Just for history's sake-this is the letter I sent to difficult child's GFs parents

[Signorina]

Thanks for the replies and for letting me get it off my chest.

(posted the extremely personal letter I sent my difficult child's enablers to get others' opinions. Appreciate the responses I rec'd)

 

[Nancy]

Sig,

I'll give you my .02 but that's probably all it's worth lol. If it were me I would not go into detail at all about what is going on. I think you opened up far too much to them. They don't need to know he has a trust fund nor do they need to know what he purchased or what his actual grades were. I think putting the purchase of drug paraphanalia into writing to this woman who obviously doesn't really care about you or him for that matter is dangerous.

If it were me I would probably say something like:

Dear girlfriend's mom,

I am writing you today as mother-to-mother as your daughter and my son are in a relationship and I want you to understand our position on some recent developments.

We have been struggling with difficult child in some areas recently including drug use, poor grades, questionable behavior at home and suspicious activity surrounding recent purchases and his living arrangements. I understand some may think we are being over protective but these issues are very serious to us and we are fearful of consequences that will be suffered as a result of his poor choices.

You and I both care about our children deeply and I want you to know that we are doinging what we think is best for our son. We are very worried for him as his recent behavior has escalated and we can no longer ignore it or sweep it under the rug. Our son does not currently want to have a relationship with us but I am sure he will be in contact with your family. My hope is that you understand where we are coming from and not enable him to continue to make poor choices with his life or your daughter's.

I continue to be open to and welcome any communication with you. My hopes and dreams are that both our children will be successful and navigate these difficult years safely.

As always,
boyfriend's mom

Now tht's probably hokey but you get the gist.

Nancy

 

[Signorina]

This is the letter I SENT them the night he left back in August. He went straight to their house. We had been emailing back and forth about getting together for a girls night out - when all heck broke lose with difficult child. So, in response to her request "Next Wednesday at 6pm work for you?" - I sent this. Haven't heard from either one of them since. And phonecalls, etc have fallen on deaf ears. It's like they fell off the earth - except for a few random "likes" on my facebook page once in a while. Totally bizarre. THEY WERE OUR FRIENDS.

 

[toughlovin]

Sig,

Is he living over there now? Do you know how much contact they have with him at this point? I am trying to think how I would react if I got that letter from my daughters boyfriends parents. (My dtr doesn't have a boyfriend but you know what I mean). Is his girlfriend a difficult child or is she basically a good girl.. and what kind of relationship does she have with her parents.

So my reaction would be I would be concerned first and foremost for my daughter. That would be my first priority. I am not sure what I would do, I think I would call you.... but given that I have a good relationship with my daughter I think I would first talk to her about it... and my reaction might be based on how she reacted. She of course would be swayed by her boyfriend and I would know that.

I think that given that the letter was written to me that I would respond but I could see many parents not responding if their daughters made an issue of it.

I also could see not wanting at all to get in the middle of the decision to support him, or not support him at school. That is really between you and him. Remember they are also probably hearing his version of the story which I am sure is very different than yours... and he is on his best behavior over there too.

Given that they have not responded to your phone calls I might send another very short email, just saying something. Are you in touch with difficult child? I am concerned about him and am wondering how he is.

and leave it at that.

I feel for you. I know how hard this is.

TL

 

[Signorina]

I am not in touch with difficult child at all.

He hasn't contacted me - I have not contacted him. He's been gone for 2.5 weeks now. The ball is in his court. It is what it is.

I sent this letter to them 6 months ago. THEY LIVE DOWN THE STREET from us. H has extended himself to tthe dad more than once. I tried to contact the mom a few times in September. They completely ignore us.

The kids have been going out together for nearly 4 years. They knew my son was in therapy for substance abuse, he was with their daughter when he got the original drinking citation at age 16. She got one too, we all went to court together. It was a cordial, warm relationship. They came for dessert on Thanksgiving (2010) I hosted a joint family HS graduation party for the kids - we had many dinners together, met over vacation in FL one year. We know each others families-siblings, parents, etc. We've had many joint family dinners. When they would go out of town, their daughter would stay with us. (guest room of course) About a year ago, when their daughter decided to transfer schools to be with my son for the 11-12 school year, they contacted me to get my thoughts on it before they gave her the go-ahead.

He is not living with them. He is back at "school" though not actually in school because he was suspended for his 0.41 GPA. Her dad was helping him look for factory jobs in the blue collar town. How can any adult think it's OK for a kid to go back to his college town just to party when he has failed out of college? He's 19 not 25!

I guess I struggle because they MUST see how far my son has fallen - they KNOW US - I poured my heart out to them - THEY ARE ADULTS for crying out loud. And I am not going to try to contact them again. been there done that, have the tee shirt that says NO ANSWER. At the minimum - "got your letter, sorry things are so bad, but we don't want to get involved..."

Sometimes I wonder if they are his supplier.

(about difficult child's girlfriend - she is not a difficult child. She is overindulged - never had a curfew, got a car at 16, etc, etc, was not a great student, bit of a brat, dresses a little too sexy - but literally spent every day of the year at our house their junior & senior year and I adored her. She plays a little loose with the truth but I don't know that it was atypical for a teenage girl. Parents are a bit of the indulgent baby boomer type. I've heard the dad is a drinker, a friend told me she thinks he could be an alcoholic. I guess he regularly ties one on at country club parties. But I live in a gossipy burb )

 

[Nancy]

I'm sorry I completely misread that so ignore my ignorant response lol.

That is all very strange and yet a bit similar to our situation. We were friends, not good friends but neighborhood friends, who participated in neighborhood get togethers with the parents of the boy difficult child went to live with when we kicked her out. However over the years they began enabling our difficult child and hiding her from us. Obviously they believed we were monsters and they were going to protect her from us. The fact that we were respected and well liked in the community obviously made no difference to them. They still believed our difficult child and ignored our pleas and eventually refused to even talk to us.

I continue to ask myself today why they did that. We found out he is also a pot smoker and heavy drinker and probably an alcoholic. So my guess is that if he admitted we were right and difficult child was wrong he may have to admit that he too was wrong. And obviously his wife was too weak to go against him.

I don't know why these parents would believe your difficult child over you and forget your friendship. Maybe they feel a little guilty and think you blame them for your son's decline. But there is no excuse for people behaving this way. We are all parents trying to do the best for our children and no other parents should interfere with that period. If they think you were abusing your son they could have called 911. Anything short of that they should have backed you as his parents.

Nancy

 

[keista]

Sig, I'm so sorry to see you are still agonizing over this lost relationship. It's natural for it to hurt and hurt deep when we loose a trusted friend (for whatever reason), but you need to let go and move on. Just as you had to detach from your son you need to detach from this relationship. At the moment it's gone. Will it always be gone? I don't know, but you can't sit around waiting to find out.

At worst, these ppl are supplying your son. Would make perfect sense why they did not respond to your letter. You made it perfectly clear how you absolutely do not approve of drugs, so if they are, they did you a favor and just 'disappeared'.

At best, these ppl have a misguided notion that they are truly helping him.

Sweetie, please work on letting this go - for your own sake and sanity. Harping on it for so long will not accomplish anything productive.

 

[Signorina]

Ya K - you're right. I don't mind the loss of friendship. Their silence after my openness just really bothers me - especially because I see them walking or in the car so often. And my sister in law and they have developed a mutual admiration society on FB - despite me asking my sister in law to cool it repeatedly. Which is a whole other story.

And since I am doing my darndest to detach from difficult child - at least on the surface - it gives me more opportunity to ruminate as to "what the heck". I have no idea what or how he is doing. I know he is alive bc I check his phone use once in a while - and then I see calls between them and VOILA

Detach, detach, detach. I should wear a rubberband around my wrist and try snapping myself

 

[pinevalley]

Sig:
I just checked the boards a few minutes ago and I never read the letter that you wrote. But I like the idea of a detachment rubberband that we can wear. I think that quite a few of us could use a rubberband like that, to be a constant reminder to detach from our difficult child's. I really don't want to detach from my difficult child, but I know that it is healthier for me to detach than to constantly obsess about his problems. Maybe we should develop a new phone app that is just called Detach-detach-detach. I would be using this every day!
HUGS to you!