It's expected of me just to accept that BM can phone him every day and SD19 also talks to him alot when we are together and I am not privvy to their conversation (and I have given up asking why they phone) but when my son phones it's a big deal. He is acting like a jerk...so he can have the cold shoulder tonight again! haha

I have told BS20 to find his own place asap and also to get some counselling because he is like me, he gets very depressed and his dad feeds off that. He agreed to find some help. He phones just to hear a warm welcoming voice that will tell him he is loved and special and can get through all this because he is strong and a better person than what they all think of him. He's a good kid, just very misguided and strangely attracted to his dad. He came to live with me last year and we helped him get back on his feet but like a moth to flame he just had to go back to his father and get tramped on again. Still trying to work out what hold the man has on him besides the lure of money. (his dad is an ex white post-apartheid parliamentarian who landed on the gravy train when Mandela was released by joining a black party. Now retired, lives of all his gains). But that was my relationship with his dad...emotional blackmail and abuse.

I am going to watch a movie on my laptop while FH snores away!

Thanks for your input, Forestfairy!
MG

Hi A.Deville, I do have a problem with it and have expressed my views and concerns to BS20, but he & gf & his dad all live in another province and I am really unable to do much more than to to advise BS20 that it is a huge problem. You see they dated before ExH got engaged or even married to the mother. As BS20 explained to me he didn't mean to fall in love with her, even though the parents were dating ...but his dad didn't have aproblem with it then. He was staying with me and made the mistake of going back to visit his dad on vacation and when he returned he dropped the bombshell. I told him that I felt is was an unacceptable relationship and highlighted the problems he would face. They just don't think with their right brains at that age ...the 'small brain' kicks in and hormones take over! He moved down to his dad to open a music school (like what we have done here - we gave him a job teaching guitar and he was doing so well..) and to be closer to the gf. I was bitterly disappointed and tried to talk him out of it but he was determined. Now he is going through hell and as a mother what can I do? Just be a shoulder to cry on and resist the 'I told you so's'

What can I say...I know it's wrong but he is old enough to live his own life now. Besides...do adult kids EVER take advice from their parents? I know I didn't...that's why I have been married twice! haha

MG

Rags, this relationship doesn't stand a hope in hell! Knowing my exH he has already turned the screws on BS20 to break up with her as his relationship with new wife #6 is in jeapardy.

I hear what you are saying but I cannot give myself ulcers worrying about it....

What do you do? When I was dating my exH, the more my folks told me to dump him for xyz reasons, the more determined we were to be together. I have learned with my kids to just take a non-hysterical position and comment as little as possible on the gf's and hope and pray like hell that it doesn't go much further. He's a guy...how do you stop him from living his life once he has left home?

I welcome any advice...
MG