My son has split from me for 5 years
Hi all. I am so empathetic will all of you. I know this disease is awful.
I am sorry this is so long.
My son now 25 years old split from me a little over 5 years ago in his freshman year of college. I raised him by myself and sacrificed for him. Every day I told him I loved him and sometimes it was him hugging me out of the blue and telling him how much he loved me. He and I were so close as he grew up. Likely too close. His father was basically out of the picture and the few times he was something bad usually happened. One example is when my son was 7 he was found walking across a 3 mile bridge trying to get to me. He had been missing for 4 hours and no one reported him missing. When the police found him, they gave him a teddy bear. My ex-husband ripped it up and cussed my son out with basically every word you can think of. But my son and I were so close.
But he suddenly split. I have not heard “happy birthday,” “Merry Christimas, or been acknowledged on Mother’s Day in over 5 years.
Last year he sent through a third party (I’ll call him Sam) some pictures from a vacation and wrote me. It was like nothing had happened. He told me about his fiancé and said how much I would love her. He asked Sam to forward to me. He did this twice over a period of 12 months.
In December my son reached out to Sam to see me. We all had dinner and it was really like nothing had happened. I did love his fiancé. It was obvious he had shared a lot about me with her. And he brought up old vacations we had.
Then less than a week later, he was gone again. During that time he told Sam I had not changed. He told Sam I was still in a relationship with someone I have not seen in 3 years. He said the house was too messy (I found over 35 pizza boxes he had hidden in my house when he split with me. He was unhappy I was leaving my job - even though my new one was much better. He also said my mental health was not good and told Sam he was mentally healthy.
The last exchange I had with him was a couple of days before Christmas via text when he accused me having control of his SIM card. I do not. He is not on my line. Apparently someone at AT&T told him something. I have not had an AT&T phone for over 15 years.
Each year I buy myself an orchid on Mother’s Day. This year is worse since he said in December he wanted to have a relationship again with me.
I know there is nothing I can do. He knows and acknowledged to someone that I had a much worse childhood than him and he knew I had abandonment issues.
I take care of my mental health and see a counselor every two weeks. But the pain of him coming back in to my life has been too much. Though he has not communicated with me I learned he had tried to commit suicide at least 3 times during this split. Even though another family member knew she did not tell me. The third attempt ended up with him in the ICU. This family member is my deceased father’s wife (my stepmother). She never liked me and accused me of sleeping with my father while she was alive.
I am now scared of him coming back in my life after another 5 years. It has had a big emotional toll on me. When he first split from me I was a wreck and seriously considered killing my self. It was hard to come back from that.
I do not expect to see him ever again. At this point not acknowledging me on Mother’s Day seems like a kick in the stomach since he supposedly wanted a relationship with me.
I’m sorry to vent or pour my heart out.
UPDATE: I figured out how to edit this original post.
I was pleasantly surprised that my son texted me last night. For the first time in years he wished me a Happy Mother’s Day and told me I would never know how much he loved me and still did. I texted back that I loved him too , told him how proud I was of him and thanked him for making me a mom. I have renewed hope. Thank you for all of your kind words. They meant a lot.