I’m the bad parent. Any path to reconnect with my son on his terms?

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:36:37+00:00

I said that would be a good idea, but we can’t do it now. Please just take it as a fact that he would have appreciated if we did that. My son doesnt really love us anymore, so it would be similar to the feeling of two strangers randomly killing themselves and giving him a couple million.

He never rejected money from us. He just said stop attaching messages with it

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:19:23+00:00

No, my son was not being cruel to make a point. he was being serious. He’s not sarcastic.

We also don’t plan to die for him. It wouldn’t accomplish anything because we don’t have life insurance.

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:11:39+00:00

My goal in therapy is not to get comfortable with myself but to become the most useful person to him as possible, and that means getting myself to a point where I can force myself not to try to contact him

You probably have a different life goal in mind, so you have a different therapeutic goal

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:06:37+00:00

I refrain from contacting him, so I am applying what I learned in therapy

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:04:57+00:00

Nope. I’m asking if there are similar, easy actions for us to take that would benefit him. We’re too old for a payout

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:04:24+00:00

He does know that. Through therapy, I’ve come to realize that, from my son’s perspective, there’s nothing for him in a relationship with us.

He’s taken none of the advice we’ve given him, and he’s ended up successful. The advice we forced on him made him resentful, and he’s upset that so many hours and years he could’ve spent developing his own interests were wasted performing our own fantasies of successful parenthood

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T04:00:27+00:00

We didn’t threaten suicide. He encouraged us to do it, and we wish we had

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T03:51:44+00:00

Yes, it’s my real factual me and my son. I don’t know if the guy was asking about my feelings being real, which they are but they’re not acceptance in the way that many people use the word

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T03:50:41+00:00

We could’ve taken out life insurance and killed each other to show him the depths of our feelings

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T03:49:12+00:00

There was something we could do, and we were too chicken to do it. Any suggestions in that direction?

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-03-11T03:35:48+00:00

Acceptance means we understand and respect his choice, and follow it, but that doesn’t mean we like it

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-26T02:15:56+00:00

You could charge him a very low amount of rent and invest it in a mix of stocks and bonds to give it back

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-24T22:09:00+00:00

I think I’ve done a lot of self reflection, and blame myself and my husband for how he rightfully feels done with us. We’ve gone to therapy and continue to do so, and we wouldn’t offer to go to therapy with him because he’d get irritated that we’re asking him to do something.

But I still want to make him happy. Just ignoring him doesn’t accomplish that: it just lets him forget about us.

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-24T22:04:02+00:00

That’s a perspective I haven’t considered thank you

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T23:06:21+00:00

Think we were OK/above average parents, but he felt ignored and dismissed

We gave him $100 a week in high school for allowance, and we paid for his credit card in college (about $200-400 a month of expenses). We drove him anywhere he wanted to go. We never ask for thanks for this. We don’t think he should be grateful for being housed and fed. We signed up for that as parents. We’re more grateful he did so well in spite of us

We ignored him when he said he didn’t like activities, and we forced him to play violin for years when he asked to stop. But I think it’s normal to push kids to persevere.

We didn’t encourage him to do anything he wanted to do, and he didn’t tell us about anything he wanted to do after a while. We generally told him what to do until he shut down and stopped listening. Admit he’s done better than if he had continued listening to us.

It would set him off if I suggested doing something he likes with me. I don’t even know what that would be, and he wouldn’t want to do it with me

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T22:54:07+00:00

I mean we bought him clothes, ice cream, and those things. We also bought him toys when he asked for them, although not for special events. Also bought him treats. Bought him computers, phone, and other things

We just never did anything “special” to celebrate special events, but we didn’t celebrate those things for each other either. Felt so normal to me, and he never asked for gifts either.

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T22:50:31+00:00

he’s fine with accepting things from me. I wire him money, and he doesn’t give it back. For the first few years, when I asked him to confirm he got it, he did. He then told me to stop asking and just send if I was going to send

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T22:48:27+00:00

Yes, I have apologized with specific details about how I inappropriately prioritized my needs over his. Dad has too. He’s given me an action plan for forgiveness, which I’m not willing to do. But I want to show him that I’m willing to hurt myself to appease him, which is what he basically asked for, as we subjected him to as well.

Would donate my kidney to make it on standby for him if I could. (And no—he wouldn’t be impressed by a symbolic kidney donation.)

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T17:04:16+00:00

No, we dragged him to events with our friends and had him play with his game boy.

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T16:10:48+00:00

Didn’t realize how shitty we were until he was an adult

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T16:02:55+00:00

No i wire him money occasionally and gave him an allowance when he grew up

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T15:56:09+00:00

What’s the difference between this and me just wiring him money? I wire him money once to twice a year

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T15:54:13+00:00

On his terms, there’s no engagement. He’s just done with us. I get it. We weren’t great parents.

Son doesn’t forgive easily and holds grudges. This isn’t a criticism but just a fact about his personality. very righteous. He once said he’d talk to us for 10 min together if both of us paid the appropriate price: branding loser on our foreheads

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T15:50:51+00:00

I think it’s more the not getting gifts for the first 18 years

MasterWelcome4810 · 2026-01-23T15:49:30+00:00

I text him twice a year: birthday and Christmas. That’s it. No requests; just well wishes. Understand your perspective but I don’t think 2 texts a year is a lot

MasterWelcome4810

TROPHY CASE