Strained Relationships

Who would you like to talk to soon?

I would love to talk to my middle son, Andrew, soon. In fact, I would love it if we had the kind of relationship where we talked or even texted a few times a week, but we don’t. Our relationship has been strained since he moved out of the house at the age of 15, to live with a woman down the street from us whose son was Andrew’s best friend at the time. Andrew was struggling at home and at school. He was refusing to do his chores ( keeping his room clean among other things) and he was skipping school and failing his classes. He wasn’t showing up for dinner and arriving home very late, then roaming around the house when everyone else had gone to bed. The atmosphere between us was very tense. This woman seemed hell-bent on causing friction and would oppose any rules that I would try to implement.

It all came to a head after this woman threatened to hit me when I came to her house to pick Andrew up one evening. He moved out soon afterwards and our relationship has never recovered. It breaks my heart, as I’m so very close with my eldest son as I was with Matthew, my youngest.

My sister and Andrew speak often, so I know that he’s available despite his busy life as he’s self-employed. The distance between us spills over to my other grandchildren too as I only see them rarely.

When Matthew died in 2022, Andrew and my sister refused to attend his funeral, which cut me like a knife. My sister later apologized but Andrew never has.

I hope that at some point in the future, our relationship will be healed in some way. I’m not sure what it will take but I pray for a reconciliation all the time.

What do you think I should do?

(left to right)
Paul, Me, Andrew