Hi Beth, welcome
That is very sad and I send my sympathy as its a hurtful situation.
Briefly, so you can compare. After 14 years of tolerating abuse from my youngest daughter I had to cut her free. At 14yo she rang me (had her every 2nd w/end) to tell me "I dont want to see you anymore" I believe it was a result of demonising me from her mother as there was nothing untoward with her weekends with me. Besides it was a complete cut off not a "I just want to see you less as I'm bored etc". But every 2 years or so she'd message me on FBook and chat for 7-10 days, we'd talk about seeing each other, starting fresh etc. Then for no reasons she'd block me.
In 2020 she did it again and it lasted 10 days then- gone. She's never give me her phone number, address for birthday cards etc, always FBook as she had the power, to block me/unblock me. I have always battled mental health issues, bipolar etc so emotionally it was the last straw and then blocked her so when and if she wanted to connect she couldnt. That was 6 years ago. How have I been? well you tend to divert your attention towards good, loving less stressful people in your life. Some days are bad, lik when I recall the times I'd carry her on my shoulder, protect her from a snake or watch her sucking her thumb... or when she was 4yo sucking her thumb a few weeks after I left the family home and she said "we want to keep you". Heartbreaking.
So our kids grow up and are not the baby we once knew, we cant live our lives as if they still are, we only hope. But as adults they test the waters until our limits are reached. Guilt plays a big part in all this. He knows you'll feel guilty and sadly he also knows he has a lot of wrongdoing with his persistence. We parents have limits and you know what? Thats normal, you cant be expected to be stretched further than your loving elastic band will go! It's "unreasonable expectations" so you have to let him go and hope that one day he'll accept that he extended your loving heart beyond the realm of how much a parent can take.
Think of the extremes- had you continued (hypothetically) to the point whereby you said to him, "if I give you $10,000 this time and it meant selling my house and me renting, would you accept the money?" and "if I had to rent would you pay some of the rent as paying me back"? This is the test. You dont need to ask him, you can imagine if his sense of responsibility is high enough to say "yes". If not then how can you continue to help him financially?
We have a saying here about mental health- "like yourself and take care of YOU". That's because many here are empathetic people that help others while they need help themselves. To think of others before ourselves is an amazing quality but it has a downside in "will they think of you the same amount if you needed them"? Now its not a weighing scale of giving, its to place yourself in the line of thinking that can you sustain the level of giving to a reasonable level or will your kindness keep going until you end up worse off where your quality of life suffers?
In this case I assume he works or has such capacity. It is far more appropriate to say to him "I'm not a bank, thats what banks are for".
I knew a single mum that worked in Govt for 30 years, she retired with a very good self funded amount. 80% gone in 3 years to fund her sons gambling habits. She ended up with a low pension while he, an engineer had an income 4 times more than hers. The sad part- he didnt think for a moment about that, he didnt care so no repaying of any money. That's not theft, its not greed, it's inconsideration and that word means- the care is one way. Please read-
https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/staying-well/guilt-the-tormentor/td-p/321604
"Hard love come from a child's lack of boundaries of expectations rather than a parent saying "sorry, no" (TonyWK)
Reply anytime. I'm here daily
TonyWK
