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Losing my patients with step son

Nicolenobody's picture

I am about my absolute max for patience with this boy. His mother has done nothing but coddle him for most of his life and he is turning into such a little brat and mommas boy! He is 13 and is spoiled, ungrateful, DRAMATIC, and lazy. I could write for days about all the things that bother me. Recently though he is on my last nerve, he'll spend all day moping and telling his mom how sad and depressed he is and that he just wants to move back with his dad because he just can't deal with all the stress of his school and activities in his new school. Fist of all, he is the one who wanted to move away from a small town so he could have more opportunities and now because he has more than a minimum load and can't be on youtube all afternoon he "Can't deal", so now he wants to move back to a town that's so small it takes 5 minutes to drive through. And we're letting him! Or at least his mother is. If it were up to me I would keep him here for the entire school year and make him follow through with his commitments. Because that's how life works, you can't just quit when things aren't going exactly your way. But he has not motivation to even try to tackle his stuff. If it's not easy it's hard. It's annoying! he has no integrity, or motivation, or burning desire for anything and it bothers me. It goes against everything I was taught.

The other day I had a talk with his mother about all of the things he has and things he should be grateful for, instead of throwing everything under the bus or hating everything all the time. And she agreed and said that I made a good point and he really doesn't have much to complain about. She was supposed to talk to him while I was on my way home from work, but when I got home I found her upset because he made this speech about how he's so depressed and unhappy and blah blah and he totally manipulated her feelings. He used his crocodile tears and threats of suicide to make her feel bad, and then he turned around and went on his happy way to play video games! I don't think a suicide threat should be taken lightly, but you could totally see that he wasn't genuine about his sadness. His mother, bless her heart, was so sad the rest of the day and he went on to being his usual self. It took all my patience to not blow up and start yelling at both of them.

Maybe I'm wrong to think that he's manipulating her, but he has just become such a brat and a liar lately that I don't believe anything he says. Kids can be depressed and have bad thoughts too, I understand that. It's just that I can see that he is so not genuine about most of it. I know him, I'm the one to call him on his shit when his mom doesn't see it. Don't know what I'm asking here, but any words of advice or just anything would help. I'm losing my mind, and my patience, and if this continues any further I may just lose this relationship.

SMBM2017's picture

I don't have any experience with teenagers just yet but I think this is a great suggestion.

Here's an additional thought- and I understand it wont be as easily done as said:

Have you tried sitting down with SS one on one and talking to him about how he's feeling? Tell him what you see in his potential and explain to him why you want these things for him. Calmy and with love. Maybe you don't get anywhere with it, but maybe it leads you both down a path of understanding?

Journey Perez's picture

DISENGAGE. That's the best thing you can do for your own sanity. I know first hand how difficult it is to witness bad parenting and children manipulating their parents and situations. Yes, his mom is doing him a disservice. Its painful to sit back and watch it, but its her kid. SS will continue this bs pattern and lifestyle as long as mom allows it and enables him. I totally agree with you that parents should hold their kids to standards and make them finish out their commitments but if his parents want to let him flip flop between them then there is really nothing you can do. Just enjoy the times that his is out of your house, out of sight out of mind.

chuckdb3684's picture

I understand what your dealing with totally. We step son is 17 and has been babied to the point that if it's not something he wants to do he refuses to do it. All he does when he is home is lay in bed and watch flipping YouTube on his cell phone or play his Xbox. The kid has no grasp on what the real world is going to be like once he has to be a adult. I love his mom, but I want to strangle him.

Rags's picture

And then there is the good news regarding his wishes to move back to daddy's.... THE SPAWN WILL BE GONE!!!!!! Smile Biggrin Blum 3 Dirol

As for the suicide threats... call 911 and have them roll all of the flashy light vehicles including the one with the padded walls and the stylish long sleeved buckled jacket with leather accents and have them haul him off for an in patient psych assessment. Multiple suicide threats should be met with a very unpleasant official response each and every time.

If he wants to go live with daddy.... then good riddance. Hopefully his suicide threats are just manipulations and he doesn't succeed in his aspirations to voluntarily win a Darwin award.

smh

Fortunately in our case my bride and I have been closely aligned regarding parenting and kid behavioral and performance expectations. We tolerated none of this kind of shit from our son (my former SS-24 now adopted). We went through nearly all of the stages of his childhood as a family. His mom and I met when he was 15mos old and married the week before he turned 2yo. He did not have a chance to pick up any toxic traits from the shallow and polluted end of his gene pool that we could not for the most part effectivel counter. If he had been one like your SS-13 is though it would have broke my heart to ship him off to SpermLand but ... given the situation it would have been a great relief.

SIXLOW's picture

So it's been 2, almost 3 years. What did you end up doing and what was the result?