Reply to Please help me not hate my adult stepson

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Please help me not hate my adult stepson"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband is a dedicated, committed, caring father.  I love that about him.  We started dating when his son was in high school and I loved how much time my DH spent on homework with him and making the effort to see him every single day, if only for 20 minutes but usually for dinner, every single day even when he was with his mom.  [b]We're married now and have a new baby while my SD is 21.  
[/b]
T[b]he catch is that my DH is a total pushover for his son, who manipulates and guilts him into giving him money constantly.[/b]  Even though it was DH's ex who wanted a divorce when DSS was 22, DH has always felt miserable and guilty about having only part time custody during those years, and he and his ex had a v amicable divorce on the surface but engaged in a dangerous cold war arms race for DS's affections during the teen years.  Dad gets an iPod tmTouch, Mom gets an iPad, that kind of thing.  DSS never says thank you for anything.  We are not at all wealthy (in fact, I married my DH's lingering credit card debts from  1st marriage which we're aggressively trying to pay down) but we bought him a brand new MacBook Pro for HS graduation and got no thanks.  [b]We paid tuition, room & board for 1 semester at college, which he blew off completely by partying & failed every class.  We paid for a vocational program which he blew off.  Now we're paying for as other trade program which could be great, but I worry he'll blow off too. [/b] He's living with his mom and makes about $3 grand a month under the table bartending,[b] but he still asks to borrow money regularly and never even attempts to pay back the last time.  [/b]

Our baby, his baby brother, was born earlier this year.  I knew it would be a hard adjustment for him, because he's used to being the center of attention.  But it's been even worse than I imagined.  The baby had to have heart surgery a day after delivery and spent a month in the NICU.  During that time, he stopped by the hospital only once, to borrow money.  He asked to move in for a month while his mon was between apartments, and we said yes, with the requirement that he pay is $300 rent and take care of all the yard work that month, since we were so busy with the baby.  He mowed half of the lawn once, broke the mower by running it with no oil, and said he couldn't help take the mower to the repair shop because it might dirty the SUV his mom gave him, so my DH spent the day after we got horn from the nICU wrestling a mower into out car and taking it in.  No other attempt to help in the yard was ever made.  He held his little brother a few times...basically when I asked him in front of other's and he was too embarrassed to say no, but otherwise he's shown no interest and of course hadn't helped at all.

Strangely enough, he and I are unfailingly polite to each other.  When he was in HS, I tried hard to reach out and love him in small ways, mostly listening as he'd talk about relationship problems, but we barely speak now.  [b]I made the mistake of looking at his FB wall one day when he failed to log off my laptop after using it, and I found pics from our wedding which he captioned "Fat Whore", "Dad's Tubby Hubby", etc.  It really hurt [/b]- I'm indisputably fat, but I had never been anything but kind to him.  He's happy to borrow my car or crash in my house, but gleefully disses me behind my back.  Which, fine, whatever, I can be the evil stepmom in his eyes, but it's the disrespect toward his dad that hurts because his dad loves him so much.

3 months ago, he got his second reckless driving ticket in a year.  The week before his court date, he asked us to borrow $$$ for a lawyer.  Mind you, we don't have a lot of money.  Like, a few grand in emergency savings, period.  We budget every month and every dollar has a job.  So finding $2900 on short notice was really hard.  The agreement was he'd come by 1x/wk to give us $250/week.  It's about 1/3 of his income but he has no expenses at home with his mom.   But when the day came, he left a VM that he was really sick and stuck at home b/c he didn't want to get his brother sick.  But I saw on FB that night that he was at the beach partying.  He hadn't tried to reschedule.

[b]My DH and I fight about this all the time.  I want to know when he's coming to pay us back and he doesn't want a confrontation...that is, he'll do anything to avoid confronting his son, but he'll yell at me.[/b]  My DH works really hard in a tough, blue collar job.  dSS has absolutely no appreciation for how hard it is for us to save the money that he blows off.
I
This is a novel but I guess I'll end saying that I know I could be angry with my DH for being such a pushover and for trying to kick Lucy's ball every time his son asks for something.  I lost my dad at 23, and I'd give anything to have him back, and he didn't do 1/3 of what my DH does for DSS.  Part of why I am growing to hate him is remembering how I was with my own Dad these years.  How do I be civil to such an ungrateful, spoiled brat?[/quote]

Welcome to step-parent hell.  You are fighting a losing battle with your stepson who is not a child anymore but an adult and knows exactly what he is doing.  Instead, try focusing on your new baby who does need lots of attention.

Your stepson needs to grow up (with DH's  help).  And you need to set up some financial boundaries or stepson will milk you dry.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics