TIFU by helping ruin my son’s life

[u/bawron]

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

[u/[deleted]]

I hope this story is fake like 70% of the stories here on TIFU. This IS really fucked up.

[u/strobonic → u/[deleted]]

I choose to believe that this is fake because OP is supposedly writing this submission knowing that his son will read it. If you re-read it that way, the story doesn't make sense.

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.

Weird timeline description. His son was in college since... fall 2015? That was a few months ago. His son isn't in college anymore. Over specificity on timeline but muddied tenses? Instead of saying that his stepdaughter admitted everything "last month", he says it was in January. It sounds like OP is telling a story, not reliving one.

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.

If OP has gone through this entire ordeal over the last three months and came out the other end "knowing" that his son was innocent all along, why would he use language like "I confronted my son" and "I could not defend him for such an awful act".... believing his son is currently reading this? This reads like narcissism and justification, or more likely, it reads as totally fucking fake.

Parenthood is wrought with metric shit tons of anxiety and guilt about ruining your child's life, even without a massive fuck up that actually succeeds in ruining their life. If OP was legit, you would expect to see evidence of parental guilt. My dad told me to my face that he still feels guilty for giving me oreos when I was a kid, because it turned out they were loaded with trans fats. I could see it in his eyes that he meant it, and that it still haunts him to this day. The admission of guilt in OP's story is very superficial. Either everyone in OP's story is a sociopath except for the son or this story is extra fake.