Hi, thanks for your reply.

Theres no plan. He sit his exams this month.  He's struggled all the way through school and with two years of lockdowns is now behind by 2 years in schooling.  He has decided to give up with his education and refuses to revise or study.  By law he will need to resit English and maths if doesn't get the required grades.  That's means another two years of college in a group he'll hate and I see that he will refuse to go to college leaving him with no qualifications.

He wants a job in travel and tourism, holiday rep.  But with no qualifications I can't see how he'll get there and he has no plan, no drive, no willingness to be incentivised.

The future is hard for anyone, for him it's already bleak.  
He's likely to just up and leave home at 18 as he is dangerously impulsive and he knows there is nothing his Mum can do.  
 

I've been reading on here about disengagement.  I've pretty much withdrawn from being involved the SS.  I feel I was pushed that way by my Wife as she has consistently resisted my inputs.  Unless I'm planning a day out or something nicely nicely that is.

I feel like I want to withdraw everything from him, support, finances, input, most of the time even speaking to him. The only reason I haven't executed a full disengagement from him is my Wife and the further impact/division to the family.  Feeling caught between rock and a hard place.

Hi,

The choice of pronoun is his own. He's taken 5 years to decide to change his name to a gender neutral one but with a hint of femininity.  He actively wants the he/his.  I woundnt say I've fixed binary ideas around gender.  I will admit I don't understand it.  For me the gender identity is the lesser of the problems being faced.  He's under the NHS identity clinics but the notion of therapy or counselling is laughable.  Through the gender clinic he gets an hour every three months.  Is on the waiting list for mental health services for his other diagnoses but the waiting list is 2 years for adolescents.  Now here's the problem.  Whilst in that waiting list he will transfer to adult services once he approaches 18.  Once in that system the wait is 5 years.  Police, Social Services and GP have all done their bit, as have we to expedite this but the wait is what it is.  I've accessed my private medical insurance too for him but he won't engage with the therapists; reason is that it's offered over the phone and not face to face.  I've been on various courses from social services about online safety and so on.  Tried to convey or impart that learning to him was and remains disregarded by him.  Im told what the hell do I know, I've not got a clue.  

I wouldn't say I blame my wife for everything, only some key fundamentals that I believe have made the situation worse and therefore I consider them avoidable.  Leaves a resent me behind that I find difficult to deal with.  I'm an engineer so naturally try to work through or around problems.  
 

Again, thanks everyone for your posts.  I've found this experience so helpful.  Thank you

Finances are largely equal.  Wife is a nurse so has her income and tries her hardest to be financially equal.  I earn the larger salary.   
Going forward the military is not an option he is completely unable to follow instructions or advice let alone an order or command.  I wanted a career in the Navy and I experienced cadets and officer selection.  He would not cope.

College is most certainly an option, one that I have strived to encourage.  He's given up on his GCSEs and seems to have resided himself to abject failure.  If I thought he was capable of learning the lesson of failure and the applying himself in September at college to gain an education I would be something like resigned to engage with that and support and guide him through it.  However, my knowledge of him shows me that college resits won't be to his expectations and he won't rise to the challenges of the hard work it's going to need and I believe he will refuse to go to lectures.

Thats the part of the future that worries me the most, a missed opportunity in education that will take him years to recover.

As for him living with us indefinitely, there's no plan from my Wife's point of view as she seems to act the hear and now and not so much what might happen.  I've told her that I don't want him living with us forever.  Given what he's said he'll up and leave home at 18 as that's the only boundary holding him here. He'll leave with no thought of how he will provide for himself.  Hence the encouragement around education.

Weve tried counselling for ourselves, there's nothing specific around his needs.  I'm looking more generalised marriage counselling though.

The thing with college is the law.  Law now says that if he doesn't get grade C or better in English and Maths he must remain education to resit.  That can be college or a school sixth form.  At present he likely to get E or F in those.

He has talked very much about college to study level 1 or level 2 in travel and tourism.  I think it's his vision or impression of what college what be that's wrong here.  He thinks college is going to be easy and all about friends and socializing.  He simply will not work hard to achieve anything, doesn't even bother.  There is very much a novelty factor with him with any he does.  If he wants to, he will engage with an activity obsessively for a very short time and then get bored and give up.  If he doesn't want to he won't engage at all.  All very much part of Asperger's and ADD.

I see college going through same.  He's built up a mental image of college and it's so far removed from the reality and when the time comes it won't meet his expectations and he'll give up.  I should imagine it's hard to understand from the outside but I've seen this trait so many times with him.

I used to lecture in a colleg like this.  To fill my timetable I was given th level 1 group of engineers.  They were hell and there because they had to be.  If he doesn't get the grades he needs he will be in a similar group.  I've tried to paint the picture for him of what it might be like, tying to incentivise him.  I was quickly told that isn't the way of it, he's been to an open evening and he didn't see any of that I'd seen.  Wife even said that was my experience of it and may not be his experience.  That was the end of me trying to help there.

I get that I'm speculating here on future possible behaviours or events or likely outcomes.  But that speculation is based on 10 years of knowing him, watching him and his track history of behaviour.  Just taking past behaviours and outcomes and applying them to future events.

You're thought process is remarkably like mine.  I've suggested similar things, like getting a weekend job at local travel agents.  If nothing else it's something for the CB/Resume and some pennies for the pocket too.  Nevermind the practice at developing a good work ethic.

Nope, doesn't want that.  Wants a job at Superdrug to get staff discounts.  Yes, a job nine the less but not the right reasons for turning down other jobs.

As for a gap year and/or an industry placement.  I've tried that suggestion, Mum was most unhappy about that and to be fair I can see her point.  He is very vulnerable and a big risk to himself with no perception of risk to himself.  Even if working in the UK the distances involved are large and he is incapable of independent living.  It would be a learning curve and lesson inlife he so desperately needs.  But is impulsiveness is a threat to him that if left unsupervised at this stage in his life would be harmful.  He's very immature and has been sheltered by the school system and his Mum so that alongside his conditions he has no idea of what awaits him in the real world.