It does me neither good nor harm Soontobe to believe the worst of our ES's choices; it is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it. He didn't try to make it work, oh he did in the beginning, refusing to believe her lies for eg. that I deliberately snubbed her when she was carrying their first child, our first GC but in the end I suppose he felt he had no choice but go along with it.
When we were celebrating their engagement, just us, them and her parents, she looked at me and said "I have only child syndrome; I don't share".
He told me that they'd argued because she was jealous of our relationship. She told me she had been, but she was 'over that now'; clearly she wasn't.
She virtually severed all contact with her own parents after the engagement and not for the first time. When her M was constantly pestering our ES in her desperate attempt to get her D to talk to her, he'd ring me, several times a day, at his wits end and during one conversation said 'oh mum I don't know what I'd do without your support'.
They married abroad with only myself and Mr. S. there.
After the CO because we were worried about him we thought he was home alone (they'd previously broken up and had got back together again). We popped down, they lived just 15 doors away.
She was there and because we were on the doorstep was inside slamming doors. I stretched out my arms to him and said his name. He said "we mustn't do this it causes too much trouble".
This is just the briefest of glimpses into the nature of our estrangement.
You ask what makes this thread helpful and uplifting and I can only answer that from my own perspective. We told no one for 3 months what was going on. I was hurt, confused and ridden with guilt and shame because I thought it was just us. This doesn't and wouldn't happen to anyone else.
When I found the original thread here on GN 'Cut out of their lives' I knew I wasn't alone. I found others who understood our pain, anguish and suffering because they were estranged too.
I was believed when I said we didn't know what we were supposed to have done that was so wrong. I was believed when I said we didn't and don't deserve to be treated this way because it's true; we don't.
We weren't, aren't and never will be perfect parents or human beings come to that. We adored our boys, supported them in every way possible and for 27 years had the most wonderful relationship with our ES. Thank God we still have that with his older brother.
Losing our son through estrangement nearly destroyed us. For 4 years we continued to live just down the road, catching glimpses of our son, our GC who we hadn't seen since he was 8 months old and his brother who we never saw.
18 months ago we left our home, where we'd lived for almost 30 years and moved away. That was our salvation. A few months before we moved I wrote him goodbye. I told him that I loved him, that there would always be a piece of my heart that was his and his alone.
I've only ever read his response once, it was vile. I simply responded by thanking him for it because it had shown me that saying goodbye was the right thing to do.
We don't judge on this thread. Oh I know I've judged you here and on another thread, harshly and I now suspect unfairly for which I apologise. But what I mean is that we don't assume that those who are estranged must have done something to deserve it because many of us know that isn't always the case.
There's no point in saying 'we only hear one side of the story' because of course we do. This thread is a place where estranged P's and GP's can come and tell their side, be understood, comforted and supported.
As far as I'm aware, these support threads for estrangement are the longest running on GN. Regular posters have formed friendships that run deep even though we've never met one another so if we feel one of us is being unfairly treated, we defend them because God knows, as you will, the pain of estrangement is hard enough to live with even if like me, you decide to walk away.
I sincerely hope that this post (sorry for it being so long) has helped you understand my perspective
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I agree and rather sad but I do think that Soontobe was genuine when she said she wanted a better understanding. I hope so and that my lengthy post wasn't in vein.
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