Parents shocked when 23 yo son confesses; 'Your lifestyle has always disgusted me. I don't respect you as parents.' UPDATED

When these parents are shocked to find out how their son really feels, they ask the internet:

"My son confessed how our lifestyle negatively impacted him. What do we do?"

Our son(23M) was returning one of our bags we left at his house a week ago. He decided to return it late at night last Saturday. Our "party" ended and we had people leaving. Apparently, when he reached out front door we had couples leaving and talking about the party.

My wife opened the door in shock. He threw the bag on the floor "Here's your stuff, sorry if I interrupted your orgy." My wife, as usual started blowing up his phone. My wife had the phone on speaker. He picked up the fourth time and "Mom we can talk about this on Friday at my place but I want to be left alone for this week.

Friday came and we were sitting at his place. He let out a lot of his frustrations. He said "You guys were basically gone every other weekend when I was 16 years old.

Was the only time you guys were at home was because you didn't have any f buddies to s&k and f&k?" I told him to watch the way he spoke to us and that we did still spent time on the days we didn't go nor we gone for the whole weekend.

He responds "Yeah name one time you guys did anything with me on an individual basis? You guys were attached to the hip basically. I was actually jealous of your relationship.

How fd up is that! I used to think it's nice and all how much you love each other but couldn't show me the same amount of love and attention. I used to get sick seeing you snuggle with each other like teenagers whenever we used to watch a movie together.

You used to tease me about it but you had no idea how I felt inside." I responded with telling him that a romantic relationship and a parent child relationship are completely different.

He gets pissed off and said" Don't insult my intelligence. I know that. It's still doesn't change you guys cared more about each other. I've seen how girlfriend's parents love on her. I used to get jealous.

By the way, mom, yes my girlfriend isn't a big fan of yours. She doesn't respect you as my parents. The reason I didn't share how I felt when I was at home because it felt humiliating."

My wife starts bawling in tears and starts begging for forgiveness while reaching out for a hug. He rebukes and calls her a wh%re. I started seeing red and I was up in his face telling him to watch his mouth. He then responds with saying "What are you going to do man-wh%re. I shouldn't be calling you a man. Get the f out of my house before I lose control."

My wife has called out for going to work tomorrow. She hasn't left the bed. I've been crying all night. My son hates my guts and I don't know what to do.

Before we give you OP's update, let's read some top responses:

Ok there is lot going on here and lot said in heat of the moment and he was very much out of line and disrespectful of you both. There is fault in both sides. First off you both have done nothing wrong being in LS there should be no feeling of guilt nor shame.

Your son is old enough to surely respect everyone regardless of sexual orientation, gender orientation, likewise with religious beliefs and what side of politics you lean towards.

These are just things that younger generation of today grow up with. You might not agree but you respect everyone and treat them with such respect. He seems to have some other issues at play in his head that are his issues not yours and he needs to sort them out and deal with them.

Seeking professional support for this would be good. If he does, part of process will be to have discussions with you on these issues or perceptions he has. But a good professional will guide him on how to deal with this.

In meantime I would suggest maybe you both seek some therapy preferably with someone that is S% Positive and has understanding and respectful of the LS.

I would write a letter to him explaining how to love him and you weren’t I aware of his issues and anger towards both.

But a professional can help you with this. Please allow your wife time to process but not too long alone. Sometimes being alone the thoughts in your head be one bigger and bigger as time goes on with a feeling of no way out. Give your wife a huge hug and love her!! Good Luck!!

grestu writes:

Our kids (all boys over 21) know, one is a little grossed out, the others are just happy we’re happy. They found out because one of their girlfriends asked because my ‘best friend’ hung out with us so much and I wasn’t going to lie once they were all over 18.

But before we were in the LS, they knew we had se% (the house isn’t huge and beds make noise, I am not loud) and that mom & dad took ‘naps’ on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. They also had all their se% talks with me, mom, their whole life, because I was factual and not critical.

I encouraged them to get to know girls and learn how to be friends with girls and practiced conversations around consent and birth control. I told them it was okay to be gay or have gay friends.

So they knew I was a different kind of mom who they could trust. One over shared (mom, this girl wanted anal), one under shared (he never even told us who he was dating in high school), and one was sort of in the middle (had a talk with both him and gf about different birth control options).

Before they knew about the LS, they knew who our friends were, where we were going, just not what we were doing. They still don’t know exactly what or who we do. But they are used to meeting and seeing our friends in vanilla context. We don’t hide who we know.

As far as the accusations of neglect, that might be an issue even if you weren’t in the LS. He has just found a convenient correlation. Definitely is going to take some time and also maybe find an LS friendly therapist for you and your wife to come up with help for the way you both are feeling.

It will be up to your son to decide if and when he wants to engage, but adult estrangement is a real thing. Google “adult estrangement” and definitions and articles will be plentiful.

aggromood writes:

Your child is actually an adult, and it sounds like you just gave him an excuse to let out a lot of unrelated frustrations. He feels abandoned and rejected, which has nothing to do with you being in the LS. Finding out about your LS was just the excuse he needed to tell you how he really feels.

My advice is brutal, but here it is anyway. You no longer get to tell him to "watch his mouth" or "watch how he speaks to you." Once again, he's an adult. He can decide to never speak to you again if he chooses, and trying to parent him as if he's still 16 is only going to drive him further away.

Yes, he's being disrespectful, but he's also in a lot of pain. He feels hurt, rejected, and in need of love from you. He feels like you're giving your love to each other (and other people) instead of him.

Treat him like he's an adult and he might do the same for you. Adults are respectful, polite, and considerate to each other, generally speaking.

Parent/child relationships are inherently unequal, with the child feeling like they aren't deserving of respect because "parents know best" and what have you. Your relationship with your son has to change as he gets older or there won't be one any longer.

UPDATE:

I feel really numb right now. At this point I'm writing for cathartic reasons. It's been four hours ago my son invited us to talk to him. I asked him to give us a couple of few days but my wife was persistent to say the least. Before we got in the car, we both agreed to listen to him say his piece first.

When we entered, he still seamed energetic. He asked us for water or anything. We said no and we sat down in the living room. He said a lot for me to quote. I'll just give a summary:

He first apologized for the name-calling. He said he deeply regrets calling us that and wishes he could take that back. He says he isn't inherently against us being swingers, even though that's something he personally doesn't have an interest in himself.

He feels though it was that our swinging took precedence over spending time with him. He understood that we couldn't have our world revolve around him. He understood we needed time as a couple to keep our marriage strong.

However, according to him we checked out of the relationship we had with him at around 15. In his we seemed much more happy coming back from our weekend getaways and our anniversary vacation than with the family trips.

The fact that we did more couples trips than family trips didn't help at all. We were practically gone every other Saturday. To him it seemed we were so happy and wrapped around each other that he sort of felt like an intruder at home.

Out of fear of intruding, he never confronted us on how he felt inside. He said he felt like an accessory to our marriage, rather than a person we wanted a strong individual relationship with.

It seemed like parenting was a daily chore for us. In order to deal with this he asked us for one-on-one time with either of us so he could he feel like he could get our undivided attention for once.

However, we rarely could have because of how many swinger activities we booked. We would tell him to do stuff with his friends instead. He figured out that we were swingers when he asked to borrow the laptop when he was 17 and we had one tab open. He sort of gave up on wanting a relationship with us at that point.

He told me he primarily dormed not only for social life but he needed to get out of the house. He outright told us that we don't know him as an individual. To us, he's a quite introverted kid who doesn't say a lot around us.

However, he much more talkative with everyone else around. The thing that shocked us was that he pretended to be happy when we call or came to visit so that he didn't hurt our feelings.

He says his love for us comes out of gratitude, not because he likes being around us or because he feels close to us. He mentioned that he talks to his girlfriend's parents significantly more than us.

The main reason that he blew up at us, was that we came uninvited to his place. He hated the fact that he had to pretend to actually interact with us as if we had that kind of relationship.

He initially wanted to make an excuse that he had to go somewhere but he's made that excuse multiple times whenever we invited him or asked if he could come over. So, he had to bite the bullet. After four hours, we finally left. He was angry and annoyed at the same time.

He finally say we left the bag at his place. Not wanting an excuse to come to his place again, he dropped the bag at night. He sort of figured it out we had one of our parties ending and it triggered him.

He said what we wants from us now: Unless it's for certain occasion, don't ask him to call or visit anymore. He no longer will initiate anything from his side. He wants us to call him if there's an emergency or if we need possible financial help because he feels he owes us at least that much.

Respect the fact that his girlfriend's parents will take precedence over us from now on. Meaning if they ever have kids, they would be the primary grandparents. He will deal with taking care of them when they get old before he looks at us.

Don't ask for more or expect more out of our relationship. He doesn't want a mother-son dance at his wedding. He doesn't want me giving a speech at his wedding.

My wife couldn't handled it and asked us to leave. She was silent the entire time we drove home.