For those of you who feel discouraged, and I can say there is some hope. SOME...
I met my SO 2 years ago; his son was ten. On Sunday nights his room would be filled with pudding cups and spoons, empty candy wrappers etc., ALL hidden between the mattresses, under the bed. Etc. Cups everywhere with drinks still in them. Xbox and tv still on. I was disgusted.
After two years of being "the bitch who hates my kid", some things have changed. We still fight. However, there are no more secret treasures waiting in his room when he leaves. This is in part bc he now sleeps in the living room (no curfew by the way;love that). I can atleast say now that he promptly puts his dishes and trash where they belong, and laundry goes straight in the washer (when he is told to shower; I am not touching that s**t).
Things will never be the exact way we want them; we want to smack these people to wake them up. I get a good feeling he will end up as a delinquent; he is 12 now. Any of you who have been there, did you feel they would become delinquents and you ended up right? Just wondering if I should start locking up my stuff now...SO says that when he gets in fights and gets kicked out of school that this is normal; normal kids do this all the time...hmm...