What we have to learn to do when we have troubled adult kids is so hard because they do love us, just as we love them. If there were hatred on either side, this would be easy. In our love for them, in our hope that this was all somehow a nasty mistake, or an error of some kind, or some parental oversight that can be corrected now, we begin to excuse and then, allow, our children to mistreat us. This is all you are calling a stop to now, JM.
Your son's mistreatment of you, your husband, your home, your family.
It's very clear, once we can see it that way.
Scott G posted awhile back that he had been able to admit to himself the truth of what was happening, the truth of who his son was choosing to be, and then, to let go of judgment. He stopped judging his son for where he was or what he was doing. Because he stopped judging him, he stopped trying to change him. He just learned to accept him. But in learning those things, Scott G was also able to free himself from feeling responsible for his son's behavior. Once he got that piece, Scott G was able to be very clear, in his own mind and heart, that he wasn't going to put up with any baloney from this son whose behavior he was not responsible for and could not control, anyway. I don't recall the title of that post. It all sounds so complex, but those are the steps we all need to go through to get to that place of clarity about how we accept inappropriate behavior from our adult children.
I don't know whether I am explaining it very well. The thing of it is that continuing to pay tuition for a child who is doing well in school has nothing to do with whether you are speaking to or housing that child. Bringing Christmas gifts because you love someone and want them to feel that you love them is a wonderful thing. It doesn't mean you have to put up with inappropriate behavior.
There is that old saying about how we teach people how to treat us. It is true for our kids, too.
All this son has to do to turn things around is behave appropriately. He is choosing not to. If you allow it, this is the behavior that will continue. If you want something better for your relationship with your son, then you need to hold the image of the relationship you want in your heart and accept nothing less.
It will not feel right, at first, to do this. It will not be easy to say what needs to be said. But what you are feeling now isn't easy, either.
So I say, pay the tuition. Do all the things that you feel you would like to do for him. But no compromise on the nature of the personal relationship you expect with this son you love. You can always change your mind on anything in the future. The idea is not to punish him or to make it impossible to finish school, but to refuse to be held hostage to someone who treats you badly because you love him.
That bad treatment is what needs to change.
I am happy he brought the Christmas presents for you. He is probably as surprised by this change in your behavior as you are. Don't step down. You are working to create something good and right.
:O)
Keep posting. Each time one of us answers, he or she is clarifying her own beliefs regarding her own child through her answer to you.
I am going through something similar with my own son. Only I didn't stand up for the relationship and require respect from him until he was in his late thirties. You will need to do this one day, anyway. No one can respect himself, if he doesn't respect his mother. Both of us need to do this for our sons as much as for ourselves.
Cedar
