Back again after hiatus

[tolson1971]

I had been away from the group for a while and several events have prompted me to check back in.  My middle son is 17 and had moved in with my BPDx like a year and a half ago.  He has a following out with her (BPDx) and was wanting to move to my house. 

I'm summarizing a bit, but when he left a year and a half ago, I was a horrible father and he was totally resentful towards me.  When a family therapist asked the 2 of us during a session about why he was so mad at his dad, he couldn't come up with anything.  Told the therapist privately that he was doing and saying this stuff to me to get me to give up my parenting time.  Had 3 or 4 discussions where he just went for the jugular and tore me to pieces with a bunch of hurtful shit. 

Fast forward to a year and half later - now he hates BPDx wants to come and and live with me, but "you are still a horrible father" and "I am only coming here because I don't have any other options".  I asked him what would be different this time between us - nothing he said.  So ... in a year and a half literally nothing had changed and the end result of this is that he eventually decided to go back to his mom's house.
I say all of this because i know that there is a disconnect between the way he feels towards me and who I am as a parent and it is really killing me inside.  I haven't done anything to warrant the treatment he is giving me and I am pretty sure that there is some Parental Alienation at work behind the scenes. 

[Penny Lane]

Hi, I'm sorry this slipped down the page and I'm sorry you had to find your way back here.

I think you can be confident that there is heavy parental alienation going on.

I also think that, deep down, he loves you and misses you and he knows that you're his stable parent.

If you let him back in, it will take a lot of work and a lot of love but there is an opportunity to rebuild the relationship. You can show him what unconditional love really feels like.

I highly recommend you read Divorce Poison as you decide how to proceed - it will help you better understand what's going on with him.

[athene1399]

I think the child weeding through the parental alienation is very confusing for them. Everything they hear is conflicting.  I think regardless of who they choose they feel guilty and that they have chosen the wrong side IMO. I couldn't even imagine what it must feel like to them.

Do you want him to move back in with you? I would assess how you feel about it and go from there.

SO and I are going through something similar but different. we fought the alienation best we could and tried to keep SD adhering to the custody agreement schedule. When she turned 18, she wanted to live full time with BPDBM. SO (dad) let her. SD had a falling out with BM and started living on her own. SO asked her move in with us but she wouldn't. Now she's dorming at university, but asked to stay with us over break. SO and I discussed our feelings on it about being rejected before but now she wants to stay here. And is it for real this time? (often she would say she would stay with us but then back out last minute).

So weigh the pros and cons and think about how you feel about the situation. What will him living with you look like? What do you think it will look like versus what you want it to look like? What will your rules be? can you have a discussion with him about it first? Like "if you want to stay here, please don't say what a bad dad I am"... or whatever. This stuff is not easy to weed through.