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Feel like nothing will work out

Feeling hopeless's picture

I'm really concerned about my 16 years old son, Gus. It seems like ever since we and my 10 years old daughter moved in with my husband and his four children, my son totally changed.
Gus have always been an introvert and somewhat odd around new person for most part. I guess loner would be the words to describe him. But I couldn’t believe how bad things have been.

When we first move in, since my husband’s house have five bedrooms and there was 8 of us. My daughter who is 10 and step daughter who is 12 got along great and were fine with sharing the room.
Gus barely talks to any of stepchildren. So we tried to have him share the room with second oldest step son who is 15 since the oldest are twin and have their own room. On the very first night we moved in, Gus walk into the room and told him he isn’t going to share the room and to stay out of his way then he went into the garage and sleep in there.
A couple weeks later, Gus moved into the shed in the back yard and made it into his room. He seems much happier in there, but that still show where he stand when it come to the family.
Gus however does get along with my husband okay. If none of the kids are around, he’d talk with my husband. Also my husband always go to Gus if he need help with anything because Gus have talent when it comes to fixing things and never complain or give a hard time if asked for help. He always get up and help right away.

Other issue is Gus is a very responsible person. Ever since he starts to work at a scuba shop that his grandparent own, he haven’t asked for a penny. They also trust him to work there by himself if necessary. In fact he is so responsible that when his grandmother suffered from strokes back in September that made it impossible for her to make the trip to beach house, it was Gus who stepped up and took up the responsibility.
Gus has been gone pretty much almost every weekend. He’d get off work at 830 pm on Friday then go straight to the beach house and stay there until Sunday evening then come back home. There has been absolutely no incident at all.

So other kids are really jealous of him and, as much as I hate to say this, but they all are no where nearly as mature or responsible as Gus. My husband even openly told his twins this once. Also they bug me about it all of the time and I told them they’d have to talk to Gus's grandparent about it but none of them ever did.

Other thing that come up is, Gus have this two females friends who are 18 and 20 back in the summer. Since it is very rare for Gus to have a friend, I thought they’d disappear in a couple weeks. To my surprise they didn’t. They’re still friend to this day.
The boys are not happy about this, especially since my husband wouldn’t allow them to be around girls over 18 like that. They have been doing everything they could to try get us to stop letting Gus being around those girls. This has created some rift between my husband and I as well.

I don’t know what to do at this point. My husband and I are getting really worried about the whole situation. All kids aren’t happy about anything while Gus is really distant and avoiding the family.

Feeling hopeless's picture

I know he will not be happy at all if I try besides that he'll probably not talk anyway. He's good at that.

Still Standing Strong n Spfld's picture

I have an ss14 he too was tough to counsel. we have yet to get his phyc. recs but the intake worker told me he was defiant to cooperate and that was 1yr of appointments wished I had known then,would have saved me a lot on gas! What about the other kids w/ther issues regarding your Gus? maybe while he is at work you can hold a "family concerns meeting" to sorta get to the center of the issue? I know it may sound corny, but hey-worth the try? cheaper than counseling,more personal, and ya'll may learn more about one another while learning free speech,how to except others' opinions,ridicule,and maybe more on themselves. Good luck

Feeling hopeless's picture

Well… Gus pretty much modeled himself after his great grandpa and grandpa. So he’s very independent and very hard headed as well. He’d just find a way around almost anything just like as not sharing room example.

The issue with family is, my husband really wants my son to become one of the family and the kids are jealous of him and doesn’t get along with him too well.
Gus is a very experienced diver and surfer, so almost every weekend he would spend whole time at his grandma’s beach house alone or with the girls. The kids really want to be able to spend the weekend at the beach house and learn about diving. Gus on other hand doesn’t want to teach them or even have them around. Then the fact he took those two girls to the beach house often make the kids even madder.

Since Gus’ great grandfather was a long time combat diver starting in WW2 and beyond, he wasn’t easy on Gus when teaching him to dive. Some would even say it was abusive as his great grandfather would do things like smack his mask off, undo the weight belt, turn air cylinder off right in middle of the dive just to teach Gus how to deal with extreme situation to make sure Gus can handle any situation.
I am not sure if Gus learns anything about underwater combat. So no way I’m going to make Gus take the kids with no experience diving with him! Especially when they have got in a couple bad fight in the past. I don’t even want to think about what Gus might to them do if they’re deep in the water and I am not about to tell any of them that!

Other things the kids are jealous of is, Gus have a nice old jeep while only one of the twin used to have an car but his license got took away a while ago because we caught him driving drunk. Before that, he would always be happy to give anyone a ride while Gus never will let anyone in his jeep. This doesn’t help the case at all.
Gus also got pay way better than other kids at his job. He makes $9 an hour and gets some gas money every weekend to go to the beach house to make sure everything is ok. The kids are jealous about this as well.
When it comes to girls, the boys are mad that Gus gets to spend weekends lone with two older girls. My husband absolutely forbids the boys including Gus from having a girl here overnight. He also doesn’t allow the oldest boys to date girls over 18. So the boys are mad about this.
The kids also don’t understand why Gus is so distant toward them and think he’s just doing it to be rude.

That’s some of the biggest issues going on.