Sounds easy.

- you know your kid has a bad attitude
- you know you should be harder on your kid
- you know your fiance is miserable
- you know your fiance wants to discipline the kid.....probably because he sees you're not hard enough on the kid

He should be on your side, yes - but that does NOT include being treated like crap by a 15 year old's attitude, and that does NOT include accepting to see his future wife be treated the same. It means working with you towards the same goal. Sounds like his goal is to stop your son's attitude, and sounds like it's not yours.

If you know all these things, why are you continuing to allow your 15 year old child to have a bad attitude?

Your future husband is essentially telling you to get your parenting sh!t together or he won't marry you.... you're essentially saying you know you need to do better...

....so what's the hold up?

I'm stepdad to three boys, one of which is 15. I had the good fortune of being in his life from an early age.

My advice?

He wants to discipline and he is not established yet as parental figure. Best he can do is back you up. Your son is 15, not 5. It sounds as if he is jealous and acting immature, which begs the question is he ready to do what he will need to do as a parent / stepdad? Yelling and being physical with your 15 year old son will not help your son or a potential relationship with your fiancé.

Your primary concern are your children, this might not be the man you want as your children's stepdad. He may need to go to parenting classes and come to terms with what his role will need to be.

However... I do agree that as his mother you need to be more assertive in what is acceptable behavior from your son.

Flip this around. Would you be ok marrying this man knowing your going to be living with his child who doesn't respect you? How would you feel if he allowed his child's bad behavior just making the excuse that he's a kid and he gets it from his loser BM.

It's not an excuse. Your child is ruining your relationship and your partner has valid reasons for being displeased. If you want things to work out get your act together and parent your kid. This guy is amazing for realizing now he has a problem and not just going in thinking it will all get better.

Love isn't going to withstand everything and more than a few relationships are ruined by children. I wouldn't be with my partner if he allowed his kids to get away with having a "bad attitude". I'm not going to be disrespected in my own home then on top of it told I don't have the authority to discipline.

I would NEVER marry someone if the hatred was that great between my underage kid and a SO. And I darn sure would not marry someone that acts like he “hates” my kid. Especially since you stood by him in a bad time in HIS life and now he is giving you ultimatums and probation periods. No…just no.

Sounds like your son has a 15 year old attitude and your SO wants to be the one to control your kid by being the disciplinarian. (yelling in anger)

If you “really” want to save this relationship, I would sit your SO down and tell him that for the sake of your relationship you will live apart, and not marry, until your son is in college or in the military at 18. By then, your son will have matured and maybe your SO will have matured also.

But honestly, if I stuck with my SO during a bad time in his life and he bailed on me during a bad time in mine…I would not want to marry him.

But even then…I would think long and hard about marrying someone when I had a 15 year old with a bad attitude. Why add to an already stressful situation?

She can get her kid raised without interference and drama from her SO. Her SO can save himself a few years of drama by waiting until she gets her kid raised. Easy peasy.

I get wanting your SO to be on your side, I REALLY do. But the reality is, the kid is going to be around, he shouldn't have to put up with attitude and disrespect that you aren't working to change. All that would do is build up resentment from your SO and possibly cause future issues.

He knows the kid isn't going anywhere and is asking for your help to get things to where they should be. I can tell you flat out, things are miserable when Skids are coping attitude and being disrespectful, my husband fixes it whenever it shows and that makes it so much better!

If all you're doing is fussing, then throw some real consequences at him, we did that with the skids and the turn-around was good. Your SO needs your support in this topic. You can't expect him to have to deal with attitude forever just because you don't want to be harder on a teenager that probably needs the discipline.

Just food for thought.

I agree with what many others have said, you need to be more firm and discipline your child. I’m sure it’s frustrating for your SO to not only be disrespected, but to also see you being disrespected and doing nothing about it. Teenagers are moody anyways, but you can set some interventions in motion so your 15yo knows it’s not okay to disrespect your fiancé. You say your SO should be by your side always, but what a betrayal that you won’t discipline your son on your SOs behalf. Perhaps your son needs counseling from what he’s experienced from BF, but evenso, excusing his behavior on his BF is you just enabling him. He’s 3 years from being a legal adult, you can’t keep making excuses for him, you need to teach and guide him. Sometimes tough love brings good outcomes.

It must be disappointing to find out that your fiance is one of those fair-weather friends. You've been there for him through tough times in the past. He loves you and wants to marry you ... but threatens to cancel the wedding unless your son behaves the way he likes. He's willing to use your marriage and future happiness as a bartering point to try to control your teen. What a huge guilt trip to put on your son!!! So inappropriate for an adult to put the responsibility for whether or not the adults get married on a teen.

I don't know what your fiance's problem with your son is, but a bad attitude is pretty much par for the course with a 15 yo, especially with a new marriage on the horizon.

If the problem is you not being a strong parent, that's easy enough to improve. Lots of websites and library books to give you different points of views and strategies. You can think about what you want for your son and how you think you can best help support and guide him. It's work, mental and emotional, but you can do it. You already know better than just blowing your top and yelling in anger.

Stepparents don't have the same tolerance level for kid shenanigans that bio parents do. You have blinders on and tolerate a lot more from your son than your fiance ever will be able to handle, and you're going to go mama bear on anyone who "threatens" your kids, even your fiance. Your fiance is already starting out on his back foot and needs YOUR support to move forward.

If your kid has an attitude, nip it in the bud. Don't tolerate it. Punish your son when he gets mouthy and out of line. Yes, teenagers have attitudes, but that doesn't mean you let it run rampant. It may mean that you only ground him for the weekend, or only take his phone away for one night, but you certainly don't just say, "he's a teen, it's how they are, let it go."

It would be good to sit down with your fiance, outline specific behaviors that are punishable/have consequence, then jointly figure out what the consequence will be for said behavior. Then BACK UP YOUR FIANCE when that behavior happens, and deliver consequences every time you see the behavior. You have to be a united front with our fiance, and part of that is letting him have some say in the running of the household in regards to your kids.

Also keep in mind that your fiance DOESN'T have to love or like your kids. On the flip side, your kids don't have to like or love your fiance. So long as everyone is respectful, that is good enough.

Your fiance is telling you what he needs. Listen to him and come to a compromise. I'm not saying give in and let him be an authoritarian, but meet him halfway in regards to your son. Realize that you're going to be more tolerant and try to see how annoying it would be to have someone live in your home with a bad attitude that you can't reasonably do anything about. This is a pretty easy problem to fix if you're willing to bend a bit. If you don't want to bend, your fiance has told you exactly what will happen - he won't marry you.