother then I'm not the one who needs to see a counselor...they are. And she said she'd be more than happy to tell them that any time they had balls enough to face her. I won't tell you what she thinks of what my DIL told me...she did say they were heartless and speaks volumns of what kind of person is at the heart of those kinds of remarks. It's one thing to be disappointed in someone but to take it to the level she did says more about her than it does me. I am proud that I did not get down on the level she did but maintained my dignity and calm. I was praying during her ranting for God to keep me in his hands and calming spirit...He did and I am grateful that I maintained. My counselor told me I was a stronger woman than she is...she would have told her DIL where to get off.
If my kids had been minor's then I could say I'm responsible...but when they're adults and act like this, it's on them.
This is on your son, Chatty...and he is the one who has to look in the mirror and live with his decisions concerning you. My view is if he can live without you, so can you live without him. Not what you wanted as his Mother, but you can't make someone want to be in your life who doesn't want to be there. They can blame you, be mad at you, say you're F'd up, resent you for not thinking their poop doesn't stink (or their girlfriends), but in the end it's what they have to live with.
I did the best I could under the circumstances. I was the best Mother I could be. And like you, Chatty, I earned that respect because I'm 'mom'. If they don't want to see that then they are the one's who will eventually, down the road, get what they give through their own children. What goes around comes around. I miss the boys I remember who showed me respect. I miss the boys I remember who allowed me to be a mom. I miss having boys who would ask the woman in their life to show respect to their Mother...I've never had that and I think it's because I was divorced and they didn't have a man in their life to teach them that their Mother should be respected no matter what. Their dad sure as hell wasn't ever going to teach them to respect me. Maybe, in the end, this is the root cause of it all. I don't know. And maybe it was he who sent that final message saying he'd won and I'd lost. I'll never know.
Chatty...it would have been very easy for me to curl up and stop living because my son's did what they've done. And for awhile I went through a lot of griving...but, I snapped out of it and woke up and decided that life is too short to waste it on wanting someone who doesn't want me. I looked up and there smiling back at me is Larry...the sweet man I married over 5 years ago. He makes everything all right and he's my focus. He respects his Mother and always has...he's not afraid to let her call him terms of endearment without fear of his testicles falling off. He would do anything for her and he never, ever speaks to her disrespectfully...never curses around her and it is Larry who I wish I'd had my children with. If there's one thing I would take back it is who my sons' father is. Ahhhh, but as Larry says, they'll regret it one day...probably when it's too late, but they'll reget it. Your son will too...probably, as with mine, when it's too late.