Son is pushing us away

I am so sad for you but my advice is go away with the rest of the family and have a good time. Just continue to be there for your son. Who knows what goes on in our adult children’s minds but keep in contact.

My eldest daughter married a man who borders on rude to DH and myself. They do lots with his family but not interested in us and my younger daughter’s family. For years I blamed my sil but actually now realising if my daughter wanted us in her life she would make more effort and sadly she hasn’t wanted the closeness we all previously shared. I don’t know why or what happened but accept the little contact that is still there and say nothing. When I tried to talk to her about it two years ago she seemed to have so much anger against me.

Go with the flow and hopefully in time things will be easier.

This is exactly the situation we had when arranging a weekend for the whole family to celebrate our Ruby wedding.
Suffice it to say that dil was trying to control everything son did, it eventually became intolerable and they are now divorced - and he is a different, much happier, person

Time to back off, just tell him `thanks for letting us know` and leave it at that

Let him do the chasing, he might never want to but you gave him wings to fly. Send them all birthday cards, presents etc to keep contact. No letters

Get on with your own life. He has made his choice and leaving him alone might, one day, bring him back

X post Susie1183
Apologies

In August last year we invited our 3 children and their families to a weekend in an apartment hotel that we have paid for to celebrate my 60th birthday. We discussed where to go with all the children

Did you ask if they actually wanted to do it?
Was he excited and enthusiastic about it?
Did you involve wives/husbands/partners in this conversation?
We're they also excited?

I know it's easy to believe one thing is agreed when it really isnt.

...but now it's clear he doesn't want to come. Please don't push him into a celebration or it may taint the whole thing.
Sometimes we read consent into a non-committal reply because we want to.

This son hasn't been to other family events for years. I think you just have to suck this up I'm afraid.

There will still be family to celebrate with. Enjoy their company.

Thank you for your responses. I was actually really close to him before he got married and he used to call me all the time until about 2 years ago. He isn’t happy in his relationship, and when he called before he often talked about how difficult she is and how badly she sometimes treats their eldest daughter (nothing sinister just lots of arguments and getting things wrong, as all parents do). I found it really hard because I didn’t want to say anything against her and I think he wanted me to. In the last two years he has gradually withdrawn a lot from both us as parents and his siblings, who are both really upset. As a family we have wondered if he is depressed and tried to come up with options, but he has rejected all approaches, for example suggestions from his brother of a boys weekend away walking and canoeing (which they both love to do). Last Summer his brother and family went on holiday close to where they live especially to try to see him and let the children see each other. He saw them for one afternoon but was withdrawn and left when his wife said they should go home. My other son was exasperated and didn’t know what to do.
We have gone down to see them often over the years, staying in a local b & b, but have found his wife unwelcoming and struggled to engage with her. The children are always delighted to see us and really now we go for them.
My feeling is that his wife has felt slightly threatened by his relationships with us and either consciously or unconsciously pulled him away. We have also noticed that as they have become more comfortable financially she has developed expensive taste and makes comments about others that lead me to wonder if she looks down on us and doesn’t want to do the things we do as a family. We go for walks by the sea and love looking for crabs in rock pools. She goes to expensive spas and designer shops. We just don’t fit any more.
I actually don’t think we have been pushy or unprepared to let him go and give him space. We have encouraged all of our children to find their own path and have never been needy. A couple of months ago he was really looking forward to the weekend and kept mentioning it, so something has changed.
Thank you for the advice about not stopping contact. I have no intention of doing that and actually I’m not cross any more ( I was a bit yesterday) I’m just hurt and worried. We will go away with everyone else and I’m sure it will be lovely. I think we probably all need a bit of space, but it’s sad and as a mother I want to be someone he can turn to

Susie this is very sad for you and also the late withdrawal is really bad manners from him, with what seem like poor excuses I can totally understand your hurt and disappointment and your husbands response of ‘I want nothing more to do with him’ which is a typical bloke response, ad one I hope you don’t follow.
I would just say don’t be too quick to blame the daughter in law completely. surely he would find an answer if he wanted to come along ! Which implies he doesn’t, but lacked the courage to say so at the time you discussed it with him
It’s really hard as it’s going to taint your weekend away and your birthday will now feel sad, but you must accept and have a nice time with the rest of your family and try not to let it put a permanent wedge between you

I think adult children are so much harder to negotiate than small children

For some reason I get the feeling they could find a dog sitter if they wanted. Maybe they don't want to.

If you're upset because you want to see him more, reacting poorly to this will not help. It will make the problem worse.

People grow up and their priorities change. They should be allowed to do that. Make sure you aren't putting pressure for him to participate so it is fully his choice when he comes. He will probably come less but when he does it will be freely.

If I were your son I would reimburse what you spentfor him to go on this trip. Whether he really can't get a dog sitter or not I think that would be fair to expect.

As a side note, I told my husband he could use me as an excuse to get out of family things whenever he wanted and he did.

Think about what you want to achieve(presumably more time with him) and act in a way that will help you accomplish that.

Have I understood you correctly? You discussed, booked and paid for the venue 4 months or so ago and everyone was on board with it at the the time? Subsequently your daughter-in-law arranges something else on one of the days and doggie care arrangements were not made. So why can't your son attend without his wife and bring the children? To let you down so late in the day is out of order and disrespectful in my book but what to do about it?
I don't know. Sometimes it's best to do nothing at all. If I were in your shoes I would try and push it to the back of my mind, and enjoy the reunion with the rest of the family.

Does he still have a relationship with his siblings?

From what you’ve said I’m not sure why you’re blaming his wife? I’d put money on him using her as an excuse (who knows why though).

The fact that he’s not made an effort in years shows he’s pulled back for a while now. From what you’ve shared it’s not clear why you believe it’s her fault

I’m sorry you are struggling