AITA for telling my husband to stop asking our son for money, even though he regrets how we treated him in the past?

A Reddit user is grappling with the fallout of their past parenting decisions, which have strained their relationship with their now-24-year-old son. After punishing him by skipping his 16th and 17th birthdays in an attempt to teach him a lesson for bullying, the son grew distant, ultimately cutting off communication with his parents.

When they recently reached out for financial help during a medical emergency, he refused, leaving the father heartbroken and regretful. The user advised her husband to stop asking their son for money, fearing that repeated requests would only deepen the rift.

Now, they face a dilemma: Is it better to continue reaching out or to give their son space? Read the original story below to explore the complex dynamics of family relationships and regret.

‘ AITA for telling my husband to stop asking our son for money, even though he regrets how we treated him in the past?’

Our son (24M) has always had a complicated relationship with us, but he’s very close to his aunts, my husband’s younger sisters. When he was a teenager, he got into serious trouble for b**lying another kid at school.

My husband and I didn’t know how to handle it, so we decided to punish him by not getting him anything for his 16th and 17th birthdays. We thought we were teaching him a lesson, but looking back, we realize it only drove him further away.

After that, our son became more distant, and I still remember when he coldly told us we would regret how we treated him. We didn’t take him seriously at the time, but now it’s clear that his words weren’t just a teenage outburst.

Now, at 24, our son is financially successful but has cut us off entirely. When my husband had a medical emergency recently, we were struggling with the bills and reached out to him for help. He flatly refused, telling us to “f**k off.” This crushed my husband, who deeply regrets the way we handled things back then and wishes he could go back and make it right.

Our son has a peculiar tendency to spoil all the women he considers family. He made amends with the girl he bullied in high school, and they’re now good friends. He also lavishes attention and financial support on my husband’s younger sisters—his aunts.

They told us that he said he doesn’t care who they help, even if it’s us, but despite this, they’re still hesitant to get involved. They’ve only helped us out a couple of times and are clearly reluctant to do more, likely because they don’t want to jeopardize their close relationship with him.

My husband is heartbroken. He’s trying to reconnect with our son, but every time he reaches out for help or to mend things, he’s met with anger or silence. I finally told my husband to stop asking our son for money. I feel like every time we ask, we push him further away, and I’m terrified that we’ll never have a chance to repair our relationship if we keep this up.

My husband is upset with me now, feeling like I’m giving up on our son. He’s filled with regret and sadness over how things have turned out, but I just don’t know what else to do. AITA.

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

WanderingGnostic −  N T A for telling your husband to stop, but overall YTA for leaving out the real reasons as to why he’s gone NC. Birthday presents for two years just don’t add up. The math don’t work here. Y’all did more and you don’t want to admit it, acknowledge it, or take responsibility for whatever it was.

On top of that neither of you reached out to apologize and take responsibility, instead you asked for money. WTF? No, that’s not how it works. You don’t ask someone who cut contact with you for money. So yeah, you’re not wrong for stopping the husband’s bs, but both of you are assholes for not being accountable for what you really did to your son.

coastalkid92 −  You’re not the AH for telling your husband to stop asking your kid, who has deliberately cut you off, for money. You were both AHs for asking at all.

If you want to repair the relationship, then you have to realize that reconciliation is never going to be on *your* terms, it’s on your son’s terms. And it also sounds like you’ve not yet extended a real and genuine olive branch for him to feel like you two have changed.

SupermarketNeat4033 −  YTA. Not for telling your husband to stop asking your son for money, but because this entire post is about you getting money to the point you’re even whining a little bit that the family members he does help out financially aren’t giving you more money.

You don’t regret whatever it is you did to you son to make him hate you this much, you regret that you don’t have access to his cash. Also, you guys “always” had a “complicated” relationship with your son.

But you attribute all your problems with him to the point he cut you both out of his life to not getting him anything for his birthday for 2 years. Whatever he was referring to about how you guys treated him was not about a lack of birthday presents.

OrangeCubit −  YTA – it doesnt sound like either of you actually have tried to make amends to your son. Where is the heartfelt apologies? Where is the acknowledgement of how you failed him? This just sounds like you and your husband feel e**itled to your son’s money and are sad about missing out on that.

Chilling_Storm −  Is your husband looking to mend fences or get money? It seems the two are co-mingled here. You and your husband have had 7 years to make amends about the way things went down. When did the trying to make amends begin? How?

Your son is an adult and he gets to decide who he uses his “peculiar tendency” on. He chooses to lavish money on those that he wants to. Why would your husband think he could get money from someone he hasn’t had a good relationship with? YTA for expecting son to donate money to people he isn’t in a good relationship with.

feminist1946 −  YTA. You put this all off in your husband but you admit “we” decided how to deal with his b**lying. So where did he learn about how to be a b**ly? From your emotionally unavailable husband? I never forgave my parents. Apparently all but one of my siblings felt the same way. Figure out where you went wrong with your son and make an effort to deal with that.

Jyqm −  I finally told my husband to stop asking our son for money. I feel like every time we ask, we push him further away, and I’m terrified that we’ll never have a chance to repair our relationship if we keep this up. Uh… yeah. This is so obviously true, I genuinely don’t understand what your husband doesn’t get about it.

AITA for telling my husband to stop asking our son for money, even though he regrets how we treated him in the past? What is “even though” supposed to be doing in this sentence? Does your husband think that asking your son for money is somehow an expression of regret?. NTA, but I am sincerely confused.

petergriffintha1st −  Ok so first! There is absolutely no excuse for b**lying and it should be met with strict consequences and a honest discussion of the infraction and the consequences and why!

However not buying your son birthday gifts for 2 year was what you two saw as appropriate🤔? That being said , it seems that the animosity and anger he holds for you both stems from a lot more than a couple of missed birthdays.

It sounds like Your jealous of the fact that he still has a relationship with those family members who didn’t abandon him and your particularly resentful of the gifts he showers them with.

2nd. How do you ever expect to “reconnect” with your son if you haven made the effort to do so before you needed something out of him? It seems from your post to us and I’m sure to him that all u really want is access to his checkbook. If u want to fix anything get up and go to him and tell him and for goodness sakes forget asking him for money !

RealMcCoy0816 −  INFO – I think we need more clarification on several issues: How was your relationship with your son “complicated”, other than he was a b**ly and you didn’t know how to handle him?

Was the reason you didn’t get him anything for both his 16th and 17th birthdays because the b**lying persisted until around his 17th birthday, or did you decide that only one birthday wasn’t enough, even if his behavior changed? How serious was the trouble he got into for b**lying? Does your husband only reach out to your son when he needs money?

bizcat −  I enjoyed this post almost as much as I would if my own parents had written it. YTA.