My husband died in an accident 2 years ago. My 33 year old son and girlfriend moved back to the area 5 months later. At first it was wonderful but slowly we could no longer communicate or even be together without anger and defensiveness. It WAS horrible. I can honestly say that as dark as my grief had gone losing my beloved husband, this took me lower than i imagined possible. Therapist explained that this is very common due to family "dynamics" once an integral piece of the family is removed. But that didnt make it easier. My daughter, 36 and living 2 hours away, begged him to go to counseling with me but he refused so i spent many a session with my grief therapist talking about my son. It is slowly getting more civil but the bitterness and pain of all the awful things WE said to each other is hard to forget. i am trying to lower my expectations for our relationship and yes, I moved to the town next door so we were not so "entangled". I really feel for you---I can only imagine if it had been my daughter that had died and then how i might feel. May i ask, do you have the support of their father? So often I just wailed to my dead husband because i had no one to help me through it. SO complex and awful. You do your best to get through the grief that brought you there and then THIS on top of it??? I am SO SORRY. Please try to find some counseling and see if he will go too. My therapist helped me to respond vs react to so much of the ugliness that my son and his GF threw at me. Also just having someone non judgemental to listen to my story helped immensely. One note, something my therapist helped me to see and to remember was that raising our son was always difficult--beginning at 13. His older sister was always easy. I guess it just helped having that pointed out somehow.

@jazzme, it sounds like both you and your younger son I hurting. I sending a gentle embrace to hold your hurt, if only for a minute. Was your relationship closer before the tragic loss of your oldest son?