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How do I reconnect?

jschu77's picture

Submitted by jschu77 on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 9:19am

Hi, I just registered for this forum because I wanted to see if I'm the only one who deals w/ this. I have a SS who I've been w/ since the past 10 years...his mom, and I got married when he was 5 but I've been in his life since he was 3. 7 years ago my wife and I had our first child, a boy...2 years later we had another little boy...so needless to say, there's going to be a lot of testosterone in the house for many years to come. What I'm having issues is with how my relationship w/ my SS has deteriorated over the past 5 or 6 years. His BF has always been a large part in his life and my wife and I share custody having equal part of time with my SS during each week. My SS has always favored his BF more than me, and that is great, but I think that it also played a part in how I became detached from him. My SS is also very hard to get ethusiastic about certain fun things that I or my wife have done to make him happy, and I guess that has always annoyed me. Now that he's a teenager, he becoming less and less interested in our family, and more interested in his social well being, which I know is normal and I completely understand. I've always sensed a bit of animosity from him towards my own boys and to an extent, my boys don't really enjoy him being around so much...my SS tends to play to rough and sometimes hurt them in the process, which is another thing that really annoys me. My relationship with him is struggling and I just want to be able to treat him like my own son, but I feel like it's been too long since I've really treated him like my own son that he will likely resist my efforts to even "be his friend". Being his friend is something that I thought my only role would be towards him because I knew I would never be able to take the role of his father. I had 3 SD's so far...my first SD came into my life when I was 3 as well...he was much older than my BM and was very disciplinary towards me and spanked me several times when I was a kid...I remember getting the belt a few times. BUT, punishment like this is something that I/we don't practice in our house, definitely not w/ my SS, because his BM and BF are responsible for his disciplinary actions. I just want to be able to smoothly transition myself into being a good friend for him...he's relatively a good kid, he gets into trouble every once in awhile, but get's good grades.

Any help from other SD's would be much appreciated.

Comments

onebright1's picture

Submitted by onebright1 on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 9:43am

Sounds like life to me Smile Sorry, its a song that came to mind.
Actually Sounds exactly like my Bio son who is 16. I think its probably a normal thing for boys at that age.
My son, his dad and I sat down together last week and conversed about this exact thing.
We all decided son needs his social time, and we made a schedule for planned time with me and with his dad. We tried not to make it during his "social hours" ie: fri or sat nites. Sundays are good for me and he is to respect our time together just as he would his friends and stay off the cell phone and actually participate in whatever we are doing together whether it be a meal, a dvd or just hanging out. Him and his dad chose Saturday afternoons.
I actually think he liked it this way with us coming up with the schedule. I actually heard him tell a buddy last Sunday that wanted him to come hang out that, "I cant, I have plans with my mom" Smile

jjj111's picture

Submitted by jjj111 on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 9:48am

So based on your blog, he is 13, and your other kids are 7 and 5. I think he is feeling with the other boys there that he doesn't belong. I know he has a good relationship with his dad and you cannot compete with that but it doesn't mean that you can't also have a great one. It will take work and patience but if you are willing then all you can do is your best. This would include not giving him any extra special treatment but treat him the same way as you do the other boys. Include him, and make him feel as if he's a part of the family. If you've already done that and he still refuses, let him, he's a teenager but don't stop trying to include him no matter how many times he rejects it. This will show you are trying, don't give up and don't get frustrated. What you may want to try is to ask him to help you on a task that you regularly do (e.g. if you mow the lawn or repair something, ask him for his help. Tell him that he is the oldest and that the younger kids are not as strong enough yet so you would love it if he could be with you and help). If he refuses, again, have patience. Keep trying this. If it doesn't work then maybe you can have your wife stage some time with him, just you and he. Maybe she can take the other two somewhere and you can have a cool plan. Make it seem like a spontaneous plan like "hey you want to go to xxx place with me. i heard they had cool xxx" could be a racing car show or something that you know he'd like. Try not to show that it's planned though or he might be on to what you're trying to. Good luck.

Ingrid's picture

Submitted by Ingrid on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 10:29am

The only thing that comes into my mind is, "What does he want?"

We, as step parents, always know what we want. But is that what our skids want?