How to handle adult disrespectful son
Hi, any help would be appreciated but please be gentle on me. Im in a fragile state at the moment. To give you some background and to cut a long story short, I have been a single parent for 18 years to a son. He left home very unexpectedly when he was 18 and with an inheritance from his grandfather bought his own home, few miles away from me.
We had an exceptionally close and loving relationship until he left home. I do so much for him. I only work part time, so have spare time, so am glad to help out with errands for him and I clean his house weekly. We see each other twice, maybe three times a week but not for long periods. Over the past 6 months he has been aggressive, rude, impatient, self absorbed, just generally horrible to me. He criticises everything I say, do, wear. He nags me about everything and anything. We never have a relaxed, pleasant time together. Im hanging on in there because he is my only surviving family. Apart from friends he is the only family connection I have and I just miss so desperately the loving lad he used to be.
I wonder where I went wrong. Hes selfish beyond belief, even all his friends say he speaks to me horribly.
I don't know what to do. Im frightened if I say anything, that I then won't see him for weeks. We are in contact daily by email or text whilst he's at work but haven't heard from him now for 2 days, which is unheard of. Im worried Im losing him and our relationship will never be the same again.
I can't eat, sleep, he's constantly on my mind and the whole thing is stressing me out.
Comment on joypulv's post
Well that's taught me to never go online thinking that you will get a helpful answer to something. What an absolutely horrible, blunt, know-all person you sound. You don't know any of the facts. I didn't write a long winded question because I didn't want to bore people. If you knew the whole story you wouldn't be focusing on stupid comments about housework. I don't offer to do anything for him, he has a busy life and he asks me. My point was that he is abusive, rude and uncaring. That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I do for him, its his whole attitude. You feel bad for my son - how dare you! He couldn't have had a more, loving and caring mother in the whole world, who has given up 18 years of her own life to put her child first. I have only ever been selfless and now Im getting it all thrown back in my face. You obviously aren't intelligent enough to realise that this has nothing to do with physical things, its somehow emotional, which is why I needed help