PLEASE HELP! Failure to Launch
Is anyone else dealing with a failure to launch? My SS26 and SD20 don’t seem capable of living on their own or taking care of themselves.
When I first met my DH 6 years ago, SD20 was 15 and in JROTC because she was interested in going into the military after high school. She did that for 2 years before deciding that she wanted to do culinary studies part time during her last 2 years of high school. She complained about it that first year, so we thought she wouldn’t do the second, but she did. During her senior year, she abruptly moved out. She sent us a text letting us know that she would be moving out in 2 days. She said she had been planning the move with one of her friends and the friend’s family for months. We knew that she was moving so we couldn’t make her finish high school. With a month left of school, she just stopped going. The school told my husband that she could do a two week session in the summer to get her diploma, but she refused. After a few months, she moved back in with us. She worked full time until she got laid off at the start of the pandemic. She’s now waiting to start a full time job. She still hasn’t received her training schedule and has only requested it by text instead of actually calling or going to the store to ask for it. She hasn’t changed since I met her all those years ago. She keeps claiming that she’s depressed, but every time we get her into counseling she drops the ball and stops going. I don’t know if she’s actually depressed or just doesn’t want to move forward in life. I still deal with my own mental health struggles and have always sought help, so I don’t understand why she doesn’t want help to get better.
My SS26 was 20 when I first met my DH. He had a part-time job that he had been working for a year or two. He ended up getting fired because he frequently called in. He was jobless for months before he got another part-time job that only lasted 2 months before the company closed. He was unemployed for a year before he got yet another part-time job. He got fired because after returning from a trip with his BM’s family, he didn’t call work to get his new schedule. He was waiting for them to call him! I was so pissed that he was so irresponsible. That led to another 6 months unemployed. He’s now working another part-time job. He claims he can’t find a full-time job even though EVERYONE is hiring. We told both of them to also apply for food jobs because neither of them will. He claims he wouldn’t make enough money in fast food, but he could work a second part-time job if he just tried.
I also have a SD21 who no longer lives at home. She is the only one who completed high school, and she got her cosmetology license while completing high school. She is not happy because she recently went through a bad break-up but she is still working a full time job that pays well and going to therapy. We have no idea how she is able to function yet the other two can’t. I’ve heard that you have to be a different parent to each child, but I have no idea how to handle the 2 that are still at home. We’ve tried everything to help them. We started having weekly family meetings to discuss applying for jobs, managing finances, getting their GEDs, their mental health, etc. It still hasn’t changed anything.
Please if anyone has dealt with this or has another approach that works please help! I can’t handle it anymore. My DH knows that I’m unhappy and it is making him angrier as time goes on. I’m starting to resent them because it feels like they have changed for the worse since I met them all those years ago. I know I’ve changed too because living with them has been so hard. We had a friendly relationship before I moved in 2 years into my relationship with my DH. Things have changed since I’ve tried to give them structure and discipline so they can function as adults and not drive me crazy, but I feel like it has negatively affected my relationships with them. My DH doesn’t want any more kids, so I thought his kids could be mine too. But, I’ve discovered that you can’t raise someone else’s kids as your own. They are a disappointment. I hate to say things like that about them, but it’s true. They don’t think about how they affect my life with their father, or the fact that I’m the breadwinner and spend my hard earned money to keep a roof over our heads. If I hadn’t been employed last year, all of us would have been homeless.
Everyone wants to blame my DH for enabling them, but he’s been easy on them since they started down a hard road years ago. My SS was dropped off with my DH after SS’s BM’s husband kicked her out of their house and filed a restraining order against her. DH said SS cried in his arms all night. A few months later, BM and her husband went to prison on drug charges. During that time, my SDs’ BM died by suicide. DH was living with the 3 of them in a two bedroom apartment until they got money from SD’s BM’s social security to move out. Their mothers always avoided disciplining them and discouraged him from discipling them. I don’t know why he listened to them. Since then he’s gone easy on them because they experienced so much tragedy so early in life. It’s hard to blame him. How can you punish a kid that has lost their mother?
My DH and I have finally decided that we will move out of the house we are renting, so they HAVE to move out on their own next year. I love DH and will do everything to keep a good relationship with him. I just don’t want his kids anymore. He should see them and have a great relationship with them. I don’t want to deal with them until they get their lives together. I think it will be easier for me to have a good relationship with them once they move out because I won’t feel like they are a burden anymore. I’m so close to resenting them which would be the death of any possibility of a good relationship down the road. I work so hard, and I want the perks of someone who is childless since my DH doesn’t want more kids. We should be in a better financial position to finally buy a house! We should also be able to enjoy the foods we want to eat (we’re foodies) instead of trying to keep a large food budget down. I really just want some grass-fed beef and chicken without hormones. That’s not a lot to ask for! I just want my life back. I’m tired of doing this, and I won’t lose my DH just because his kids can’t function.
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The Burning Platform
Hi, Blueblack, welcome, you came to the right place. Many step-parents have faced this problem. One of our members, Rags, had a solution he called The Burning Platform. It means reducing the amenities that make living free with Dad and SM so nice. Cutting off the internet when you aren't home, for example. If you search this site for The Burning Platform, you'll get lots of ideas you can adapt to your situation.
I have a feeling your bigger problem might be getting DH to go along with it and keep with it. The kids have certainly experienced tragic events but nobody is doing them a favor to let them continue as they are. But it sounds like you and he are on the same page so maybe he can do it.
You sound like a kind, compassionate person who has done everything you can think of. But the fact is, once kids reach adulthood, parents arent obliged to support able-bodied people, most especially if they arent in school or working. Its a privilege for them to live with you (or off you) and they have to earn it. Decency might require you to furnish a roof and food but not cable, internet, car use, and all the extras. Good luck.
Thanks for the support and
Thanks for the support and kind words! I will definitely look up the Burning Platform. That gives me some hope.
Been there done that and
Been there done that and bought the t-shirt for it.
Your DH being lax with his adult babies due to their past is the problem. He's crippling them by parenting from guilt. So, that's the reason why his kids aren't launching. There are no requirements and your DH isn't enforcing expectations that are perfectly reasonable at your SKs' ages. My DH was exactly the same. He coddled my SKs to a sickening level because he felt so guilty for procreating with a nutball and giving the SKs a nutbar for a mother. Due to my DH coddling the SKs and not enforcing expectations on them, I had failure to launch kids and my DH's guilt and focus on them was making it so that he was emotionally unavailable to me and not able to be "all in" with me. I was sick and tired of waiting and I was sick of living with adults in their mid 20s. So, here's what I did:
I took action. I was calm. We still hadn't bought a home. Home ownership was something I told my DH that I MUST have and not owning a home with me is a deal-breaker. Despite both of us making 6 figures a year, DH kept sabotaging any efforts to buy a home with the excuse that we couldn't afford it. Nine months before my SS' 24 birthday, I ever so gently broached the subject of a launch plan for SS30 (23 at the time) and DH ripped my head off and shit down my throat. He acted like I yellled, "quick! change the fuckin' locks before SS gets home!" We were also still renting and I was still waiting for DH to want to buy a home with me. Our lease was due to lapse, so I went on viewings.
I arranged for a particular viewing of a place I was going to buy on my own because while my DH claimed he couldn't afford it, I sure as hell could and I was going to get my freaken house! I told DH that since he's so hell-bent on not owning something, I'm going to go ahead and buy something on my own. Since only I'm paying for it, it'll have fewer bedrooms. It'll be only a 2 or 3 bedroom. One bedroom for our DD21 (14 at the time) and one bedroom for either just myself or for DH and I if he decides to come with. There will be absolutely no bedrooms for adults. I gave DH 48 hours to make his decision on whether or not he was coming. I told DH that if he really felt he needed to live with his adult kids forever, then I would have no choice to move on because I deserve to live a life without adult kids mooching, especially when those kids aren't mine. I would not tolerate that in our DD and I do not want to model for our DD that that behaviour is OK. I also told DH that I will not be his booty call and I will not have a marriage of living separately. We're either married or we're not. I gave the 48 hour deadline for DH to make a decision because I was already being strung along for YEARS waiting for them "to launch naturally." They were never going to launch like their peers did because they never evolved. They did not meet milestones because DH coddled the SKs out of guilt.
Your DH is the problem. You have to address the problem where it lies. It's not with the SKs. It is your DH. You will have to take the chance that your DH may choose to remain with his kids but I took that risk because the thought of continuing to live with my SKs was far more agonizing for me than the thought of going through a divorce. I was ready to take that risk. You do not have a SK problem. You have a DH problem. It's time he stepped up and put some expectations on his kids and made himself be all-in for his wife.
My SS moved out and LOVED it. He flourished. Honestly I was at the point of hating his fucking guts by the time we parted houses but today, I can say that I love SS like he's my own. We're super close and he actually thanked me on Mother's Day and my birthday back in May for being the one to believe that SS could make it on his own. He went to uni and graduated and I cried like a baby when he went up for his diploma. He's engaged to his beautifuil fiancee and is doing really well in his job. SS being required to move on his own triggered significant growth for him and totally changed our relationship.
It's now 6, almost 7 years of DH living in our home that we bought and DH thanks me quite frequently for having the ovaries to have restructured our floundering family. We have an enviable massive garden and have done major renos to our home that we love so much.
You can do this. Go enforce some expectations onto your DH. Don't let him try to make out like you're making him choose between you and his kids. You know it's bullshit. Yes, there's an ultimatum but not "the one" that bio parents like to accuse Sparents of making.
And speaking of the burning platform. DH and I did this to our own DD when she was being a douche canoe a few years ago. Now she's a completely different young woman who is adulting very well. In fact, she's the one who pushes herself and forces herself through milestones that SHE feels she should be meeting. If your DH chooses the burning platform route, it has to be him to enforce it. A SM only gets set up to fail if she's the one to enforce it. You may have to enforce your requirements onto your DH to get him to enforce the burning platform.
Good luck and keep us updated.
I'm happy to hear that your
I'm happy to hear that your SS was so successful after moving out! I would love for my Skids to have this type of transformation. They deserve a good life. That's all I've ever wanted for them.
Sd26 lives in a home hubby bought about 12 yrs ago
And been in fulltime employment for almost 3 yrs now and living rent free. She does pay for all the utilities. Sd 16 lives with sd26 and i doubt will be any different.
Ss23 lives at our marital home, finished university march 2020, freeloaded at home and never got a job till may this year. Basically sat at home being a bum.
they're just as pathetic as their mum and play innocent victims needing daddy to rescue their failures. Even the job ss works at now, he didn't want to originally take it and wanted to hold out for another job till my husband forced him to take the first job in this current unstable world economy right now.
We subsidised YSS
We paid YSS rent to get him out of the house. Not ideal but he had an illness that made it really hard for him to stay employeed.
Your husband needs to give
Your husband needs to give them a drop dead date of when they have to be out of the house.
Do they each have a different BM? Regardless, not parenting them because of what happened to their mother(s) is no excuse.
How can you punish a kid that has lost their mother?
Parenting, which includes discipline, guidance, providing rules and structure, and preparing kids to launch (and demanding that they do so), is not punishment. He has done them a great disservice.
You can lead a horse to water
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.
You have to set deadlines and cut off's. There can't be babying over this.
Take the rent, put it in a savings account for them. DON"T TELL THEM ABOUT IT! Gift it to them when then move out. Give them a head start or help with a deposit. Yes, they have had some hard stuff in life to deal with but they aren't on a path that will allow them to be adults. You and your DH are giving and compassionate people but setting them up for failure.
Get them to do some kind of certificate training- AR/AP or payroll clerk, Phlebotomy, Fire Fighter, EMT, HVAC,- the list goes on and on for training that can be done in under 1 year that leads to a decent career. Not everyone has to go to college but there is training that people need. Your SK's just need a boot up their butt to do it!!
My experiences
My experiences with this are mainly as an observer, because SD22 Feral Forger currently "lives" with her mother crashed on a couch in her 1-bedroom apartment with her sister SD15 who we have week on/week off.
Shes currently not employed that we know, she has no drivers license, and isnt taking college classes. Shes been enabled to the point of disablement by her mother. If she is asked to do anything like clean up a spill, somehow things escalate to her and her mothing coming to blows and hurling atrocious accusations. Its their norm.
She and I dont get along much because I call her out on her disrespect. I did try about 6 months ago. Took her out to lunch, bought her a bday present, orchestrated a dinner with her father for b-day.
She plays victim, "child of divorce" victim of society. She has played that song for YEARS. Daddy guilt notwithstanding, he has told her "no" 3 times, when shes asked to move back in with us. Ive told him no, and he agrees.
Its tough battling dadee guilt. But battle you must. Some great advice here.