Ex-wife sleeps with 13 year old son in the same bed

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TheRealJuliane said:
Oh. my. God.

:bigyikes::bigyikes::bigyikes:

Maybe someone really ought to do an intervention on your ex-wife. I mean, does she have ANY frame of reference for this sort of thing??? My younger son really flipped out when that started happening, we had to talk him down off the ledge so to speak. He thought he was going to hell because he couldn’t control himself! To have that happen as a boy was actually IN his mother’s bed???

:eek::eek::eek:

I’m really thinking that someone needs to put an end to this before your son ends up needing some serious therapy (he already might).
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Well yeah. sorry to be so blunt…I imagine some of the people reading have wondered why exactly I’m making a big deal out of this. There you go. That is just one of the reasons I’m considering it a big deal. You women have no idea…:rolleyes: what a curse is about to be put upon him.
 
Armor_of_Light said:
Well yeah. sorry to be so blunt…I imagine some of the people reading have wondered why exactly I’m making a big deal out of this. There you go. That is just one of the reasons I’m considering it a big deal. You women have no idea…:rolleyes: what a curse is about to be put upon him.
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Yeah, us moms of boys sure do. 😊 Tricky…very tricky…And again, something a MOM is not going to be able to handle that well. No matter what, it will embarrass the heck out of the son. He’d much rather talk to Dad about it since Dad has gone through it and understands. No matter how sympathetic Mom is, she’s not a guy. Part of the reason young men need to be with their dads more as they turn into men.
 
Sometimes boys are a bit dense.

Would something such as, “Listen Sean, you are to old and big to sleep with your mom. You need your privacy, she needs hers.” work? Then give him something to help if he gets afraid at night (if that’s the reason) My DS used to carry prayer cards to school when he was little. maybe a prayer card.

I know girls can regress at around that age…they start playing with baby stuff again. I taught 14 year old girls, besides thinking that they were so mature, many of them watched Barney (it was cool to watch and make fun of)

Sean might be regressing a bit, safe place to him means mom. He might be growing up physically, but mentally he might be still immature.
 
Mary_Gail_36 said:
Sometimes boys are a bit dense.

Would something such as, “Listen Sean, you are to old and big to sleep with your mom. You need your privacy, she needs hers.” work? Then give him something to help if he gets afraid at night (if that’s the reason) My DS used to carry prayer cards to school when he was little. maybe a prayer card.

I know girls can regress at around that age…they start playing with baby stuff again. I taught 14 year old girls, besides thinking that they were so mature, many of them watched Barney (it was cool to watch and make fun of)

Sean might be regressing a bit, safe place to him means mom. He might be growing up physically, but mentally he might be still immature.
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All true.

Yes. Upon careful consideration and the good advice you people have given I have decided that a conversation directly with him is the way to go. I can’t be there to help enforce it, but I will inform her that we have had a talk and I fully support her efforts to deny him this request if it comes up again. He has always been a couple of years behind in maturity it seems…not just after the divorce. Thanks you guys!

I need your (name removed by moderator)ut and conscience check as I do not have any friends. 😦 😛 😃
 
Armor_of_Light said:
All true.

Yes. Upon careful consideration and the good advice you people have given I have decided that a conversation directly with him is the way to go. I can’t be there to help enforce it, but I will inform her that we have had a talk and I fully support her efforts to deny him this request if it comes up again. He has always been a couple of years behind in maturity it seems…not just after the divorce. Thanks you guys!

I need your (name removed by moderator)ut and conscience check as I do not have any friends. 😦 😛 😃
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Well, as the mom of a son with ADHD, they are delayed at least 18 mos. chronologically, but that doesn’t apply to their bodies. Their bodies mature at the same rate as their peers. Their mental and emotional maturation is much slower. Which makes for a very difficult and tricky time when they reach the outward age of 15 and it’s time to learn to drive…Just imagine handing the keys to a 13 year old! :eek:

I like the idea of just simply stating the facts and reminding him that he’s a “big boy” now, and giving him a glow in the dark rosary or something.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Yeah, us moms of boys sure do. 😊 Tricky…very tricky…And again, something a MOM is not going to be able to handle that well. No matter what, it will embarrass the heck out of the son. He’d much rather talk to Dad about it since Dad has gone through it and understands. No matter how sympathetic Mom is, she’s not a guy. Part of the reason young men need to be with their dads more as they turn into men.
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Exactly. This isn’t something to get hysterical about, and in fact it is a topic about which hysteria ought to be studiously avoided. If Mom has some sort of weird thing going on that her son is oblivious to, it is far better to get him out of the situation with his obliviousness intact. All he needs to know at this stage in his life is what situations to avoid. Advanced psychology, even if it is totally correct, is going to be way WAY TMI for a 13 year old!! That kid needs to be kept safe, but he’d also benefit from plausible deniability. (I do not mean avoiding the topic if HE’S doing the talking!)

Let us face it: If there were a list of things in which the experience turned out to be stranger than any fiction one could see coming, adolescence would be on it…very high on it. Unmarried parents of opposite-gender children, no matter how they got to be in that position, do well to find a discrete, trustworthy and mature person of the child’s own sex to be the child’s guide through adolescence. Even when a child has both parents living in the same home, it is good to have more than one person the child can turn to for conversations in complete confidence, because it is so hard to predict who the child might feel comfortable talking to.

I see this as very much like talks surrounding sex at younger ages…tell the child what the child needs to know, don’t shirk that, but beyond that give the child some leeway concerning what he wants to be told over and above that, especially what he wants to be told by you. And always avoid rash judgement. Safe situations can be provided without any rash accusations.
 
What can happen sometimes, an not uncommonly, is a wounded parent can turn their child into a surrogate spouse. Even if there is no sexual contact, there can still be emotional boundary violations. A 13 year old will not likely stand up to a parent who is violating their emotional boundaries.

This kind of behavior could result in serious psychological issues for the child. Divorce causes it’s own issues with a child and there is no need to compound them with turning them into a surrogate spouse.

I suppose, if they are watching .t.v. and the child falls asleep and the mother doesn’t want to wake him, that’s one thing but if she becomes “needy” and “dependent” on the child to satisfy her emotional needs, then she is abusing the child.

As the Father, it is your responsibility to protect your child from this. You do not have to make it a big deal. I would tell your son that he is becoming a man now and needs to sleep in his own bed, even at his mother’s house. I would explain to him that he does not have to listen to his mother speak about her adult problems with him and let him know that you will support him and back him up 100% should she give him a hard time for standing up for himself. Explain, good healthy parent/child boundaries to your son. Let him know that his Mom is a little fragile right now but it is not your son’s responsibility to help her process her emotional needs. He has every right to say, “I don’t want to talk about this” or " I want to sleep in my own room."

It would be age appropriate, actually healthy, for him to want to break away from his mother at this age.

I suggest you do some research on “surrogate spouses or emotional incest.” Jails are filled with men who were “mama’s boys.” They were not sexually abused but emotionally abused with forced intimacy.

I am an incest victim, emotionally and sexually, so I know what I am talking about. The damage is practically irreversible. Your ex-wife may have no idea that she is doing this, she is not intentionally damaging her son. So do not demonize her. Just teach your son what boundaries are appropriate and that you will support him.
 
I think that before any advice is applicable we would need to know if this is something that the child wants and the mom is allowing, or something that the mom is pressuring her son in to. Those two situations require completely different courses of action.
 
I applaud your wife for this! What a wonderful gift to give a child suffering from a broken home. I fail to see a problem with family members sleeping in the same bed. People have never slept alone. This is a purely cultural phenomenon in modern America.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
I think that before any advice is applicable we would need to know if this is something that the child wants and the mom is allowing, or something that the mom is pressuring her son in to. Those two situations require completely different courses of action.
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In the OP, he says he asks and she allows. So it would seem that the mom is “allowing” due to the child’s need.
 
I do not understand why there would be any contact with CPS. They are not there for differences of parenting between divorced parents but for child abuse. As there is not law being broken and no evidence of child abuse, I do not see where they have a role.
 
pnewton said:
I do not understand why there would be any contact with CPS. They are not there for differences of parenting between divorced parents but for child abuse. As there is not law being broken and no evidence of child abuse, I do not see where they have a role.
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I have to agree. Make very, very sure there is actual abuse before involving CPS. Once they are involved the situation will be totally out of your control.
 
KellyPalmer said:
I applaud your wife for this! What a wonderful gift to give a child suffering from a broken home. I fail to see a problem with family members sleeping in the same bed. People have never slept alone. This is a purely cultural phenomenon in modern America.
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There are families in the world where everyone sleeps together on a mat.
 
I find the hysterics strange. I see nothing sexual about this. I will always be my parents’ child no matter how I grow… Why does closeness and affection have to be sexual? This seems like a sexualization of familial affection.
 
KellyPalmer said:
I applaud your wife for this! What a wonderful gift to give a child suffering from a broken home. I fail to see a problem with family members sleeping in the same bed. People have never slept alone. This is a purely cultural phenomenon in modern America.
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btw, I meant ex-wife.
 
InJesusItrust said:
I find the hysterics strange. I see nothing sexual about this. I will always be my parents’ child no matter how I grow… Why does closeness and affection have to be sexual? This seems like a sexualization of familial affection.
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I agree. Why does America oversexualize so many things that are perfectly reasonable?
 
severus68 said:
There are families in the world where everyone sleeps together on a mat.
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This is not about what skirt length is modest or whether beards should be trimmed or not. This primordial stuff! Secular society even gets this one! What, you think the story of Oedipus was made up by some up-tight Catholics?

Research around and get back to us when you find an actual society where the teen-aged boys sleep up against their mothers. If you can find even one, I’ll find a hundred where the teen boys wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping near the older women, at least not those who are under about 75 yo, let alone cuddled up with Mom. There are psycho-physiological reasons for that.
 
KellyPalmer said:
I agree. Why does America oversexualize so many things that are perfectly reasonable?
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Contemporary America, in its stubborn naivety, has also been known to normalize some things that are plainly inappropriate, not to mention some which are plainly disordered.

NAMBLA, anyone?
 
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