sounds like sd11. im sorry u are going through this. why isnt he at his moms yet? if your dh has given up, why are u still doing it? i know i sound like a hypocrit, but if u have an out, take it for all of us!!!

hugs to you, and count to 10, cause losing it on your ss isnt worth a life term.

He's 12. Your DH needs to go up to his room and bust his ass.

I might even rethink the soul mates thing if DH doesn't help you out more than he is!

What in the world is DH doing while this is going on? Why isn't he parenting his child. I know he's your soulmate, but I'm with Wicked Step Monster. When DH gets home from work he needs to seriously discipline this out of control child. BM can't sabotage what goes on in your home can she? If his own mother and father can't handle him, what are you supposed to do?? Yikes.

"There comes a time when you have to surrender the idea of what your children could be to the reality of who they are."

Sounds like you need to go all Stepmomjen on his ass! Read her blogs about how she is dealing with her son.

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Love me or hate me, I'm still gonna shine!!!

Vgill, calm down. go to the circuit board of the house and shut off the electrical outlet. Its simple and if he gets pist off then tell him to shad off. You pay for electricity. You are in control and when you say go to bed , lights off you mean it. If he doesn't like, then tell him to go live with mommy.
Sorry. If i told my ss to shut lights off and he doesn't, i cut the power . period.

I had to empty out ChooChoo's room recently bc of his bad ass behavior.I got so fed up with being disrespected and treated like a doormat by my own son I just couldn't take it anymore.

Here's your war plan:
1.Take the radio until he straightens up
2.Take the lamps from his room and he can use moonlight or a nightlight to screw around up there
3.He gets nothing but clothes,books,and a bed in his room

I GUARANTEE his punkass will straighten RIGHT UP.

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." ~Judy Garland

SD5's room was empty for quite some time too! She had a bed and clothes. We took her books because she loves to read and when we sent her to her room for bad behavior, she didn't care because she would just read until we let her come back downstairs. She had to earn everything back one item at a time. Of course, there are now teeth marks all over her foot board because she clearly has an anger management problem and poor coping skills, but that's another story. Hang in there vgill. Your DH needs to take his head out of his ass. He doesn't get to give up unless he wants to give the kid to BM. If he wants a relationship with HIS son then HE needs to step up and that includes letting this little monster know that you ARE in charge when he is at work and that if he hears SS gave you a problem, there will be hell to pay. Obviously, you can't do anything about punishment / follow through at BMs, but you can carry it over for when he returns. Good luck.

I emptied SD13's room while she was gone (I think for dinner with BM one night) and when she came home "VIOLA"! Now she's back with BM and although there were many other factors I believe this played a part!! It's worth a try, they def like their privacy and DON'T like their 'stuff' messed with so although our intention was not to get her to go back to BM (we feel its a toxic environment) she did. Take important stuff away and make him work to get his things back one day at a time. Hang in there!!

I had to confront DH and say either he's with me in my completely reasonable parenting or he and his daughter can leave. This is the sort of behavior I was dealing with as well, but he would do what he called 'buffering' which was really just sheltering her in a way that I call 'on the bubble'. He said it was just to get her through to graduation, but what it really did was enable her to use, abuse, disrespect, and then strut around the house being all kissy kissy to daddy and treating the rest of us like gunk off the sole of her shoe. I tippy toed and tried every which way to relate to her...really sad situation she's had to endure, but in the end, over two years later, when things degraded to her outright becoming abusive to us...I drew the line. The advise here is right...these kids have to be uncomfortable, made uncomfortable at the very least, and if he is anything like her...he will leave. She did. BM didn't want her, but she'd always threaten when she was facing consequences. Well she's finding out now that her safety net was an illusion. Now...what's going to happen from here I don't know, but honestly if I'm going to be the evil stepwitch...being the evil stepwitch she USED to have to live with is better than being the evil stepwitch that has to live with her

Just as a side comment. I've heard from some that it is cruel to do, but this is my second time dealing with a step situation that was miserable and when the Dad has custody you can almost guarantee Mom is either really ill or just unfit...which means big time problems...so you better go in with your eyes wide open. I never thought we'd see custody...my bad...we should always plan for it. But my point...I do have one....is that I don't think it's helpful for them to have the illusion or to perpetuate the illusion of grass is greener or let them use the 'move in with mom' threat to get away with crap. I call it out...or let it happen. Until we are all living in the same reality world, we will never resolve or meet our goals...nobody should have to EARN respect. We should all get respect. If you lose it, then that's different, but we all deserve to start with it.

So BM lives close then? That's a factor I don't have to deal with. If SD went to live with BM (which BM doesn't want her either), it would be really hard for her to come back just because she's uncomfortable there...several states away. I only know what worked for me and that was finally just going off on her and showing her I wasn't going to take her BS...but it sounds like you both are doing that..my DH would not have had the courage to do it so it fell on me. The only way she left...and I said this on the other post...is she found some poor sucker to take her in, someone through her work. I think in their tiny little teenage minds they are really simple...give me the easy road that gives me the most of what I want....so for her it is was this poor, single mom who will let her stay there and have all the freedom in the world without discipline and she doesn't have to have us around to 'deal with'. It's not ideal in her mind, but it's better enough that she is not motivated to come back. He will have to find that person or that way out though...you won't be able to do it for him. Also, the BM's family is another possibility...my guess is she will bounce around to whoever will take her for as long as possible until she has no choice or they get fed up and 'abuse' her sensibilities...I'm still holding my breath that I don't end up having to have her back under my roof, but in reality think I probably will. I'm sorry if I seemed to be ignorant of your situation...I am new here and don't know everyone's whole history.