Fallen out with my eldest son

This is terribly sad WendyH - I would be heartbroken if this happened with either of my 2 sons. It sounds wholly peculiar that your son wants nothing to do with any of his close family. My life would have no meaning if I felt no warm family vibes. Was there a momentous happening that triggered this?? The situation is at rock bottom so if there could be anything good to say - perhaps there is a way onto the bottom rung of an improving ladder.

No, its not awful. You have the right to decide who you want to include in your Will.
You should think hard about your reasons for cutting them out of your will though. If its because you want to hurt him back, thats sad, but seeing as he has 'cut' you out of his life despite all your efforts to be reconciled then I think its understandable.

The children are a different matter though. They are under the influence of their parents so perhaps you could just include them in your Will ?

I feel for you,Wendy, as this must be really upsetting for you.

That is just too awful.

You could write a last try letter to their old address. The new owners would most likely have a forwarding address.

So sorry.

No Wendy I don't think that is awful, I think it's human nature, but don't do anything while you are still angry and upset. Wait until you calm down and then make a more rational decision.

I mean losing touch so completely is awful. Not about cutting them out of your will.

I personally would leave the will as it is.

Let them know you still loved them.

I would like to add that no I'm not saying its awful about the will but that the break up is a shame.

Not awful, just normal, but I agree it would be nice to leave something in trust for the grandchildren - it is not their fault that their parents have treated you so badly.
I have very little to leave, but I know that if the daughter was has cut me off (no argument between us, she is mentally ill) were to get half the value of my flat it would go in a couple of months on extra codeine tablets to top up her prescription. I cannot disinherit her in France so I will have to hope to keep going until I get to New Zealand in a few years. Then I will leave her share to her elder daughter, who has been very supportive to me.
There are many of us here who have been denied contact with our grandchildren through no fault of our own. Some have had good outcomes, others have had to resort to the law to gain access. I live in hope that my three adult grandchildren will gain the strength to defy their mother and get in touch with me, as their oldest sister has done, but as they all still live at home and are unemployed, it is difficult for them.

Thank you for your replies, we are not surewhat triggered the split strange as it seems. He seemed to change about the time of the wedding , and I am sure that we made mistakes, but whatever we did was not deliberately done to hurt anyone. His wife was turkish and their culture is different. But I feel that what they are doing is because he wants to hurt us. But despite all our attempts over the years, and there have been many, to mend
the rift and sort out what went wrong he still wants nothing to do with us.

I would not cut the children out of my will completely but as my husband says they are strangers to us .

Jo4 part of me agrees with you but my heart has been torn apart by this over the years and Iam not sure that I do still love him. Again how awful for a mother to feel like this

Greatnan,
How sad for you. I too hope that my grandcchildren will try and find us, but as they have now moved and I do not know where they are that seems unlikely.
So gladyou have contact with on of yours

Wendy - it is very hard to keep alive that unconditional love when somebody treats you very cruelly. I sometimes feel very angry with my daughter, mainly because she is giving her children such a bad time, but I just remind myself that her mind has been warped by longterm drug abuse.
I am willing to bet that if your son should make an effort to heal the rift you would welcome him back with open arms , as I know I would

WendyH

Has your son never told you what the problem is?
Did he just one day stop talking to you?

Have you ever thought about the 'mistakes' you mention and apologised for anything you regret?
If whatever went on was just brushed over then it could never be resolved ?

Wendy this is heartbreaking for you.

I cannot understand what you are going though as it has not happened to me, but reading some of the comments above there are those who share your pain and can help with that.

greatnan

On the practical side though I think it's your money to will away as you see fit and it might even help you feel you have some measure of control if you go ahead and make your wills.

If things change you can always alter the will at any time.

I would leave money in trust to the grandchildren, they are innocents caught up in a situation beyond their control.

Wendy What a very sad six years. I would be heartbroken if a rift happened in our family. Such unresolved pain must be eating into your spirit. maxgran's post makes a lot of sense. I would also leave money in a trust fund to the grandchildren. They are your own flesh and blood and have done no wrong. I wish you well.

My eldest son was a very difficult teenager and although somewhat better now he has hit his mid twenties. He nevertheless still gives us endless headaches, such as having a child with a girl he barely knew a couple of years ago. We love our granddaughter very much but we have often had to bail them out financially as his salary was never enough to cover the unforeseen expenditure. The mother of our grandchild often treats us if we are there to purely to be at her beck and call, for example texts at 8 am in the morning asking us to take her to the supermarket, it's all so long, boring and involved I could write a book about it. I do read these sort of posts, in fact it was probably one of the reasons I signed up to Gransnet in the first place, as I realise I could be in this position one day, I hope not. I know relationships with children can ebb and flow so I live in hopes that this wont happen, although we have had to re set the boundaries lately. My heart goes out to anyone who has had a permanent fall out.

baNANA so sorry to hear this.

Wendy I agree with Nanadogsbody

If you do one day decide you want to contact them may I suggest you find someone who does family history research and get them to help you? I have some friends who do this and recently wanted to contact someone I hadn't seen for over 40 years and she was able to find them for me. She only seems to need to know their name and DOB. She also tracked down the son of a dead relative who had not seen his father since he was born.

I am very sad for you both.

banana, could you, perhaps, have your mobile phone switched to silent mode until you feel able to receive texts from people? Just an idea, if 8am is too early.

Alternatively, baNANA, tell her you forgot to re-charge your phone - not every time though, or she'd smell a rat.
I had a similar situation, though my DS didn't stay with the mother - he left the country! For the sake of my GD, I bent over backwards to help her out and she could be quite charming when it suited her. It was worth it though, because I have an excellent relationship with my GD although I haven't spoken to her mother in almost two years because of her behaviour to my dear girl.

Maxgran, my son had been decidedly cool for a while, not even allowing us to visit his new child in hospital and then when my husband made a comment on the phone about not seeing much of them it all let loose. He was angry with my husband on the phone, then about an hour later he arrived with a reporters notebook in which he had listed all our misdemeanours - if I had not been so upset it would have been funny.

Never mind that my husband had completely redecorated their house for them, and re done a room when she decided she did not like the colour she had chosen.

a week later they said that they had still things to say to us and turned up minus the children and a shouting match followed. They were awful to us and I have to say I said things in anger back.

The next day they rang and said they wanted no more contact and came to collect their house key.

Since then we have made repeated attempts to alter the situation but all our cards and presents are returned to us.

My other son contacted his brother and asked to meet to see if things could be sorted out, but all he got was a threat of an injunction if he contacted him again.

So thats where we are, and now they have moved I think it is probably the end.

Iam not blaming them completely as they obviously feel that we are in the wrong, but its two different sets of people looking at the same thing but with different views. Whatever I have done wrong it was with no malice.

Thank you everyone for listening to my sadness, it has really been a help

Bags we did have a showdown about the texting and phoning and it seems to have resolved itself for the time being. I know my son's girlfriend is a liberty taker who unfortunately doesn't seem to have any boundaries. I do my best to be polite to her as she is the mother of our grandchild but we are endeavouring to distance ourselves as she believes it's the grandparents' job to be readily available to look after grandchild/children at the drop of a hat. Her own mother takes our grandchild off for a couple of weeks at a time as she appears to be playing parents vicariously with her 2nd husband (they didn't have children together). Unfortunately my son and his girlfriend have allowed this situation to evolve, originally it was supposed to be one week-end a month, but sometimes these week-ends extend to one full week, ten days etc. I think it's a bad situation all round, it allows the girlfriend to think she's a part time mother, our grand daughter never really knows where she is or how long she's going to be there and the other grand mother imposes her ideas of how GD should be brought up, there's a lot of friction all round. I like to see our grand daughter regularly but I don't want to take over the parenting role, I see a grandparents role as secondary to the parents, I think most normal people do. When she's around we like to have her one day a week and do lots of things with her and she seems to enjoy being with us, I would hate to be cut off. Unfortunately I think paternal grandparents can be marginalised if they don't play their cards right. It's all very tedious, I told you I could write a book about it!

Annodomini - Thank you for your advice, it's good to hear how other handle similar problems.

I have read all these sad stories of estrangement here and on different threads and am always saddened. I cannot imagine how sad I would be to be in your situations. My DD2s OH is partially estranged from his mother. I am not sure what exactly caused the rift originally but he left home on his 16th birthday. He has made contact since and I met her about 8 years ago when my DD2 was four month pregnant. When my DD said she was pregnant all she said was 'Yes I heard'. MiL made no effort to contact again and never asked about the baby again. She has seen DGD1 once at a christening of her other DGC but never sends a card/ present or makes any contact at all. Very recently her husband (they were separated) became ill and needed care . The family rallied round and my DDs OH did his bit for his dad too but his mother , apparently, only criticised when she saw him. Sadly his dad died last week and the funeral is soon. My DD will go to the funeral as she was fond of her FiL but she says she will find it hard to even be civil to her MiL . I have urged her to be polite!

I am so very sorry for you all - done that, been there, got the T-shirt and for sure we don't give up, we try and try, but nothing makes a difference. We too have changed our Will - we also wondered whether we should let our son know so that he isn't relying on anything, but that would have seemed like blackmail, so didn't. The thought of our DiL benefitting from the family she has destroyed is simply unacceptable.