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dcorie's picture

I am new to this blogging thing... I have for years struggled with one step child in particular. I am a good person, but he makes me feel like the worst person in the world, indirectly of course, it's my own inner conflict and how I should feel vs how I actually feel! I don't know how to explain it... But here goes nothing... My step son is currently 25 years old, I became is step mother when he was 10! He has always been a rude, disrespectful person, even as a child. He is so very selfish in nature. These dreadful characteristics still very much exsist except now he is an adult who lives in a camper on our land behind our house. He hasn't maintained steady work EVER. He doesn't financially contribute to our home and just takes and takes and takes, he has the most entitled attitude I have ever seen. I struggle emotionally on a regular because this is my husband's son, my daughter's brother, and his mother died almost ten years ago. I love him but I don't know how to love him, which is weird because I love his brothers and we all have a healthy relationship... The sight of him pisses me off, I can't stand to see my husband give him access to even basic ammentities because he doesn't do anything to earn them. His mother is gone, and we are it, he tells me just to give him time to come to terms with how he knows he must handle this situation, he knows it isn't right and he will handle it, but he has said this since the boy turned 18. He isn't a child anymore, and I strongly feel like he will never take responsibility for himself unless he is put in a position to have to. I have pleaded, fought, begged, and even spent days ignoring my husband behind this mess. We fight, we make a plan, my husband doesn't hold to that plan, my step son always manipulates the situation. I have pleaded and even ripped him a new one in regard to how is lifestyle and overall disregard for anyone but himself is unhealthy for me and his dad and how it effects his sister, our family as a whole and he laughs, makes fun of our family concerns, says things like "oh you wanna be in your feelings today" or " Are you done crying now" or "you feel better now that you go that off your chest" or something as equally inconsiderate and rude.He disrespects my family   I feel like a monster because I just want to put him out, and frankly I wouldn't care if he had to live under a bridge. We all make our choices! His days of free loading are over. But my husband has said next year for 7 years, and here we STILL are on the neverending emotionally exhausting merry go round. I'm tired of the light at the end of the tunnel getting further and further away when it should be getting closer.

Comments

CLove's picture

Enabling isnt love. Especially since your help and handouts are not appreciated and you are treated like dirt.

Sounds like from your post that you are working towards "righteous anger" in other words you need to be angry enough to say "Enough is truly Enough".

Evict the ungrateful cretin.

This is YOUR property too. This manchild is not being done any favors by you and your DH allowing him to freeload forever.

For his sake and his eventual happiness you must serve him eviction notice. Tough Love.

"Oh you wanna be in your feelings today?"

you - "oh you wanna read this eviction notice?"

"Are you done crying now?"

you - "yes, and Im crying you all the way outta here!"

"you feel better now that you go that off your chest?"

you - 'so much better now, and Ill feel better when you actually have a job, and can support yourself and your ugly attitude!"

You need to toughen up on this SS. What are your plans?

Siemprematahari's picture

Your H has to stop making excuses for him. I'm sorry that his mother passed away but if it's been really that hard for him to process after all these years than he needs to help himself and see a therapist. Your H can't keep using that as an accuse for not helping his grown ass son launch. I can see your SS now at 50 still living in a trailer behind your house and saying the same thing. Your H is not putting his foot in his ass and this will continue to be your life.

Changes have to be done and you need to make decisions and really consider if this is what you want.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

I have a pos brother in his SIXTIES who sounds a lot like your SS. He's always been a tense, warped soul - even in childhood photos he looks resentful and on edge. In his thirties, he moved back in with our mother after his third DUI, and never left. They lived a toxic, miserable existence until she died, and now he's living off my sister because I have boundaries.

Your H's son likely has mental health issues, and your H's enabling is making things worse. These situations can go on indefinitely without intervention. Parents get locked in a sick dance of dysfunction and enmeshment with their maladjusted adult kids, and don't know how to get out.

It sounds as if you're at the end of your rope, and I would be, too. SS should not be allowed in your house if he can't be respectful, and you should get your H to marriage counseling ASAP.  Having a neutral professional work with you may bring your H out of the FOG (fear, obligation, and guilt) and help him recognize that he's crippling rather than helping his son.

You should also start putting together an exit strategy, just in case your H resists changing the status quo. My mother was never brave enough to do it. Sometimes we have to accept that we can't save another human, and instead focus on saving ourselves.