So I guess this is growing up

Post date: 2022-01-18 17:11:42
Views: 65
My adult child is pulling away from me. Maybe that's good, as he grows closer to his fiancee and grows up and all that. Maybe that's less good, because he is perhaps depressed as he has been in the past. But even if he is depressed, maybe I no longer can expect my support would be helpful or desired, because his fiancee would naturally take the primary role there. In any case, worrying doesn't help him or me and I definitely should not feel personally rejected/hurt. But yes, I am crying again.

My son is 30. I am 51, and have been a single mother to him and his sister since they were babies. They have no relationship with their biofather or his family. My own family -- father, mother, sister -- are all dead. So it's just the three of us, as far as blood-family goes. My son has lived with his now fiancee a two-hour flight away for a year and a half. She's great, and we're friendly. We text.

My son and I have always been close, just very simpatico: we like the same music, same art, same books, generally feel the same way about stuff with just enough difference to make conversation fun. His running joke is that we are the same person. We've always enjoyed just sitting around and talking for hours, and he always would want me to meet and hang out with his friends and girlfriends. He also has a history of suicidal depression, multiple instances, as well as binge-drinking-related drama, and I would get middle of the night calls to go see him and help him sort it out. I feel like he pretty much told me everything about his life, except when he was in a bad way and didn't want me to know, and then I knew I'd get a call when he was ready.

So now he lives in another city with his awesome fiancee, who I really like and she seems to really like me too. My son and I still texted every few days and talked once a week or so, and I went to visit them for a week twice, and they visited me for a week. Basically every three months or so we saw each other, and it was great. Both my son and his fiancee told me over and over how much they were each looking forward to seeing me at Christmas.

Then I got there, and neither of them seemed to want me there at all.

I was hurt and baffled, and thought I was probably doing the kindest thing by them in leaving early. I let a week go by, and called my son and asked him what was going on with him. He apologized profusely for making me feel unwelcome, but refused to answer any questions about why he had behaved as he did. Just like that, "I'm not going to answer that." And eventually, "C'mon, you've asked me the same thing in different words five times now, and I'm trying not to get mad, but I really just have nothing to say." Well, ok. Then a week later (yesterday) he calls me and tells me about his puppy and his project at work, and once those subjects were up he got off the phone. But it had the air of checking a box. It was not a conversation he wanted to have, it was seemingly just to avoid reproach, or self-reproach.

I do not want another visit, another phone conversation like that. No, if he wants space from me, of course he gets to have it. If he doesn't want to tell me what's wrong, of course he doesn't have to. His fiancee should really be his primary confidant now anyway.

But here's the thing: I'm not sure she is. I have observed that she doesn't really call him on his bullshit, for one thing, and when my dad died (who my son was really close to, and he was at his bedside when it happened) my son told me he didn't want to talk to her about it and was mad she kept trying to make him. But that was more than a year ago, maybe they're closer now, I don't know. She does love him, I'm sure of it.

So is this what happens when kids grow up? You just aren't going to know what's going on with them necessarily, and the people they have in their chosen family may or may not be up to the task, but there's nothing you can do about that, so you just... exchange Christmas cards every year and vaya con dios? Is that healthy and natural and right, and I'm codependent for being worried, and I admit it, hurt?

I see two issues here: (1) My son may not be ok, but there doesn't appear to be anything I can do about that, and (2) I think of my son as a friend too, someone whose company I really enjoy, and maybe I need to stop thinking of him like that.

What do you think? Please be nice to me, I already feel like I'm in the wrong here.
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