This is kind of long, but I just really need to vent about some things and maybe get some advice from someone who has been in this kind of situation. I am in my second marriage. My first marriage lasted for 10 years but we never had children. Not a plan. It just didn't happen. Well, my second husband has a son. He is an only child. My husband's wife died of cancer when SS was 13. He is currently 17 (almost 18). At first, I was very sympathetic with my SS. He seemed to be a kind, good kid. He was 15 then. I had lost both of my parents (one to cancer) granted not as a child. But I felt that I could help him deal with his grief. I told him I was not trying to replace his mother. That I just wanted to be a friend someone that he could talk to whenever he needed to. We made sure that if he wanted to talk to his dad alone and I was there, it was ok to just say "I need to talk to dad alone." We really did everything we could to help him with whatever was going on in his life. Over the first year, he started making comments that were basically whatever I was doing, his mother could do better. But he would say it in a way that I couldn't really or didn't know how to respond because I didn't want to say anything bad about his mother. I was prepared for the "You are not my mother." or "I hate you." comments but these little constant jabs said with a smile really made me start to feel inferior which also affected my marriage. I know it is natural that a kid will put his dead mother up on a pedestal, but we try to get him to see that even if she were wonderful, nobody is perfect and he should remember who she really was and how she would really want him to remember her. Once he laughinly said how "My real mom was brave and my stepmom is a wimp" I was so hurt by this that I went to the bedroom and stayed there until I could regain my composure. (of course he said this while my husband was not home) when he came home SS said he felt bad about it and my husband took his side and said that I should have opened the door and accepted his apology. If I had opened that door then, I would have said something I probably would have regretted which is why I didn't. Butit made me so angry that my husband blamed me for that. And the only reason my SS apologized is because he didn't want to get in trouble with his dad. For the first two years we also were still living in her house which was very difficult. But for his sake we waited to move so that he could finish middle school and not take him away from everything. This kid is not normal. I hate to use that word, but that's the only way to say it. He is almost 18 doesn't want to learn to drive, doesn't want to date, pretends not to be interested in girls (then we find him up in the middle of the night looking at porn on the computer), leads us to believe that he doesn't have any friends at school, but when we go to teacher meetings, they say he is fairly popular and has friends. He always wants people to feel sorry for him. To the point of telling ridiculous lies. One of those lies ended up with Children's Services coming to our house. This is a 17 year old we are talking about not an 8 year old. I was furious, my husband who has started to realize that his son has some major issues was upset but that's all. Everyone else in SS life just kind of swept it under the rug. He lies about anything and everything. He is supposed to get special ed for math, but somehow he ended up getting special help for all of his classes (he is only a freshman). People just keep babying him. The teachers would give him extra days to do homework, which he still usually didn't bother to do. One of them took notes for him because "He seems to have trouble with it." Well, maybe he needs to learn. Isn't that what school is for? He behaves in a very robotic way. Never shows any real emotion. Never shows any remorse when he causes problems with his lies or not passing this past year. He just blows it off. We have taken him to therapists; they say he seems fine; not depressed. My mother was bipolar so I know what depression is and that's not what this kid has. His teachers all agree that he could do the work if he tried. At this point, I am like maybe high school just isn't for him. Maybe he needs to get a GED and try to go to a trade school. There is nothing wrong with that. But his maturity level is so low I don't know how he would even do that. My husband wants him to graduate high school and maybe join the military. That would be nice but I just don't see it happening. SS has put no thought into his future. He wants to stay a child forever. I get so aggravated when he asks his father what I call "baby questions" basically things anybody knows. His mother, from what I have gathered, was controlling and babied him. She got angry at his teachers when he was in the 2nd grade and just pulled him out of school. He was "home schooled" until they put back in school in the 4th grade. My husband feels guilty about letting her do that because he knows how much that set him back but feeling guilty about it isn't going to fix it. He is always around us. My husband has started to hold him more accountable for his actions which is good, but I am just so tired of him causing problems. He acts as though he is stupid which we know he is not. But that way no one 3expects anything from him. We have always offered to help him with anything. Teachers have offered tutoring and he lies and says that we would not pick him up and he would have no way of getting home. We tried to get him to join clubs at school to meet people, said we would drive him, pick him up, he won't do it. It's like he wants to be daddy's little boy and refuses to accept that he is about to be 18 years old and is really more like a 12 year old. I know a lot of you have problems with kids that are drinking, having sex, or getting arrested and that is awful. But this type of problem is bad too because everyone assumes that if a kid is not doing those things, then he's a good kid. My husband does not want to have any more children so I somewhat reluctantly agreed, but I don't want to take care of a grown man for the rest of my life! I feel so suffocated when he is around. He is very passive aggressive and you never really know what he will do next. And I really do not like being lied to like he thinks we are complete idiots. He is the main thing that my husband and I fight about. Thanks for letting me vent.