Hello all! New here and I hope I'm in the right place!
I know this topic has been discussed before, but as we are all different,
I need to tell our story.
My wife and I have been married for 35 years in September. We have 2 sons.
My wife has suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for the last 23 years. I am her carer, so do not work outside the home. Our youngest son,26, has Autism and lives at home with us. He has been described by Psychologists as "One of the most serious and difficult cases they have ever come across!"
Our oldest son, 31, met a girl on The Internet 8 years ago, went out to meet her in Australia (we live in Northern Ireland), fell in love and married 7 years ago. They now have a beautiful little daughter, 10 weeks old, and we are going to Oz for a visit in September.
Like I'm sure others here, we are heartbroken, at not only losing our son forever to Australia, but now any chance of a relationship with our Grand daughter. Also, we have the added worry of our youngest son and what will happen to him after our deaths. Our oldest son will never return to live here as his wife is very Australian and a homebird, so what becomes of him? Yes, we have Skype, and yes it is great and certainly better than previous generations ever had, but as we all know, it's not like touching, hugging, etc and I suppose we'll remain, the funny TV people with the strange accents, as we miss all the little milestones etc.
Unlike it seems many here, we won't be able to afford to travel to Australia
every year for visits, and in fact, after a few years we probably won't be going at all anymore. And I'm also sorry to report, that it "doesn't get better" as time goes by. We are at a loss as how to feel about all this and part of me even "dreads" going out to visit, knowing that we have to leave in 4 weeks and go home, to what?
The whole thing has really come between us and our son. Of course we want him to be happy, and he has done very well job wise in Australia, but we have never spent long enough with our DIL to get to know her, and probably never will -so there is another loss! And all people can say is "Oh, Skype is brilliant isn't it?" as if that's the answer to this appalling situation.
Sorry for the rant, just every now and then I need to get it off my chest, when I'm not drowning my sorrows in drink that is.
