My son who is a great kid, ( besides being a bit unmotivated) but otherwise a great person and a kind soul. Has left me, his dad, feeling more depressed than I thought I would be.
Im in my mid 50s (GenX)my parents are in their mid-late 70s. They divorced when I was 8, and my mom moved out of state. Both were high school drop outs in Appalachia.I lived with my mom until age 18 when I left home.
My step dad was cool, but it was made clear that I was old enough and needed to go. My father was cruel and was obsessed with money and materialism. He had a fledgling business and said he would help me if I came to work for him (little did I know he saw me as a slave employee). So I agreed to move back and met a girl that had known as a child we started to date and married a year later. Bc we were forbidden to live together without being married. So I was married at 19 and working 60 hour weeks for about $100 per week after taxes. This went on for about a decade through the 90s during which the business expanded and my wife got through nursing school, My dad always promised me the world and his business would be mine someday, all the while he spent millions on race cars and showing off for his friends, meawhile I worked for nothing and relied in my wifes income.
When we turned 30 I was ready to quit but he got cancer and used guilt to get me to stay for another year, durjng which my wife also had our first child. The following year after he recovered. I was ready to leave, then my step mom needed heart surgery. Again I agreed to stay while she recovered. Finally the following spring I left and he disowned me saying I abandoned him. I went back to college thanks to my wifes support and then grad school for engineering(with zero college debt). After grad school we moved to Northern Va. and we enjoy very comfortable lives, and make much more money than we ever dreamed of in our professional careers, after we literally worked our asses off and even qualified for (WIC) when our son was a baby. We didnt take a vacation until we were in our 40's.
After I quit his business he cut off contact for the next 22 years. He hadnt seen his grandson since he was 1 until he was 22. So now both parents are at the end and my mom has since divorced my stepdad. She still smokes and is borderline alcoholic. She has zero savings and needs to live with someone as she cannot continue to live in subsidized housing alone. He has Parkinsons and barely gets by.
So after being "thrown to the wind" as teenagers we have since made it on our own with zero help from any of our parents. Now both of my parents keep hinting that they need help. AITAH for not feeling any sense of compassion?