Divorced wife, moved away from kids 20 year ago. Adult sons are weird. Advice

Your kids are "not normal" in your eyes because you were not around for them growing up. They did not have a PRESENT strong male role model to inspire them with guidance and confidence in themselves. I know because my father was gone about half of time when I was growing up for work reasons, distant even when he was home, and I was primarily raised by mother. It had lingering effects.

If you really would like to help them, I recommend attending therapy as a family. And modifying your concept of normal, because the world and its people exist as they are, not as you would them to be. As you do with your sons, you yourself can be labeled as weird because you moved away for 20 years from the family you brought into this world.

Don't you folks from broken homes understand that what you've experienced is progress?

The maligning of faith, two parent families and traditional upbringing over the last fifty years has worked really well. Right?

What we need is to move even farther away from those bad days with even more radical 'families' made up of gender bending, values free, commitment free alliances.

Takes time to build relationships. Listening is always good.

Precious Roy wrote:

Step no. 1: Be there.

Step no. 2: Accept them for who they are.

Step no. 3: Form an adult relationship with them.

Step no. 4: Be very patient and positive.

These are all great, OP, but I'm pessimistic about your prospects for two reasons. First, as XKCD puts it

, "the thing standing in the way of your dreams is that the person having them is you." I mean that it's very hard for me to imagine you being the kind of person who could follow Precious Roy's bullet points 2 and 4 specifically, given what we know about you. And the second is that depression is at least somewhat hereditary. You might want to think of it as a good thing that your boys don't have kids. Perhaps they can break the cycle.

I am rooting for you. Nobody thought the Cubs were going to win the World Series either. Stranger things have happened.

US/ussr dual meets wrote:

Everyone is criticizing and insulting you for abandoning the family, so I'll throw you a little positive vibe.

You were great in the 10K in those US/Soviet dual meets and I'm still blown away by your 300 mile weeks, Jerry.

Man this place is slipping. Took a page and a half before the first mention of this? This was low hanging fruit. You guys need to be sharper on these troll threads.

Thiz place ain't wrote:

You guys need to be sharper on these troll threads.

WTF, so asking this sort of advice on a running site forum like LR's is trolling? Please tell me you're not serious.

Sounds a bit similar to my family. I'm the youngest, and my parents didn't get divorced until I was in college, but it seemed to me like they were not really life-partners at all most of my life and simply cohabitated. Both of my parents were very involved, and we really had a great family life during my childhood overall. My mom started getting pretty crazy when I was around the age of 12, and my brother got more and more heavily involved in drugs until things were completely out of control. Even before that, I feel like both my parents were pretty inept about a lot of things. I'm old enough now to understand parents are just people like the rest of us and to not hold them to such impossible standards, but they were pretty pathetic by any standards about a lot of stuff. Things got REALLY bad when I was a teenager, and I'm super messed up because of it. I am apparently very good looking and have women throw themselves at me constantly, to the point it doesn't even sound believable, and yet I am never in any sort of real relationship because I'm emotionally damaged, numb, and can't really form emotional bonds to people.

A wife and kids is something I think I want, but I recognize I have a ton of work to do before I could possibly go that route. I don't want to have any kids in my present state because I know how horrible it is to go through what I went through, and I wouldn't want to put that on anyone else. Just learning about all this stuff has really helped me, and I continue to read books and do research on emotional trauma, healing, etc, but I'm still not convinced I'll ever reproduce. I'm 28 and basically have no one. Who would even want to marry me anyway? I don't even know how a normal family operates, and every time I'm around a normal family, it just makes me really uncomfortable and sad because my experience was so different.

Advice to OP: I don't know. The past is what it is, so bashing you now does no one any good. Maybe you should all go to therapy together. I suspect you have some problems in your past as well that may have contributed to you abandoning your kids.

OK, I know everyone has been judging you and everything, and while you can't really blame them for that, I do have some honest advice. The only way to build a relationship with your some is just to straight up ask for forgiveness. If they can find it in your heart to forgive you, then great, you can spend the rest of your life trying to somehow make up the years you left behind. But if you try and in your heart of hearts ask for forgiveness and they reject you, you need to understand that and try to move on. This may seem very hit or miss but being frank is the only chance you have at a real, loving relationship.

Stay away from them. As for you, you are sentenced to listening to that godawful Harry Chapin song a thousand times.

OP, thanks for your honesty. It is refreshing to see someone admit they wish they had done differently in the past and seek to do better going forward.

Regardless of whether you think your kids are well adjusted or not, they are your kids and you get to love them for who they are, gifts and weaknesses combined. If you can do that with sincerity, I believe their oddities will not be so significant in your perception.

From the beginning of time, Dads affirm identity to their children. Mom's are great but kids of both genders are looking for their father to tell them who they are, and they'll believe what is communicated whether good or bad. I'm not trying to shame you, but you weren't around to tell and show your kids that they matter, that they have value and are worth being valued. Your actions may have actually communicated the opposite. So with that in mind, be honest with your kids now, tell them and show them that they matter to you immensely, and I am confident that will go a long way, even though they are grown now.

Best wishes to you and I hope for continued growth and health in your relationship with each of your kids.

triggered by this wrote:

So Man wrote:

So, if you can't even man up and "cause great bodily harm" to your own "worthless POS" dad how is it that you think you would be man enough to do so to some anonymous dude?

He was too old by the time I was a man. It'd be elderly abuse if I did it. And you can just trust I've been in a scuffle or two in my lifetime before.

Maybe you should have done it before you were a man then. How old was he when you were born?

Thiz place ain't wrote:

US/ussr dual meets wrote:

Everyone is criticizing and insulting you for abandoning the family, so I'll throw you a little positive vibe.

You were great in the 10K in those US/Soviet dual meets and I'm still blown away by your 300 mile weeks, Jerry.

Man this place is slipping. Took a page and a half before the first mention of this? This was low hanging fruit. You guys need to be sharper on these troll threads.

See the thing is Gerry abandoned his family a good number of years earlier and never went back.

Grown Wounded Child wrote:

. I am apparently very good looking and have women throw themselves at me constantly, to the point it doesn't even sound believable.

It doesn't Zoolander but thanks for making this about you.

I come from a broken home, and I made the best of it. I hope your return goes something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEV3jvEhrM

Thiz place ain't wrote:

US/ussr dual meets wrote:

Everyone is criticizing and insulting you for abandoning the family, so I'll throw you a little positive vibe.

You were great in the 10K in those US/Soviet dual meets and I'm still blown away by your 300 mile weeks, Jerry.

Man this place is slipping. Took a page and a half before the first mention of this? This was low hanging fruit. You guys need to be sharper on these troll threads.

Thanks. I love you, man.

You bred like R Selection in genetics.

R Selection in genetics is like rats or rodents; you bred but didn't take care and they die off young and often.

You should have been like a wolf, an apex predator.

We can't fix the mess. But I'll add this piece of advice, Feminism had it's hand in it too. That ideology has been on a war path killing men as they go.

But yes, you should not have abandoned your sons.

lookatme wrote:

I am seeking honest advice on how to be a better father.

The answer is you have to put in time. There's nothing good parents all do other than be a consistent presence. If you're serious about helping your kids, you need to prioritize them and be a steady influence in their life, however much they let you. Start by taking them out for dinner, one on one. When you've built up a relationship with each of them (over several months, maybe years), you'll notice they'll drop their guard little by little. You have no right to parent them until years of relationship building has gone on. They resent you and you may very well never get to a point of love and respect, but if you do, you very well may have a relationship with each of them.

"Values free"

Ok, next time you get beaten up or someone steals something from you; then just smile and enjoy it.

For you sir, things break down quickly and everything becomes meaningless. And you don't even know it.

imagine how weird your sons would be if you had remained in their lives