Dear janice51:

My input following reading your post attentively: first, separate best you can your feelings of hurt and betrayal from your son’s. You feel great empathy for your son, this is very clear. The danger here is that you feel so much empathy for your son that the lines, in your mind, between YOUR experience and HIS experience are not solid.

This is very important, crucial, really, this separation. Therefore, calm yourself best you can every time you talk to your son about this issue so that you can really listen to HIS experience without yours interfering.

Let him know you are there for him, that he can talk to you anytime- but remember, if you don’t keep your experience separate from his, he will have a problem opening up to you. He needs to know you are hearing him and not a mix of him and you.

Hope you post again, if you need to and wish the best for your son. He was/ is betrayed and ignored and that is very regretful. I hope he learns as a result of this experience, somehow, to exert more power over his life circumstances where he can instead of becoming more passive and compliant, people- pleasing. That is something I would watch out for if I was you. The experience already happened and keeps happening, how it affects him long term remain to be seen and I hope it will, over time, empower him and not weaken him.

anita