I apologise in advance for my long post but somehow I just want to speak about things right now.
I am 67 & been married I was 21. We had one child, a son who is now in his late 30's.Things have been rocky for some years on & off with my husband because of my depression mainly caused by my unfortunate bad health problems that are still ongoing. My husband has never understood depression & has given me little or not support over the years.
Earlier this year, we received a letter from our son who has a partner & young children which basically stated how he felt we had let him down since he turned to adult age. We have never lived near...they live nearly 3 hours drive away & one of my health problems means I cannot drive. When their 1st born arrived, we gave them what I considered to be a substantial sum of money for the baby & they spent this wisely on things they needed. We were, due to financial problems at the time, not able to do this for the 2nd child. When he wrote this letter, he mentioned this & we explained the situation which fell onto deaf ears. After a few weeks, he visited us to discuss what he had said in his letter but unfortunately the hurt that came out of his mouth was too much for me & things got heated. One thing was that I wanted to put a little bit of money aside out of my pension each week for their children. He said his partner had opened a bank account for them & told me to pay any money into that. I did not want to do this...I wanted to put money aside myself. His answer was "well, if you don't trust my partner then any money you want to give them will be refused"!!!
This meeting with our son caused tension between me & my husband in many ways & I ended up very low indeed but thanks to my fantastic GP I have got through.
My husband has always been pretty selfish, never buying me anything, never saying he loves me & I have always been the one to do cooking, washing, decorating etc etc as it simply would not be done. The crunch came when I had a minor leg surgery & I was on crutches for a couple of days & he refused to make me a dinner for two nights. He says now that he regrets not doing that but he had no remorse at the time.
Because of the tension between us, it has been decided we won't be able to live together any more...he is keeping in touch with our son & sadly I have had no contact with him/his family for many months. I said I could not forgive him for the things he has said & would welcome an apology, something he has told my husband he will not do.
So, he said he would not be willing to move & my life has been hell for the last couple of months living with him. I am now hoping to buy a small property under a shared ownership scheme & have to rely on benefits to cover my costs; something I have never done in my life before. Like everything, the work being done through the solicitor for this purchase seems to be taking an absolute age but hopefully within a few weeks I will be moving away with my little dog for company.
My husband saw our son & his family a few weeks ago, meeting them halfway. I gave him some bits & pieces for the boys to give them. He also took a camera along with him when he met them. A few days later he received an email from our son's partner to say if they had realised the gifts were from me they would have been refused & as for taking pictures, this wasn't allowed as they said I would see them!! He is going to meet up with them again towards the end of this month & yes, I would love to buy some things for the boys but know they would be refused. It bloody hurts. I would walk to the end of the world to help anyone & my close friends, some of many, many, years know this. I cannot get all these things out of my mind & just feel completely depleted. thank you for reading this long post xx