My (36M) son (17M) wants to know what happened to me in prison. I was an alcoholic father to him when I got out and he is demanding answers.

I spent ten years in prison from the time I was 22 to 32. I’ve been out for four years now.

I suffer from PTSD from my time in prison. I spent a lot of time in solitary and a lot of shit happened to me.

When I went inside, my son, James, was three years old. As he got older, his mom would only let him come see me once every two months, if it was even possible.

It was super painful watching him grow up on the other side of a glass window once every two months.

When I finally got out four years ago, I was left with a lot of unresolved trauma. I started drinking excessively. James was only 13 but he knew that there was something wrong with me.

I was cruel to him in my alcoholic state, I know this. I would berate him often and it wasn’t fair at all to him.

I’ve been sober for almost a year now. James and I have finally started to reconnect now that I’m out and sober.

His mom and I are long divorced but she has been supportive of James and I reconnecting.

I was speaking on the phone with James yesterday and I could tell that he was acting different. When I asked him what was going on he asked me how come I never talked about what happened to me in prison.

I told him that it’s not something I discuss with anybody and that I don’t want to put that on him.

Well he got kind of upset and said that I “owed” him an answer for why I treated him the way I did for three years.

I tried to explain to him that it has taken me a lot of work to get to where I am and that him and I are just now getting to a good place and I don’t wanna ruin it.

He told me I was still being selfish and hung up the phone on me.

I just want to protect him and not bring up everything in the past. I don’t know what kind of answers he was looking for, but I don’t think I can give him what he wants.

How do I move forward in this relationship with my son? I don’t know what he wants here and I’m honestly at a loss.

What do I do?

Tl;dr: I got out of prison with a lot of trauma. My almost adult son wants to know what happened to me but I don’t want to share with him.

Submitted March 24, 2020 at 06:23PM by gddjjoppo11 https://ift.tt/39jIApC