Could go on forever but will try not to. Gf is horrible, most bold mouthy girl I have ever met. My son told me he did not want to go out with her, she started sending him naked pics by cell. Then started giving him underwear. Then clothing. I watched him get roped right in and tried to warn him. It only made him rebel.
The girl told me in one of my first exchanges w/her "we may never see eye to eye but I expect us to be civil." I was like amazed. I had told her if she was helping him to drink alcohol, probably wasn't doing him any favors. High risk of alcoholism genetically. Now, since her, it has become part of his lifestyle I watch as he has completely changed his personality. Is it alcohol, or the gf or both? Whatever it is, isn't good. I cannot believe my son would be so vulnerable, any way.
He is a good catch, financially. I do not trust this girl at all. She has told me she has purposely not included me. (in their circle.) Her parents are like their best buddies. I have tried my damndest to embrace this girl. She tells me "He is MINE." and she tells me "I know so much more than you will ever know about your son." I think she is possessive and dangerous mentally, really. She is very smart, but very devious. Has brainwashed my son's whole belief system -- has taught him he has "free will"< acts as tho he never had "choices" before, and also says he can "treat (me) any way he wants, it is his choice."
Son's and my relationship has deteriorated badly. Scarily. I am a single mom, with 2 boys. I do not understand why this girl has such a thing about my son's mother. She treats me as tho I am a 21 yr old peer, and not as a mother, whoever was his mother would have been treated the same way, by this woman. No desire to really fit into our family -- she wants to BE my son's family, and that is that. My son's behavior has dramatically been altered in this process. His morals have slipped. Her parents think it is OK to lie, that kids will go thru that --- and so my son now lies a lot. Her parents beileve any one can do what they want -- my son' now lets himself go, across a line, in doing what he wants. The girl has since day one, made everything SEEM like everything has been my son's choice. I guess ultimately it is his choice, but always her ideas. She is an expert at how to f--- me over in anything I want. She is very very cunning. I have watched her isolate him away, and she contanctly controls him 24/7 via keeping him in her "trance" thru texting. She goes crazy on him if he doesn't text right back. Consumes all of his time. Makes him be "true to her" to the expense of anything else dear in his life. She has no interest in his past. she moved him out behind my back -- my son was never dishonest, it broke huge trust, for him and me. Her parents helped move him out, not knowing it was behind my back. I was devastated. All this to drink alcohol and be with his gf, or her need for him to-- can't say anymore which came first, a chicken or an egg they are so enmeshed psychologically. Started realizing very poisoinous views of me coming out of him, asked him to come to counseling with me to figure out why this all has happened. The very poisonous views, words, thoughts are his gf's, they became internalized in him, as well.
Her parents tell me HE is in control in their relationship and that she always controlled every bf and they think it is good for her. The idea of my son being in control has made him act like a tyrant and dominator, with me. not good. But she still is in control of him, by letting him think he is in control of her, if you get what I mean. I cannot comprehend the need in my son any way, for control. He never had it before. These ppl relate to him as "I know no one can tell you what to do" and so now he has become someone "no one can tell what to do" -- It has been simply horrible. This is not my son, that I raised. He was never a kid like that. He was always happy and sunny. And well -liked. I don't even recognize him these days, with all of this happening. I am very scared for him. I know he has to learn from his own mistakes but this is a huge one. I do not feel at all that he had the chance to develop his own life upon moving out, she just ensnared him. I am not jealous, and not the type of mom who ever has had ANY problems ever with any of my son's gf's before this. I cannot talk with the girl becuz all she does is mouth off at me, so I finally went to her parents, who still have some influence. Her parents mean well, they just don't realize how their daughter really is. She is a terrible girl, kind of criminal really -- in her manipulations. She has removed my son away from the CORE of his true self. I know young ppl tend to be like who they are with somewhat but this has been ungoldy. Her words come out of his mouth, the way he believes her beliefs, etc. She is always looking down on others, as well, sniping ppl's words, it is her true past time. But there is good in her too -- she just lies all the time and also to her self, to the point where I don't even think she realizes it. I know her parents didn't realize how much she pulls, until I started showing them, but still all it did was cause my son and her to go isolate even more from me -- I was trying to head on directly get real about all that goes on. This girl, has taken advantage of the fact that I am a single mother with no husband around -- to her I am not as worthy of respect without a man in my home -- I think she is pathetically unevolved in that regard -- but to her couples are the only thing in life that counts, any one who isn't in one does not matter. Her parents also view someone who didn't remarry as really not having taken care of the kids somehow as well as I could have. And I am a really GOOD mother and I always held down a 2 parent income, esp when child support was being held up by my ex -- I truly gave my kids everything that I had. This girl came along and caused my son to doubt everything about my parenting, and it has been just awful. My son earns 60K a year, and he is in early 20's. I have known since the beginning on an instinctual level that this girl is harm. And I have known that IF he makes it out of this alive, mentally, emotionally and physically, it will be a long time before he even wants a healthy relationship again after this relationship he is in. Seriously, this girl is like a sociopath. And I am scared. All I can do right now is NOTHING. This is the first I have not tried to call him at all. She accuses me of "wanting control" if I do call him, and he has begun to think that way -- and all I get is rejected too many times as a person let alone as a parent, to be able to keep doing it. Long story short -- trying to be in touch with him somehow becomes part of the problem. It doesn't work. He cannot sustain it for long without a nightmare happening. I do not have a problem with a woman becoming number one in his life, I just wish it were a HEALTHY number one, for him.
I know I cannot have any opinion.
I have told him how I feel, and it only increased the go for her stuff.
Has been a late rebellion. The therapist said. He doesn't stay more than 3X in therapy - we tried 2, a woman and a man.
My son has become like in to power since this girl, she is all about power.
My son, if I go to see him, won't let me into his apt unless other family members are with me. Otherwise he won't let me in. In the times he has let me in, he will suddenly order me "I want you to leave" and then starts shoving me. I cannot deal with it. It is so dead wrong, but obviously, all the control stuff has rubbed off on him from her. I am having, quite simply, a hell of a time with this.
I cry, all the time lately. At the thought of my happy family, becoming a broken apart failure. We always had so muchfun together, my boys and I. We ARE a family, and I deserve to still have my family. This girl's family doesn't suffer whatsoever, ours gets demolished and shortchanged and allowed to die from shrewdly planned out lack of time. All year, when my son visited me for like a dinner, we had to put up with her texting him, like 3X per minute sometimes. She would call me by my first name to him all the time, devaluing me as a mother to him in that way. When we went on an expensive vacation, which took me months to earn for, we had to put up with her contant texting and calling all the time altho we were mi away. On his b-day, his brother drove 4 hours to celebrate with him, and we took him to dinner and home to open gifts, and she tried to drag him off to go drink with friends, which really upset our usual way of celebrating his bday. We would have had one hour with him max, if I hadn't put my feelings forth. Of course, I am the hated one.
I just don't know what to do any more. I have bent over backwards to accommodate this relationship, and they just keep getting sicker. Toward me. I cannot deal with it, anymore. It continues to scar my son's and my relationship for me to try to call him or see him, because she needs him to be the way she needs him to be. And of course, she always skates away scott free from any responsibility in her part of it.
It has been unreal, really. the most toxic situation I have ever seen. And I have NO clue, any longer what to do. I guess I can't do anything. She feeds off of me gleefully any way. So what choices do I have? I don't think I have any any more, except to take care of myself, and until my son gains respect for me again, it makes no sense. But my heart honestly, is breaking over this. And has been for a year. Nothing gets better, it gets worse. My son is so "dead" to me now that if I ask "is family still important to you?" He says yes, and SOUNDS like he means it, but then his actions speak otherwise. It is a terrible mess.
Any advice would be most appreciated. It is making me old way before my time.
This is only his second serious relationship. The girl needs it to be "different " from his last relationship. the girl and her mother tell my son he is "different" from me and alsop from his brother, because my older son and I have blonde hair and my younger son has brown hair. They tell him he is just like the boys' father, they met him ONCE for 4 hours. Behavior has nothing to do with genetics. But these days, if they tell my son he is green, then he would turn green for them. Like a big morph. The girl tells my son I "treat him differently from (his brother" -- I always treated my kids equally and the same -- this year, with my son's acting out, it has begged being treated differently. I have done my very best not to. The girl was saying this to him before she even met me. It is not founded in any truth.
Why do kids get so impressioned, by someone they are in bed with?
It is an identity shift into "coupledom" instead of my son remaining himself AND being in a couple.
To be honest i didnt read the whole story.. i didnt need to. But i can so understand how ur feeling and how upset you must be. I am writing because i can relate to your son. I dont know if im going to help or not but i really do feel for you. I was in a relationship where my x was very controlling i was never too close with my parents but he practically ripped me away from them. It was kinda like 'if you love me you dont need them' and i fell into his trap i moved out of home and my attitude changed so much. I even deserted all my friends. Something i always said i would never do. Finally it came to stage where i clicked. He had made me become someone who i didnt like. I visited home once when we had a bit of a fight and i snapped at my mum. She ended up crying and that broke my heart. It hit me how much i was hurting the people who cared about me the most. I left the guy cause although he offered me a life and world of my own its not what i wanted. I wanted my parents who had raised me my friends who were always there for me .. and he was trying to take that away from me. In my eyes this girl is a complete b****. I feel so sorry for you to have to go threw this. All i can offer to say is that only time will tell. And as for her putting your son onto drinking,, thats just horrible his not in his right state of mind... i dont know what i can really say to help but i just really hope he realises like i did before its too late
my best of wishes go to you xxxx
Last edited by xjohnsgirlx; 12th July 2008 at 5:03 AM.
It hit me how much i was hurting the people who cared about me the most. I left the guy cause although he offered me a life and world of my own its not what i wanted. I wanted my parents who had raised me my friends who were always there for me .. and he was trying to take that away from me. In my eyes this girl is a complete b****. I feel so sorry for you to have to go threw this. All i can offer to say is that only time will tell. And as for her putting your son onto drinking,, thats just horrible his not in his right state of mind... i dont know what i can really say to help but i just really hope he realises like i did before its too late
my best of wishes go to you xxxx
Thank you so much xjohnsgirlx -- It is helpful to hear from another end of the situation, my son has not and will not talk about it with me, more than 2 minutes -- in all this year, I have had the chance to talk with him ever about it and even just about what we are going to do about OUR relationship and our family -- in one full year I have had no more chance than 8 hours max of a chance and those only in like 10 minute blurbs. Absolutely nothing gets accomplished. He also has left all old friends behind. He also left his beloved older cat behind who he loved more than anything in the world -- she talked him into getting a "replacement" cat" (kttien) when she moved him. She doesn't live with him, she has been working on it, since she moved him. If I buy him a winter coat, she buys him one, etc. She bought him a whole wardrobe, not one thing in it, is from "before" -- ie when he lived here. It has been surreal.
She has teied to shame me for over a year for his having lived at home when she met him. He was just getting his feet wet in real career. Had tried college and quit, but was taking PT courses at a college and working in a very real adult job and had begunt o save some money and was paying his bills. . Now, since her graduation from college, SHE lives at home with her parents and no one tries to make her feel bad for living there or accusing her parents of not "letting her grow." It is just all insane. And if you love someone, you DON'T help them feed themselves something that could potentially kill them. She told him "see you can drink, it is just your mother who says you can't." I am telling you, honestly my son can't handle alcohol. Both therapists have TOLD him he is at very high risk for alcoholism. So in this process he got a dui. and seemed to learn. But then I ran into him one night, and he was more drunk than I had ever seen him, a couple of weeks ago. Since then he has been running/avoiding me like the plague. And the girl was with him. She honestly IS a real b***. And once she knows what I don't want, she goes and does.
She makes alcohol about being grown up. I just never had it around my kids and they developed really healthy friends and interests. now my kid doesn't even play basketball or work out any more. Just have watched all of what always had been his life go right out the window.
When I took our family on vacation, she and he then went on vacation to the same exact place. It is like she has to "re-frame" everything for him, and make my efforts null and void or something, lol! But it is a sick need to compete with me, and I can't deal with it any more.
I am glad you found your way back to your fmaily and friends and world. I pray that my son does as well.Your reply gives me hope. In the meantime, I have to fully accept that he is not who he ever used to be, and accept things as they are right now.
Omggggg this is sounding so much of what i was going through. AT the time of it all i was listening to my x like he was right .. and everyone else was wrong, he just had a way of saying things that like messed with my head. I do regret alot of things i did with him. Avoiding my family, lossing contact with the most beautiful friends i could have asked for. We were both living at his house and he always always said bad stuff about my mum about how she never treated me right and everything but he never really took it to get to know her. She is an amazing mother ...she gets grumpy and the ****s at times but who doesnt. He always said my parents hated him at the start but they actly really liked him he was decent and sweet and kind but he changed so much. He did the trying to re act things aswell. He always said i didnt need friends, but he had sooo many friends and always saw them... but not once did i meet them? And i was never allowed to go anywhere with out him .. I really do hope your son comes to sense... i did .. and im so angry that i let myself become somebody i wasnt. One day he is going to clik and i hope it isnt before it is too late .. i do know that if i left it anylonger i prob wouldnt have had anything to come back to =( I wish you all my luck i really feel for you
My brother also got involved with a person like you are describing. She had similar perceptions of [our] mom and of me. The fact is that, ultimately, it was my brother who allowed things to happen; allowed his relationships with us and other family members to deteriorate; supported her in her distorted views and dysfunctional ways of coping with her sad life.
Similarly, it is your son also doing that. Your son IS choosing his own attitudes, behaviours and drinking habits. He is old enough and intelligent enough to be holding down a well-paying job that, one assumes, carries responsibility and needs self-discipline. He has ability to think for himself.
It took me a long time to realize that every time I blamed my brother's actions on this woman, it was actually an insult to his intellect and ability to make decisions. How he sees others and acts towards them is his responsibility. He is not a child. He is not a moron. He got away with mistreating us because we wrongly blamed somebody else for his garbage. All that did, really, was turn him into her victim. That isn't accurate. If he was a victim, it was of his own thoughts and decisions.
Sad but true is that grown-up children do hurtful things to themselves and those who love them. It doesn't serve to think that's because they have been 'brainwashed'. They're just making some choices that hurt.
__________________
"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." ~ Andy Warhol
Last edited by Ronni_W; 13th July 2008 at 2:46 AM.
Reason: clarification
. always said bad stuff about my mum about how she never treated me right and everything but he never really took it to get to know her. He did the trying to re act things aswell. And i was never allowed to go anywhere with out him .. I really do hope your son comes to sense... i did .. and im so angry that i let myself become somebody i wasnt. One day he is going to clik and i hope it isnt before it is too late .. i do know that if i left it anylonger i prob wouldnt have had anything to come back to =( I wish you all my luck i really feel for you
Wow, it is exactly how it is -- the thoughts his gf has about me are awful and she pumps it into him til he ingests it and believes it as well and that is that way it is now. And she has never gotten to know me, just believes in this pathetic poor dim view of me and insists on it. How are you supposed to enjoy a person like that? I have tried to get to know her, but it never lasts for long. She also has him very messed up about what it is to be adult -- her version of adult is causing all these changes. She pretends to give him freedom by never being upset no matter what time he would show up to see her or IF he went to see her --and reeled him in that way, it appealed to him a great deal to have a gf who was all easy about when....but it is .like a fox playing with a chicken and I have been watching it all along. She now has to be with him 24/7, has been pressuring him to let her live with him, so far he hasn't but I don't believe he will be able to keep saying no. In a way now I hope they do live together so that they can get sick of eachother, lol! But, it isn't funny, I have to keep making some humor or I will just stay miserable, forgive me.
It is really great to hear your end of it, for me, thank you so much!! I truly appreciate it. How long were you in your relationship with him? What finally broke it up? How did you start to realize?
I read your whole story and it is obvious that this situation definately is paining you and I'm sure it is heartwarming to read there are others who have gone through the same kind of thing and came to realize their relationship was destructive and left it and that may happen with your son as well or it may not, which I'm sure may cause a lot of trouble in the future in your family but if you son continues to stay in this relationship there isn't any more you can do to break them up aside of what you have already said to him and most likely the more you try to break them up, the more you will push him farther away from you.
This may not be what you want to hear but I suggest backing off and letting your grown son find his own way through this and in the mean time concentrate on anything that is good or reasonably good about her and their relationship and concentrate on that and let her and your son know by your words and actions. No one is 100% bad and sometimes focusing on what is working, what good each of them possess, things in their relationship that are working, can turn people around and you may find that a change in your attitude may bring her closer to you and your son as well.
This may sound like white washing the whole thing or that I'm suggesting you ignor her bad qualities or your son's not so good choices but your choice is to distance them more or draw them closer and for your sake I hope you choose the the path of least resistance.
Thank you Nleeh,
It is true that it distances him to criticize anything. So, I have tried and honestly embraced the girl. Went to her graduation, gave her a gift of money for graduation, invited her to my bday dinner, ask my son how she is when I speak to him etc. While everything "seems" fine, at those times, I quickly find she still badmouths me any way, even to my face. Nonethless, I remain nice and adult and overlook her slips, but still it is very hard, and still results in my son ramping up the distancing again. Part of it is her need, part of it is his. Together as a couple they are very difficult. Yet, I will keep in mind that I should focus on her/their positive, you are right, and thank you for the reminder. And you are right, my grown son needs to make his own decisions. I haven't tried to break them up, I realized awhile ago that it is his relationship and it really is his, not mine. I just wish I could wave a magic wand and have it be much nicer. It really has been so damaging. But you are right, it has to be that positive is appreciated. And you are right that no one is all bad -- I guess I happen to belive that if someone causes this much ruckus and needs to lie all the time that I believe they are kind of sick. Or young. Or both. Alot of it on her part is downright intentional. Hard to overlook and consider OK.
I feel for you! I really do...This has got to be such an ongoing pain! But as you know there isn't a whole lot that can be done. The good news is that your son sounds smart enough to eventually come to his senses, and when he does he will be able to see right through all of her nonsense... Good luck!
I hope so. I ran into him today and he is cold as ice, sigh. We don't know, my older son and I, what to do. My older son is visiting next couple days. This is the first time I didn't go out of my way to try to make a get together happen with the three of us all together. Since my youngest son is obviously hell bent on being aloof, not speaking to me, not answering ph, not texting, I stopped trying to reach him 14 days ago. Scary tho. It does not seem worth all of the pleading with him to come be with us. All this time I have brought family to him, I think he needs to start wanting family and start trying to want to be with family. God this is all so hard. And the gf thrives on any "winning" of him anyway, so let 'em rip, I guess. I give up. I just don't know what to do. I am so angry anyway, that his gf has said I am not the one included in his life because of how I am. Her words to me. Yet I am afraid he will be hurt and also cop even more resentments if I don't keep family time warm and open to him, but he just blew off a trip to my Dad's, who is near 80 on purpose with the girlfriend who I was going to bring to meet family...... and I know she just helped manipulate the not going so that she can go meet family without me. I am angry with my kid for wanting me excluded from his life and for being so dumb as to believe this is any way to be. Blows my mind. it is so hard to know what is right. But my older son and I both realize that there's really nothing we can do any more. My younger son is busy making his "choices" that his gf taught him to make -- and I guess we have to let him get done making his choices. Don't know if it will ever be all right again. I really do not know. How in hell does a family that was always happy just get blown to bits suddenly in one year, just because of a girl and a lot of confusion about what it means to be "adult?" He never had confusion about how to be an adult before he met her, and I have never seen anyone in such a rush to feel grown up as this girl. He was actually a LOT more mature 2 years ago, this has been like watching a landslide of someone going totally backwards. I feel like such a failure this year as a mother, and yet I know that he and his gf have just made it all about me and that I was a good mom, a really good mom. It's just so awful.
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Have you mentioned to your son how much he is hurting you by doing this?
I have never been a mother, and am still fairly young myself, probably more young than your son, but I have a boyfriend that says bad things about my mother all the time. The truth is, my mother and I did have a lot of strain in our relationship that she never realized because I kept it all to myself growing up in fear of standing up to her.
Maybe there were things that his girlfriend is saying is true. I think what you need to do and sit your son down and talk about YOUR relationship. Tell him you'll sit quietly and listen to what he feels are the issue between you and him. What does he feel you're doing wrong or have done wrong. And maybe try to fix those issues at hand. Try to keep the girlfriend out of it. And if that's not possible, then it'll help him realize how much the relationship is controlling his life.
In a sense, although you are his mother and he your son, you need to try to let go for the time being. I know it's hard. But it seems the more a parent tries to cling on, the more the child will try to break away. Give him some space to make his mistakes, but be there once he realizes those mistakes. He's the one making the choices. You should try being upset at him for once and do yourself a favor and just let him out of your life for a bit. Focus on your other son. Focus on other things. Your younger son will come back when he's ready.
It took me a long time to realize that every time I blamed my brother's actions on this woman, it was actually an insult to his intellect and ability to make decisions. How he sees others and acts towards them is his responsibility. He is not a child. He is not a moron. He got away with mistreating us because we wrongly blamed somebody else for his garbage. All that did, really, was turn him into her victim. That isn't accurate. If he was a victim, it was of his own thoughts and decisions.
Thank you Ronni W and all of you for helping with your thoughts, I truly appreciate all of your help. It is true, Ronni, that he is a victim of his own thoughts and decisions. It is easier to blame the girl because he is my son, but I do know they have been his very painful choices. It you could see it in action you would realize that there is an aspect of brainwashing, tho,too. My older son said it is like my younger son and his gf have an idiot box between their ears, where they scramble anything I say and make it into something else. Happens all the time.
Did your brother snap out of it? Did he repair family relationships? It is all so very scary and not the way our family ever was, at all.
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Have you mentioned to your son how much he is hurting you by doing this?
In a sense, although you are his mother and he your son, you need to try to let go for the time being. I know it's hard. But it seems the more a parent tries to cling on, the more the child will try to break away. Give him some space to make his mistakes, but be there once he realizes those mistakes. He's the one making the choices. You should try being upset at him for once and do yourself a favor and just let him out of your life for a bit. Focus on your other son. Focus on other things. Your younger son will come back when he's ready.
Hi Habitual - my younger son has become completely incapable of owning any responbsibility or even awareness that he has hurt any one. Part of that is from his gf teaching him he is not resp. for anyone else's feelings and that there's no right or wrong, and so he clings to those beliefs with a fury and cannot ever put himself in another's shoes any longer as he was always able to. He was always a sweet, compassionate kid with a heart of gold. So trying to say how much anything hurts me, he does not care, these days. He thinks nothing should hurt me. And that he is fine the way he is. There seems also to be a really disturbing part of him these days that almost enjoys hurting me. I wanted to bring him to a therapist who helps guys who turn against their mothers over girlfriends. I still think it would not hurt, but he won't go to one now. He is getting very mixed messages from the girl about what is manly and what is adult. You are right that the more a parent tries to cling, the more the child breaks away. I have done nothing for the past couple of weeks at all. Haven't tried to call him or text him, etc. It is a horrible feeling, tho. I just wanted to keep our natural relationship. While he grew and changed into adult hood. I never ever expected this and it has been extreme, and the girl does feed so much of it. She talks to me like I am 12 and to be abhorred. Has since the beginning. They both feed off of me. So I am not contacting him.
We only went out for about 6 months but being in the relationship felt so much longer especially having to see him every day and only spending time with him. And it was very hard to get away because we lived to gether practically from the start. I regret ever meeting him now. At about 4 months i really wanted to leave so bad but he always like read me and was like you want to leave, you promised you wouldnt there somebody better out there im not good enuf he said so much that it like messed with my head and id stay which was a bad idea. I think it was all his talk about getting our own place instead of living at his house and me not even being able to see my friends or family it takes a toll after a while. He would call me awful names sl** wh**e etc etc and it clicked that hey what the hell are you doing i dont deserve this. Hed put me in like a mind spell and i never realised how bad he truely was treating me. Towards the end he wasnt making me smile, i was crying sad tears. It wasnt a life i could do better so i went home and did a NC. it took about 2 weeks for him to get the picture that i wasnt going to change my mind. Although sometimes i wanted to because it was like he was my life now because id spent so many days with just him. It took along time to re-adjust back to normal... although your son may not show to you his not happy in the rel.. deep down inside himself he might be realising it. (sorry about the late reply) i wish you best of luck xx ~anda~
Thank you xjohnsgirlx -- God, I know I will write too much again -- I don't think my son can really be happy if he is drinking like he has been. I don't think he ever started his own life upon his moving into his first apt since it was all balled in with his gf, who was all about "our life" when my son was just trying to have his life plus a gf. So I am hoping eventually that will tug at him enough to realize his life went in a left direction instead of straight ahead, all balled in with the gf and her family. He and his gf when they fight, fight like hell. She gets in his face and won't stop til she gets what she wants. I saw that the first time I met her, she threatened to walk out on him, so these things happen and I am hoping he will grow tired of it. She guilts him with "sorry I'm such a bad gf." Keeps him in her spell thru constant texting -- flips out on him when he doesn't text back immed. Sometimes I think that half of his reactions with me, are cuz he is getting inundated by her -- for ex awhile ago he wouldn't answer ph when she called him, which was a first -- and he has done that to me all past year at times -- I think he simply gets inundated with constant contact from her, so that when I try to reach him it gets taken out on me alot. But deep down, I think he gets pressured by her alot to stay under her spell. So, guess all one can do is let him experience being completely only in touch with her and maybe someday he will realize other ppl aren't around any more. I have seen friends drop out of his life too, because they don't like his gf, they say they can't stand the way she acts and they say my son can't stay himself while with her. His best friend has been hoping that my son and his gf will break up this summer with her around all of the time. I've seen him drop all prior interests he has had for years, as well.
Your ex sounds very controlling, as my son's gf is. I honestly don't know what anyone can do with power and control issues. They strangle relationships, I think and ppl seem unable to realize that they have control issues. Certainly not healthy, but power and control issues are at the base of the makings of an abuser, too, which really worries me for my kids' sake because since he has been with this girl who is all abou power and control (and thinks she is very clever for being a gamer that way) and about taking stands and about making my son take stands for her, I know these are all wrong learnings, for him, esp to be bolstered and helped to be angry at his mother. It is all very very screwed up that his gf requires this of him -- I have talked with her parents about it, it helps to calm some of it, but it also causes my son and she to alienate from me if I try to talk with her parents - because she hides from her parents how she really has been acting with me altho the mother has seen some of it firsthand, which has been good, and the girl does not want them to know. She would rather pretend she is a victim and afraid of me, to them. Her parents and I have talked about this. My honesty is taken by her to be "challenging her" -- you cannot talk with this girl. She makes sure of it. Yet abuse can only happen in secrecy, and it is a requirement for abuse to take place, and I have HAD to bring some of it out in the open, the chronic mistreatment of me -- just in order to BREATHE again, for I have been my son's and his gf's kicking post for almost 2 yrs now and it has been destroying my happiness completely. I hope someday that my son can explain to me what his need was, to do all of that, honestly. For he is responsible for his own choices in all of this. Has been a huge betrayal.
I know what you mean tho, you look back on a relationship and wonder who the person even was, in a way. Most important thing is you will know what to look for in your future relationships and won't have relationships like the one with your ex again. I read somewhere that very controlling ppl are the result of a very high intellect and low self esteem and there's just nothing anyone can do to fix it. That it is a bottomless pit that can never be filled. I fear this for my kids' sake -- I can well imagine a life of trying to fill her low self esteem -- and her needs for material as well. Makes me shudder. She requires $300 pocketbooks. He is going to have to figure out that being related to for money is a sign of his own low self esteem. I don't know WHY he has chosen to be related to/apprecated for/valued for money, either. His low self esteem and this whole crisis, seems to have come from arriving into adulthood/manhood with some real uncertainty, because my kids' Dad wasn't around much in late teen years on-- lives far away. I even asked my ex to come this year to help with all of this, for my youngest son's sake and my ex did come and has maintained contact since then. Seems a lot of confusion about how to be a man, what is a man, what is powerful, what is strong -- girl has taught him to be horrible to be "strong". etc.
But to control someone, controlling ppl isolate their victim away from support systems and reality checks, such as friends and family. Altho I have given my son articles on this, he still has gone straight into a vacuum of isolation with this girl.
My son's gf's parents told me that she has always controlled every bf she has ever been with, and that this is the first bf she cannot control, that my son is in control of the relationship and that they think it is good for her. And I scratched my head, and told them that what is healthy is a SHARED balance of power in a relationship, not where one is in control and not the other. But I also disagree that my son is in control of the relationship. He is led to believe he is, and reinforced as tho he is, and it SEEMS he is at times, but she really is, in making believe that he is in full power of the relationship in the first place and also, she is a lot smarter and much more cunning than he is, so no, I don't feel my son is even in charge of his personality any more, very often. It is like invasion of the body snatchers, something else has inhabited him. Her parents believe that ppl are supposed to "be like who they are with" -- and I say, but they are not supposed to become CLONES. Her parents mean well, and believe they have raised helathy kids, so what can you say? They are good ppl but some of the philosophy comes from them at same time. At any rate, I honestly have never met anyone who thought control of any kind in relationships was a good thing, so I cannot make sense of the philosophies at work at all in my kids' situation. Nor can I comprehend very well, why some ppl are about control any way-- I guess it is what they learned somewhere in relationships.
Last edited by suzyq83; 20th July 2008 at 1:17 PM.
Reason: mis-spell
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