I want to open this up by saying I really don’t know what to do and how to approach this, it’s such a ridiculous and strange situation that I never expected to find myself in and I’m both opening up and looking for advice.
My son is 18 years old and in college, we live in a culture where it’s normal for the child to stay at the family home even at adulthood. For context, I let him borrow my phone sometimes, whenever he’s out of battery, he makes the excuse to send messages on my phone while he waits for his phone to charge, now I really don’t know.
Yesterday my son was out with friends, it was late at night, I was browsing through my messages and I saw that he sent himself pictures from my phone of his mom in bikinis, these were pictures I took during family trips or similar, he must have accidentally archived the messages instead of deleting them completely. I was already ready to sleep and was at home so I couldn’t confront him personally but I messaged him about this and he admitted immediately that he had a sexual attraction to his mother and was apparently sending her pictures around. I don’t know how long this has been going on, but I was so angry at that hour that I threatened that if I saw this type of behavior again I would send him to a mental health institute and disown him. I’m still angry and it takes a lot out of me not to just get physical with this level of disrespect and degeneracy. I don’t know how to deal with this, I have not told my wife, and I don’t intend to, at least for now I want this issue to just be between us I want to have a conversation a with him one on one, But I don’t know where to start. I’m at work right now and he will be home once I get home, once his mother goes to sleep I will have a conversation with him, but I don’t even know how to address this, this is so far from what I thought a parent has to deal with, why would he treat his own mother like a sex object? Outside of this he’s a normal kid, he does alright at school, he has a social life, he has normal home life. I don’t know where things went wrong.
Comments
Sexual attraction isn’t his choice, but sending pictures is. Scold him on the sending pictures part, but you can’t really do anything about the attraction other than to teach him about boundaries. It sucks that you know about this, but you cannot really change his attraction. Most likely he will grow out of it as he gets more in contact with girls his age.
It sounds like he needs alot of therapy for a start, then you need to discuss things with your wife, then let her have therapy, then get professional help for yourself & finally engage in family counselling. I’m not trying to be sarcastic or rude but this is the order I would do things in. While it was extreme I think you did good thing by setting very clear & strong boundaries with him with clear consequences for his actions.
He needs therapy ASAP. And him sending around pictures without consent is actually a crime. Let him know how severe this is and that he has to get help.
He needs therapy no way around that, he also needs to not be around your wife/his mother, she also deserves to know her own son has sent her photos around for sexually based reasons, women deserve to know who they’re unsafe around, especially someone they live with and interact with on a regular basis
u/bot-sleuth-bot
I think the first step to address is that sending pictures of people without their consent is an absolute no-go, much less so if they are private or revealing pictures.
This is behavior he can control regardless of attraction, and it shows a base level of consideration and respect for the autonomy and rights of others, especially his mother.
Beyond that, I think there’s something you can build on here, but I think just beating down on him and threatening him isn’t the way to go about it and will only lead to there being an increased distance between the two of you as well as him trying to hide stuff in the future. It’s gonna make things more difficult.
I think that him owning up to it immediately may indicate a certain trust/bond/openness/willingness to communicate towards you, and that’s really what’s gonna be the most valuable foundation in working out this issue.
Even if you are boiling inside, if you want to scream and shout and cuss and threaten, try to not do that.
Try to sit him down, talk with him about why sending these pictures is not okay initially, and see if you can get him to explain/open up more.
He’s likely gonna be more receptive to the message, and then you’ll be able to move on to why this behavior and sexualisation of his mother is inappropriate.
If he opens up, that may also reveal what options there are.
If, for example, he says that he’s been watching a lot of porn, particularly one where pseudo-incestuous sexual relations are portrayed, and that eventually he started seeing his mother that way, then you can talk about how porn can warp the perception and how the portrayals are unrealistic and often inappropriate, and how excessive consumption of pornography can be detrimental for sexual health.
If, for example, he says that he cannot help but feel that way, and that he hates that he feels that way, if he knows it’s wrong but if he can’t do anything about it, then you can either offer mental support in terms of psychotherapy, where he may be able to work through this/to manage it, and/or you talk about how while we don’t always have control over our feelings, we have control over our actions, and how it’s important to control our actions and not act on every urge we may feel.
He may not be able to control feeling physically or sexually attracted to his mom or the image of his mom at this point, but he can work on not acting on and cultivating/deepening those feelings.
Despite how he feels, he can refrain from saving revealing pictures of her to look at. He can refrain using her as a source of arousal for any potential sexual acts.
I don’t know your exact cultural background, so perhaps some stuff can be done better, but I think something amongst these lines is the proper approach.
All of your feelings are valid! What he’s done is a crime and could put his mom in danger. You can start by not allowing him to use your phone. If he’s deleting the evidence- What else has he done?
18 is an adult. Your wife deserves to know the truth. Keeping this from her is super Fd up.
It’s a complete violation of her privacy and can be considered revenge orn. How long has he been using her photos for his gratification? Did he say? I believe
there’s an actual clinical term for what’s going on here. I hope it isn’t mutual and you’re just now catching on to it. But it could be. So prepare yourself. Try and control yourself, maybe even ask a friend or someone to trust to be your witness. Or record your conversation if legal in your state. You never know if it could go sideways and you end up looking the bad guy when you’re not. I think bringing your wife up to date would help. She should know. Who is he sending them to? Like are her photos ending up here on Reddit😱🫢🙈
I would be mortified and outraged!