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Dear Annie: I have two grown sons, ages 32 and 24, and they are my oldest and youngest children of six. At the age of 15, the 32-year-old was accused of a crime that the family knows he did not commit. But the accusation resulted in his spending approximately 15 years in and out of the penal system. He entered a facility for adult inmates when he was barely 16, since he was charged as an adult.
My 24-year-old was the accuser (at roughly age 11). The accusations tore our family apart. The oldest went to prison; the youngest and one other of my children were removed from my custody and sent to foster homes and group homes.
Cut to today, years later: The boys are at war. Both are accusing the other of "ruining my life." They have been around each other a few times, and most of those times were cordial. The last time was a couple of months ago.
I live in Ohio, while the youngest lives in Missouri and the oldest is in Arizona. I hadn't seen my oldest son in several years, so he drove to Ohio to surprise me. When he left, he had plans to go to Oklahoma to visit another sibling, but he decided to go to Missouri to visit the youngest and meet his niece and nephew. I was skeptical about this, due to threats they had previously made against each other. It went exactly as I prayed it wouldn't.
They got into a screaming match, hurling angry threats and insults at each other in front of my autistic grandson's second birthday party! Now they are saying the other one is dead to them, along with the children!
Annie, I can't divulge personal information regarding the nature of the alleged crime, but I can tell you that this mama is torn in two. The boys aren't asking anyone to take sides, but we all are feeling jerked back and forth. What can I do, as a mother, to get two very stubborn, traumatized and angry young men to get help with their relationship? Individually and, possibly, together? We don't want two different holiday gatherings. And we don't know how to tell the grandkids why their uncles won't be around each other. What can we, as a family, do to bring our boys back together? -- Torn Apart Mother
Dear Torn Apart: There is so much past resentment that needs to be forgiven and worked through in therapy between the brothers and you, their mother. Without processing the deep hurt and resentment that each has toward the other, every time they get together, it has a huge potential to end in a terrible fight. The fight only makes the rift deeper. They are grown adults so they have to WANT to make their relationship work better. You can encourage each of them to forgive, or to speak about their past hurts and traumas, but in the end, it has to be up to them to want to work on their relationship.
https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2728671
My 24-year-old was the accuser (at roughly age 11). The accusations tore our family apart. The oldest went to prison; the youngest and one other of my children were removed from my custody and sent to foster homes and group homes.
Cut to today, years later: The boys are at war. Both are accusing the other of "ruining my life." They have been around each other a few times, and most of those times were cordial. The last time was a couple of months ago.
I live in Ohio, while the youngest lives in Missouri and the oldest is in Arizona. I hadn't seen my oldest son in several years, so he drove to Ohio to surprise me. When he left, he had plans to go to Oklahoma to visit another sibling, but he decided to go to Missouri to visit the youngest and meet his niece and nephew. I was skeptical about this, due to threats they had previously made against each other. It went exactly as I prayed it wouldn't.
They got into a screaming match, hurling angry threats and insults at each other in front of my autistic grandson's second birthday party! Now they are saying the other one is dead to them, along with the children!
Annie, I can't divulge personal information regarding the nature of the alleged crime, but I can tell you that this mama is torn in two. The boys aren't asking anyone to take sides, but we all are feeling jerked back and forth. What can I do, as a mother, to get two very stubborn, traumatized and angry young men to get help with their relationship? Individually and, possibly, together? We don't want two different holiday gatherings. And we don't know how to tell the grandkids why their uncles won't be around each other. What can we, as a family, do to bring our boys back together? -- Torn Apart Mother
Dear Torn Apart: There is so much past resentment that needs to be forgiven and worked through in therapy between the brothers and you, their mother. Without processing the deep hurt and resentment that each has toward the other, every time they get together, it has a huge potential to end in a terrible fight. The fight only makes the rift deeper. They are grown adults so they have to WANT to make their relationship work better. You can encourage each of them to forgive, or to speak about their past hurts and traumas, but in the end, it has to be up to them to want to work on their relationship.
https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearannie/s-2728671
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Yeah, Oldest should not have been tried as an adult, much less placed in adult prison. Those things are bad, no matter what crime the minor in question is accused of committing.
But we can separate this fact from the fact that the criminal justice system believes Oldest did something extremely serious, based on the evidence and also his own brother's accusation, an accusation that he is still making.
The boys aren't asking anyone to take sides, but we all are feeling jerked back and forth
But you are taking sides. You can't help but take sides. And you've taken Oldest's side against Youngest.
Like, I can't even handle the advice portion of this letter until LW actually admits that this is what she's doing. She's taking sides!
What can we, as a family, do to bring our boys back together?
Some things can't be mended. Those two know who did what to whom, both in the past and in the present.
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LW says he "spent fifteen years in and out of the penal system" "as a result of the accusation". It's hard to tell, but that doesn't sound like he got a fifteen-year sentence, that sounds to me like he got [some length of sentence possibly including probation] and the continued being in and out of jail possibly for other crimes and/or parole violations, which LW blames on the fact that he went to adult prison for the first time at 16 (And is likely right!) But the original accusation frankly could have been anything from murder to marijuana possession.
And it's possible given the letter that the accusations were false and youngest son has admitted it! It wouldn't be that hard for police to coerce a seven-year-old into saying "Yes, my brother had a gun when he left the house" or "I saw him put the marijuana in the bag", and even convince the seven-year-old they were telling the truth. They don't seem to be blaming each other for the crime or the prison sentence, just for making Mom's life harder, so it could be something like "It's your fault because you let the cops trick you into lying!" vs. "It's your fault because you kept getting back into trouble even after you were paroled!"
LW is still clearly siding with the older son, but if it's something like the above that might be more justified.
Or LW could be deliberately slanting stuff to hide the fact that older son actually did do something terrible to younger son and they all know it.
But we really don't know based on this letter, so LW, you should probably talk to someone you actually can share details with.
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Sure, our criminal justice system is bullshit in multiple ways, and so is child services... but honestly, with all the shit in this letter, I'm going to err on the side of trusting, at least, that the accusations were probably serious ones.
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But we do know that whatever happened caused the family to be split up, and that's enough to get "you ruined my life" on its own, even if nothing that happened was really their fault.
Basically I don't trust anything LW is saying here, period.
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Well, we can definitely agree on that. Honestly, I think the person both these men shouldn't be talking to is Mom.
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If the teenager sexually abused a sibling, and the parents were all la la la head in the sand about it, and refused to cooperate with authorities about making sure it never happened again,
I can definitely see that resulting in child removal.
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But even then it would be at least partly down to LW refusing to cooperate with protecting them, not just that someone was accused of a crime.
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would be consistent with LW having failed to protect younger kid from older brother at the time...
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He was 11, not 7.
ETA: Oh wait, I just saw your comment further down about the ages. nm
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I don't think I trust LW's comprehension of evidence well enough to trust their judgement on who committed a crime.
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The closest thing to usable advice Annie gives the LW is that the relationship between the brothers won't change unless they both want it to, and they do the work.
It sounds as though both LW and the older brother have been engaging in wishful thinking. The previous history described (serious accusations, followed by jail time for one brother and foster care for the other) and the recent threats do not suggest that a surprise visit would be a good idea.
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I'm with you on the real answer, with the addition that even if she can't or won't do therapy, in addition to accepting that it's up to them she should in general just seek advice from people she can actually describe the situation to, as
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B: This just screams alarm bells of a sex crime.
math is hard for these people
Either Oldest committed a sex crime against Youngest, or Youngest falsely accused their sibling of a sex crime and sent him into the adult criminal justice as a teenager. Either way, that's a horrific crime against a sibling, and a relationship that will only be "fixed" if the two men decide it is valuable to both of them to move past it. ie. Mum needs to stay the fuck out of this.
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Things that "the family knows he did not commit" tend to be sexual abuse-related in nature, and that's a prime age for it, and this LW is *totally* taking sides, so I am *already* not feeling charitable toward her.
And then she goes and does the usual bullshit "how do we make them tallllllllk??" thing.
Don't. They need space. Cope with having two holidays. Deal. Also, they should get into therapy, but don't tell them that til you've had some. (And, I finally read Annie's response, which isn't actually all that bad. Wotta concept.)
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Anyone want to take bets on whether eldest sibling took the fall for a parent's abuse?