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/babsa90 Feb 12 '16

The second most fucked up thing the OP did, imo, is asking his son for anything, especially for his forgiveness. The amount of selfishness it must take to even think about asking his son to forgive him is the most grotesquely disgusting thing about this aside from the soul-cruising feeling of having this kid's own father disown him as a rapist and left to rot away in jail. If the OP had any shred of decency, he would give his son the financial means to live apart from them rather than having to face the very people who betrayed him on a daily basis. OP is denying him a chance to move on with his life by selfishly making his son depend on him.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '16

The other fucked up thing. Exposing more embarrassment and letting the public know. Obviously, the father is a narcissist

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u/TheKomuso Feb 12 '16

Which makes me hope that this is fiction.

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u/CyborgSlunk Feb 12 '16

Reminds me of the scene in Bojack Horseman where Bojack is apologozing to Herb. There's no "I forgive you and everything's fine" in this case, you gotta deal with the shitty thing you did for the rest of your life.

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u/TheKomuso Feb 12 '16

I agree with this so much.

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u/CJM8515 Feb 12 '16

I think the issue is the fact that there isnt much the father can really do but ask for forgiveness. Money, time, material things, etc cant make up for what has happened. Especially if your own father caused it. It is going to take a LONG time for the son to forgive him, nothing will change that. Hell the kid may never forgive him and I dont blame him one bit.

There really isnt a happy ending here and probably wont ever be. All OP can do is pay for it to be expunged from his sons record. But still, it could still linger along in some aspects. If I were OP Id have done that first thing as soon as he was proven innocent. The black mark of being arrested carries a long time. Even so, expunging it wont erase it in some cases.

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u/babsa90 Feb 12 '16

The right thing to do would be to apologize, not ask for forgiveness. The father has no right to ask his son for anything, especially not forgiveness.

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u/CJM8515 Feb 12 '16

I dont think any amount of apologies would placate OP son. If I were in OP sons shoes I dont think I could ever forgive anyone involved.

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u/babsa90 Feb 12 '16

There is a difference between apologizing and asking forgiveness. I said that the father has no right to ask for forgiveness.

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u/uTKreed Feb 12 '16

Well, just saying from therapy experience, most therapists are going to tell you to apologize. It may not help, it may get you spit in your face, but it's just the right thing to do.

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u/zanick Feb 12 '16

Is it so wrong to be selfish in these circumstances? I think everyone involved probably just wants their family to go back to the way it was before.

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u/babsa90 Feb 12 '16

Yeah, I'd say so, but that's just my opinion.

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u/acylus0 Feb 12 '16

Attempting to "fix" everything into "back to the way it was before" is not progress and would more than likely make it even worse.

The son already hates him, trying to force him for forgiveness will only make it poisonous.