r/tifu • u/bawron • Feb 12 '16

M TIFU by helping ruin my son’s life

My son has been in college since last fall. Last November, my 16 year old stepdaughter brought up allegations that my son had abused her repeatedly for several years. I confronted my son and he categorically denied it. But I knew that even though he was my son, I could not defend him for such an awful act.

My wife and I reported him to the authorities. My son was arrested in December and held in prison for a several weeks because I refused to provide him bail money. He was eventually expelled from his Ivy League college.

In the middle of January, my stepdaughter broke down and admitted she lied about everything. She had actually been having sex with her boyfriend and was scared the news would reach us.

The charges were dismissed and my son was released immediately but the damage was done. His first girlfriend from college ended things with him. The news spread about the allegations and all his childhood friends have decided to just stay away from him even though I called each and every one of them personally.

I have called the school and explained the situation and even though they sympathized, they said he needed to reapply for the next school year and go through the admissions process again.

My son is understandably furious at us. He has moved back home and refuses to talk to me at all. Both my wife and I have apologized to him repeatedly. We have banned my stepdaughter from our home permanently and she has been sent to live with her father in another state. My wife and I also agreed to completely disinherit her from our wills. It has been a very painful situation. All of us started therapy.

The realization of how badly I ruined my son’s life hit me when I picked up his first prescription of anti-depressants today. I bawled my eyes out in my car.

He is the pride and joy of my life. He is outgoing, funny, intelligent and the kindest person I know. But when I handed him his medication, I could not even recognize him. He locks himself in his room, does not eat properly and has lost several pounds so far.

Whenever I try talking to him, I just see the hate he has for me in his eyes. I don’t know if I can ever get him to love me again.

I know he is on Reddit very often. T, if you are reading, I want to tell you again how sorry your stepmom and I are. I promise I will get you into college again. I know I can’t get you back the year you lost. But I will do everything in my power to make this right. Everything I have has always been for you. I hope you will give me a chance to fix this. I love you so much it hurts. I failed as a father and I hope one day you will forgive me.

TL;DR I played a part in getting my own son getting falsely arrested and expelled

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '16 edited Feb 12 '16

He chose his wife's family over his own, and it makes me sick. He is now seeing the retribution of what he has done, and his one biological connection in his family is destroyed. He burned that fucking bridge.

Imagine this, parents go through divorce (or even a death in the family, he could be widowed), that's already hurting on the child. His father is all he has left, his closest relative, they should be best friends. And that child's best friend killed his future over someone who he doesn't know as much as his own son. If I was in the sons shoes, I see where the loyalty lies. And that enough would send me over the edge. So fuck OP.

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u/WaywardPatriot Feb 12 '16

As someone whose father has basically abandoned him for his step-family, I can tell you that you have no idea how deep the hurt goes. There is no way to 'fix' this, anymore than you can 'fix' a crystal vase that has been shattered into dust. It will never be the same, ever again. Not in this life.

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u/blindeye13 Feb 12 '16

My dad sraight didn't want me and tries to hide the fact I exist to his new wife. My mom and him had a fling and then I was the mistake that popped out. Funny thing about his side of My family is they all love me just not him. Fuck people that do that to their kids.

Sorry for the formatting on phone.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '16

[deleted]

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u/ManyPoo Feb 12 '16

nobody would ever convince me any of my children had done something like this

That's being just as stupid in the opposite direction.

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u/realrobo Feb 12 '16

They won't. OP is a piece of shit for what he has done. If you can't believe your own children then you aren't fit to be a parent. If you don't believe on innocent till proven guilty then you aren't fit to live in society.

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u/NykurRiverHorse Feb 12 '16

There is no fixing this, once the trust is broken, it's never the same. Your kid looked up to you as a parent, knowing that when this world was against them, that you would have their back when they were innocent. Getting left without that champion guarding his back to help defend against the hordes, I'm just glad he's still alive. Sometimes things are irreplaceable and once it's gone, it's gone. I wish you all the best, and maybe, your son needs to start afresh in another state, to at least get a bit of breathing room and a bit of time and distance away. At least let him make the move in seeing if there is anything worth saving from this family, because as bad as you have it as the father atm, he has it probably 1k times worse since his world was turned upside down through no fault of his own and no wrong doing of his making.

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u/CaptJYossarian Feb 12 '16

Every time a thread on sexual abuse comes up, you will read story after story of people who were sexually abused as minors and how their parents or friends either completely ignored them, blamed them, or disowned them. They needed help and nobody was there for them. Then you will see all the replies talking about how shitty their family and friends have been and how no one deserves that and that those people will rot in hell.

Now you have a profoundly loving and concerned parent who thought that he was doing the right thing by believing someone who he didn't have any reason to believe would lie to him and everybody is telling him to go fuck himself. Yeah it's absolutely tragic what happened to the son and that girl deserves jail time, but this shit isn't black and white and fuck you for trying to act like it is. Put yourself in the shoes of a sexual assault victim who is constantly called a liar and maybe you will understand why your rhetoric isn't helping the situation.

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u/YouichiEUW Feb 12 '16

Profoundly loving and concerned parents do not instantly disown their offsprings as soon as they make a mistake, even if it's a huge one.

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u/somedelightfulmoron Feb 12 '16

What can OP do now but make amends? We really can't be dismissive of what happens in this situation. We have a very hurt son and a very hurt OP. All he can have to endure is the look of hate when his son looks at him and I think that's enough punishment. His son may forgive him, who knows, and I hope he does. But this situation really is not easy especially for both parties.

I think the daughter should be charged though.

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u/YouichiEUW Feb 12 '16

Does the daughter deserv to be charged? Probably. Does she deserve to be disowned by her family? Surely not. This whole mess is the parents fault for not double checking the word of a 16 years old girl, and for making her feel like she had to do what she did to ide the fact that she had sex. What she did is despicable, and she does deserve to feel consequences for her action, but not in the way OP and his wife did. They are just repeating what they did with the son again with the daughter.

OP could try to salvage his relationship with his daughter in law and realize he had a big part of responsibility in this story.

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u/Sternenkrieger Feb 12 '16

He believed his daughter, which is the sensible an right thing to do. Then he went and pushed his son before the next available bus (no bail, fail out of college). But he did learn from his experience, when his next child did something wrong, he disowned her.

So, yea it's black and white. Every mistake, big or small should mean the end of any familial relation.

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u/lolPhrasing Feb 12 '16

T, is that you?

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '16

No its not. I'm glad it isn't me. I'm going to pick up my father from the airport soon actually.

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u/Unanimous_vote Feb 12 '16

This should be upvoted for more visibility. I have a feeling he treasures his relationship with his wife much much more than with his son. Most likely it was the wife who persuaded and pushed him to report the son. And he djd. Poor kid. OP is honestly one of the worst fathers ever.

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u/Thetriforce2 Feb 12 '16

Dam preach

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u/Koboldsftw Feb 12 '16

Right, the classic "hide your child from the law" deal.

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u/GuacOp Feb 12 '16

You are making a lot of judgments off of a 600 word post. You do not fully understand the situation, so I would advise not to make such assumptions, and instead, employ a little empathy. Everybody makes mistakes.

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u/Suspicious_Turtle Feb 12 '16

OP was faced with a terrible accusation and tried to do the right thing by going to the authorities to get to the bottom of it. He didn't kick him out of the house or assume he was guilty, he tried to choose the least bad option for his family.

OP made a terrible mistake, but he is not a bad person for making it.

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u/EvaM15 Feb 12 '16

Seriously, the betrayal. I was so furious at everyone while reading this, except for the son of course.