Dear Coleen: My 43-year-old son is back home after his wife dumped him
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Dear Coleen
Our son, who is 43, has been living with us since September when his wife told him she was no longer in love with him and only thinks of him as a brother, not a husband.
There are two children involved – a girl of 13 and a boy of 18. My daughter-in-law doesn’t want our son to stay at their house.
To please his wife, he agreed to live with us for the time being, despite begging her for a reconciliation. She refused and said she has no wish to hurt him, but can no longer live with him.
Our son is a broken man. He longs for family life and misses the children dreadfully as he has limited contact with them. He is still paying the mortgage and living expenses for the house he no longer lives in.
We are a retired couple of 78 and 76, and we’ve been used to our own company for many years. Now we have our youngest son back at home with us and he has free board and lodging.
What can we do to help? And what are his next steps to make some sense of this situation? At the moment, it seems to be stalemate.
Coleen says
You are doing a lot to help already by giving him a roof over his head and supporting him emotionally.
I understand your worries about how long it’s going to go on for and the pressure it puts on you and your husband.
The problem is, your son is in denial at the moment so he isn’t being proactive or pushing for divorce because he’s hoping she’ll change her mind.
He doesn’t have to force the divorce route, but he needs to get legal advice to find out where he stands in terms of the house and finances. He should also sort out interim accommodation, not only so he has his own space, but so that his children can stay with him.
I don’t know if you can help him to accept it’s over – I think he has to come to that conclusion himself.
Mediation would be a good idea to break the deadlock. He can contact National Family Mediation (nfm.org.uk), which supports families going through divorce and separation, and has lots of good information around children, property and finance.
It’s only been a couple of months since the separation, so your son is still reeling from the heartbreak. Hopefully, he’ll start thinking more logically about the situation once he realises a reconciliation isn’t on the cards.