I’m crushed by my adult sons’ despair

DEAR BEL MY ANGUISH is caused by feeling too keenly my sons’ worries and sadness. They are both in their 40s and between them have given me eight grandchildren, whom I love very much.

Despite my sons being highly qualified professionals, their jobs are under threat due to the economy. They have become bitter and disillusioned and, on top of all that, they have marital problems.

One is going through a terrible divorce and has been treated like dirt by his ex-wife, who left him and denied him access to his babies.

He has been left almost bankrupt and is hopeless about his future. He has turned to drinking and smoking, and is regularly in tears on the phone.

The other son has a neurotic wife who just cannot cope with the worry of his job situation and their children — who are unruly and can be quite selfish, demanding and rude. I can feel the tension in their house. My son is stressed out and overworked.

I’m 70, happily married, active, in quite good health, have a full life and am trying hard to enjoy my last ‘good’ years.

But my heart feels as heavy as lead when I think of my sons’ unhappiness and this mars everything I do.

I pray that things will start to go their way, I help where I can financially and otherwise, but nothing changes.

I feel so down, I cannot shake off the feeling, even though I am on antidepressants. I have always loved life, and still do, but I can’t be happy while my boys are going through all of this.

So I need your words of comfort.

ANDREA

REGRETTABLY, it’s very hard for me to offer the comfort you seek, when in truth I cannot see how we can protect our adult children from unhappiness. If you read Marianne’s letter above, you might reflect that life (though sad and stressful) is actually easier for her — since people can at least try to protect small children from the worst aspects of human behaviour. I’m not saying it’s easy, just that it’s possible.

Yet as the years roll on, and our babes grow into children, teenagers and adults, it becomes harder and harder, then almost impossible to shelter them beneath the generous umbrella of mother love.

You gave as the subject for your email ‘Ruined old Age’, and I can’t tell you how much I sympathise, because in your situation I, too, would be sleepless and unhappy. Yet at the same time I want to warn you against what seems to be a helpless acceptance that this is ‘ruining’ your life.

Currently, you are blessed with a happy marriage and good health, and those precious gifts are vital for giving you strength to be there for your sons if and when they need you.

But if you continue in this mindset, almost blaming yourself for not being able to protect these men from the lives they — for better or worse — have constructed, you’ll make yourself ill and be able to do them no good at all.

I could introduce you to many an elderly parent full of grief because a middle-aged child’s marriage has imploded after many years. I could also remind you that parents who try to offer advice or interfere in other ways sometimes pay a heavy price.

Then there are those whose children have ended up with disappointing partners who seem incapable of making them happy.

one of my friends has this situation, but her way of coping is to put up and shut up — even though the son-in-law in question was once verbally abusive to her. She knows she has to be quiet and strong.

So do you, I’m afraid. Your old age is not ‘ruined’, nor should you tell yourself that these are your ‘last good years’. That’s how it seems now, but things may feel very different this time next year.

Mothers are allowed to make quiet suggestions. Perhaps you could advise your first son to have counselling to help him come to terms with the end of his marriage. And has he consulted National Family Mediation? He might find some fellow feeling as well as information at fnf.org.uk, the website of Families Need Fathers.

You are critical of your second son’s children and his wife’s mothering skills. Be that as it may, have you offered to have the grandchildren to stay to give them a break? There should be cast-iron ‘grandmother’s rules’ in your house, and it’s never too late to start.

Mothers are allowed to offer practical help, like the gift of a short holiday to adult children. But you can’t work the miracle of change — your children’s lives will evolve as fate will have it. Your power is in the strength of the love you have shown them since the time of nappies.