Moving out since adult step-son won't
I last vented on this website in 2017. This is a vent and a question: I bought a house with my boyfriend (we are about 50). Prior to the house we had an apartment when my BF's son decided to go to the local community college instead of the 4-year he was accepted into. He started living with us full time. No one asked me if this was okay, it just started happening. Well, it is now going into the FIFTH year and this kid still has not finished his associate's. *** you can skip to the question in the last paragraph if you wish ***
He flunks classes, drops them late, wasting 1000s of dollars. I do not have kids and have never been married and lived alone for a long time. Our house is 1100 sf. I just cannot take this invasion of privacy any longer. I am sick of this massive compromise so this GROWN MAN can lounge about trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. I am always angry. I get severe tension headaches. I also feel like a cheap a**hole because I don't want to help support this GROWN MAN. He never stops eating. He doesn't shop or cook or offer to do anything. He takes entire bags/boxes of food out of the house when he goes to his buddy's house to pay video games. Did I mention he is 23? I can smell his nasty room with the door closed. Regarding trying to civilize this kid, my BF says "It is better if the directives come from you since he listens to you." Are you kidding me? NOT MY KID. I am not explaining basic hygiene, how to load a dishwasher, why you don't eat food out of the containers standing in front of the fridge, etc.) to someone else's ADULT SON. His son did have a job doing tree work for a while but that is done as he recently broke his collar bone skiing with his rich mom in Europe. When that happened I decided I need to rent an apartment as soon as possible until this kid gets out of the house. The kid goes to the doctor for sniffles and poison ivy, so we are looking at months and months of convalescing with a broken collar bone. And now he is taking MORE classes since he can't work. The son being there causes a LOT of tension between BF and I (BF says "this is hard for me, too"). I have fantasized about having my own place again ever since the two of them became my roommates.
Is there a question in here, you wonder? Well, we have only had the house for a little over two years, so I think it is fair that when I find an apartment I still pay half the mortgage and taxes (still half my house at the moment) and BF pays all of the utilities for the house. I will still be there part-time but will have to pay much much more to rent an apartment in part because of his "failure to launch" son. Does this seem fair?
Thanks for your insight!!
Ugh. Put Stinky in an
Ugh. Put Stinky in an apartment and DH can pay for him. You stay in the house.
My SS20 is much like your SS23, only he lives with his mother. We have a 1200 sq. ft house too, and the thought of him doing his Failure to Launch routine with us gives me nightmares. Thankfully, my DH would never allow it. His mother; however, is like your DH - she doesn't push him to do anything whatsoever.
My BF says "It is better if
My BF says "It is better if the directives come from you since he listens to you."
IOW, your BF wants YOU to be the Bad Guy because he isn't man enough to tell a) tell his son he needs to leave, and b) PARENT his son. Yes, PARENT. I realize the son is an adult, but he is the way he is because your BF was - and still is - a crappy parent.
You may legally be on the hook for half of that house. I would sell it and get my own apartment while BF and his son got their own. Until BF launches his son, do NOT live with him again.
I'd look into selling the
I'd look into selling the house, purchase my own place from whatever I can get from the proceeds, leave the incompetent BF and his failure to launch son and never look back. Your BF will never parent his grown @ss child. This will be your life, so do yourself a favor and remove yourself from all this f@ckery and start living your best life.
This is clearly not going to
This is clearly not going to get better anytime soon.
My opinion is, sell the house. You get your own house/apartment, your bf gets his own house/apartment to house his disgusting man baby.
If your bf ever kicks man baby out, then and ONLY THEN can you discuss cohabiting with bf again. Make it CLEAR that his man baby is never allowed to move in.
I'd look into selling the
I'd look into selling the house, purchase my own place from whatever I can get from the proceeds....
I agree with this ^^^^. You renting an apartment AND still paying 1/2 of the mortgage is just enabling them both. Cut them both off. And, do NOT move out, yet, lest it be considered that you abandoned the home.
My house is about the size of yours and my SD once asked if she, her husband, and their TWO kids could "stay" with us. "Absolutely not", was my answer and I found this site to assuage any guilt that I had.
My DH asked me, though. There would have been hell to pay if I came home one day to that hell.
Oh no, do not pay half of the
Oh no, do not pay half of the mortgage or taxes. Hand DH and SS a lease with the fair market rental value of the home as the lease, require a huge though legal level of deposit, and nail their asses to the rent wall.
I had to go through this with my XW when she moved back into our marital home after a lease purchase fell through when we had "sold" it to a single mom who lived in it with her children for several years then backed out of the purchase.
My XW wanted me to pay half of the mortgage and maintenace costs after she and her geriatric fortune 500 executive sugar/baby daddy moved in to the home with their first of two out of wedlock children. I told her to F-off and if she pushed it that I would nail her for rent far above the mortgage and require a large deposit. She STFU and was quiet for a few years until she decided she wanted to sell the home and not pay me for the house. The Judge had ruled "all assets are owned as possessed" during the final divorce hearing which gave me the house since she had moved out and in with her grandpa sugar/baby daddy months before. I smacked she and her attorney with the divorce decree and gave her the option of either paying me half of the proceeds of the sale, or all of it since it was MY house. Her choice. She went all shreeking banshee then once I went back and forth with her lawyer a few times, grandpa sugar/baby daddy cut me a check for half of the net profit from the sale. I required that they provide me with a copy of the purchase agreement from their buyer before I would sign a quit claim deed on my ownership of the home. Oney they gave me that and a cashiers check for half, I signed the quit claim.
If you are not living in a home that you own, that home is an asset that you should treat as a rental property. So, treat DH and his useless pelvic projectile as tennants and give DH the choice of paying a crap ton of rent, buying your out at fair market value, or booting his toxic prior relationship breeding experiment.
Have your lawyer send DH the mandate on legal letter head before you move out in order to give DH a day or two to get his spawn out.
I would not abandon a home that I own to a ball-less STBX and their spawn.
Who paid for the 23 year old
Who paid for the 23 year old stinky, layabout's European vacation?
Ooh, good point, probably BM.
Ooh, good point, probably BM. Though for me, paying for a vacation (my parents did when I was that age) is different than letting him freeload and do nothing with his life.
I don't know. Rewarding this
I don't know. Rewarding this 23 year old, who can't seem to get the elusive associate's degree in 5 years, is just a diferent kind of enabling. I'm sure she knows he's not doing anything close to standing on his own two feet but hey, he needs a vacation!
True. But not the same as
True. But not the same as letting him live under her roof.
I agree with others above..
Do not move out!!! There is a great saying about 'possesion is nine tenths the law'. I would be scared that I would lose financially if I moved out of a jointly owned property. Either sell the place or become your BF's landlord and have paperwork drawn up and signed before you go anywhere!
I don't agree with your plan
I don't agree with your plan at all. Firstly because it's ridiculous to move out of the home YOU own; and secondly because it does nothing to address the issues you have, which has led to the enabling of your bf and his son.
You came to this site three years ago with the same problem. You got some good advice, ignored it, and are even more unhappy now than you were then.
Relationships, like a lot of other things in life, are about negotiation, compromise, boundaries, and leverage. For some reason, you've chosen to give all your power away and be the one who does all the compromising. Why do you think that is? Why are you afraid to draw boundaries with your bf? Why do you want to be with a man who is fine with you being miserable as long as he's happy??
If you want things to get better, you'll have to stop avoiding doing the work on yourself to stop being so conflict avoidant, and get comfortable with setting/maintaining boundaries.. Conflict doesn't mean a big fight; it means meeting issues head on in a matter of fact manner and breaking things down to problems and solutions. The problem? You want your bf's adult son out of your house. The compromise? You've already given it by putting up with an untenable situation for several years. The boundary? He moves out in thirty days. The leverage? If he doesn't launch, the relationship ends and the house goes up for sale.
Because you've been a doormat for so long, there's every chance your bf will try to employ DARVO to manipulate you. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender." He knows all your buttons and has gotten his own way before. Do not argue, become emotional, or be drawn into justifying your position. Just calmly repeat your boundary:
bf: But he's my baby and he's hurt!
you: He must be out in thirty days.
bf: But he's helpless blah blah!
you: He must be out in thirty days.
bf: But he loves you and he's faaaaamily!
you: He must be out in thirty days.
Lastly, please give yourself the gift of a good female therapist who will be on your side and help you work on yourself. You deserve to be happy, and cherished rather than exploited. Also, I recommend this book. It helped me a lot when I was working on not being a doormat: https://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-When-Take-Control-Your/dp/B072C64V1L/r...
Wow, spot on. I didn't even
Wow, spot on. I didn't even read her last post. No way I'd put up with that for 3 years.
Exjuliemccoy! Thank you very
Exjuliemccoy! Thank you very much for your enlightening response. It's like six months of therapy in 300 words. You could not have described me better: a conflict-avoidant enabling doormat with zero boundaries. All of what you say here is true, so much so that it is almost painful to read. YES, I have given all of my power away! Why did I do that? I have re-read your post about 10 times already. It has me asking myself is this issue JUST about the son? Or is it a bigger relationship issue and Stinky is my way out? I am going to get the boundary book asap. I will work hard not to "....become emotional, or be drawn into justifying my position" when establishing boundaries. Hard work ahead for me.
It's usually about FEAR. Fear
It's usually about FEAR. Fear of being alone, maybe, fear of not being able to support yourself - you have to figure that out.
It has to be a bigger relationship issue at this point. How could it not be? How could you not have resentment for this man who allows his adult son to interfere so much in your daily life? Figure out what you are afraid of and address it and the way out will be clear.
OP, you CAN change. I'm
OP, you CAN change. I'm living proof. I was a doormat people pleaser for years, catering to my H, his kids, and his loony family. I martyred myself and made all kinds of sacrifices for people who didn't even care about me.
In order to change, you have to get real with yourself and your part in your mess. You have to be willing to make some hard choices and accept that you can't have peace without a period of messy, difficult transition. The longer you've been a doormat, the more pushback there will be from the people who benefitted the most from it. You have to want peace enough to be willing to tear everything down to get it, and you have to be unyielding about it.
You are going to be okay with or without your bf, OP. He needs you more than you need him. My marriage is better than ever now, because 1) my DH chose me over the dysfunction, and 2) he has a healthy respect for me. When I was weak, he used me; now that I'm strong, he respects me.
Bravo!
^^^THIS!!^^^
"---please give yourself the gift of a good female therapist who will be on your side and help you work on yourself" Exjulie is right, OP. You keep asking for advice and ignoring it. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Seems fairly simple for me.
Seems fairly simple for me. His son is OUT by (give a date in the not too distant future) or you are out and the house goes on the market. You survived perfectly well before your home was invaded and you can do it again.
It's time to put YOU first!
Wow! Thank you, everyone, for
Wow! Thank you, everyone, for your insight and honesty. Also, for your humor examining my situation with Stinky. I got some much-needed laughter! I feel understood. Boy, do I wish I had taken the sage advice you all so generously provided to me three years ago before I signed the mortgage papers. But time doesn't work in reverse unless you are Superman. Time to get the kid off the couch and out of the house.
You GO girl! I'm looking
You GO girl! I'm looking forward to your update!
YES!
Let us read your success story!
Sell Quickly
1.Sell the house.
2. Bank the $$.
live a life that makes you happy and proud.
Pretty much sounds like the
Pretty much sounds like the guy I'm living with except he is 28,Yes the room stinks so bad you can smell it with the door closed, Doesn't offer to help around the house or contribute to bills yet happily eats you out of house and home,His biological parent always has an excuse for him,I feel your pain I can relate to this , Perhaps maybe time to sell up and have him out on his own he is mid 20's he needs to learn to survive on his own two feet and not having Daddy and Step mummy and living off his Rich mum in Europe,Tough love ,Sell your house and make yourself and do what makes you happy