When I met my DH his children (and mine) were all grown up and living their own lives. I thought we had more in common that our kids (roughly the same ages) were in similar circumstances. Now, seven years down the line I have had to disengage from my skids because they messed up and my DH cannot see that they are adults and he still cannot face the mess ups of the past.
I would be very cautious about marrying a man who has this attitude that his adult son will 'grow out' of this behaviour- my experience is that he won't- his entitlement goes unquestioned and his ignorant behaviour towards you speaks volumes.
If I knew, when I met DH, what we were facing, I would have put down some ground rules at the very beginning. This is the very least you should do. This man (DH's son) should be supporting himself with a place of his own before you take this man on- and even so, be aware that adult skids are still capable of re-entering your life and causing chaos well after you've married. Make sure those rules and the consequences of their being broken are set in stone before you go any further.

I'm a stepfather that has been in almost exactly your situation. My wife's youngest son (19) is completely nasty to everyone around him. I've told his story before, so won't repeat it here. Needless to say, I heard excuse after excuse from my wife about his behavior, and she would get furious with me whenever I confronted him. It basically came down to our marriage almost ending before things changed. I was hanging on by my fingernails for a while, and wasn't sure I could take anymore of it. Some days, I'm still not sure. If this son ever sets foot in our house again, our marriage ends on the spot. I really can't take any more of it. My wife and I have been together for almost 4 years, and married for about 2 1/2 years. My point is that things will get worse before they get better. If your boyfriend isn't having your back with his son, he is giving his son a very strong signal that he doesn't have to respect you. That respect will be impossible to earn by yourself. Your first inclination might be to bend over backwards to demonstrate to the son how you are a good person. The son will likely see this as weakness, and treat you even worse. You will have to get hard nosed with both your boyfriend and his son, most likely, before anything will change. My guess is that your boyfriend won't want to upset his precious offspring, and the son would rather have you out of the picture so he can have Dad all to himself.

You're in for a long and painful road if you head down this path, at least from my experience.

Mathfed brings up one of the basic rules when dating someone with kids - pay attention to actions, not words.

You need to think critically and vet the dynamic as a whole. Listen to that feeling in your gut that's telling you that something is wrong, because it definitely is.

Of course your bf is going to gaslight you and dismiss your complaints about his son's mistreatment of you. He wants to have it all - his enmeshed relationship with his adult son AND the benefits of having a woman in his life. Nothing about his relationship with his son is healthy or normal, which is probably why he has never remarried.

Please read up on enmeshment. You'll see that it's a very challenging dynamic to change unless one of the people involved recognizes how unhealthy it is and seeks help. Don't move in with this man. If you have, move out and tell him that you insist on couples counseling before you'll move forward with your relationship. If he refuses, he's made his choice. Also read all the posts here by a members called enuf and donewithit. Both ladies were married to men enmeshed with an adult child and offer valuable insight.

I met my DH when his son was in his early 20s. This son is a total worthless POS on so many levels. My DH kicked SS out for being violent towards him. DH said he might have really hurt him in self defense so he kicked him out. SS had been violent to his BM previously. He's just a waste of space.

I don't give a sh*t what SS now 32 does or wants. My DH wants to believe he is better because he now has a better woman to mooch off of. When I met DH he was living with worthless druggie hobags in drug dens - where he was regularly beaten to a pulp for being an ass. His current GF has a job, home and car. So does that make him now more worthwhile that he has a better class of woman to use?

But fortunately my DH does support me. He knows that his son is flawed.

Waiting for enuf to weigh in....this could be your future unless your SO realizes that his child is an ADULT and that you should be his partner.

Did he or did he not raise his children to treat others with respect, which includes acknowledging them when you see them? If he raised cretins that he makes excuses for, you really want to hear what you life is going to be like in the future so you can make an informed choice.

You have not even married yet. Wait until you see the fallout when that happens.

Here I am. I can certainly weigh in on this. The ss you are describing is exactly what I had for a ss. I met him when he was 24-26 years, I do not remember. He did exactly what yours did, shunned me in my own home no less, would even turn his chair sideways to face only his df. I would fix food, he would put it on his plate but never touch it. I went out of my way, he did give me a xmas bday card in all the years I knew him he never put my name on it or sign it. He did it so his df could see what a great guy he was. My ex, thought he was the greatest and I was the one with problems. I was with my ex for 25 years, and in all those years we only got away on one overnight trip where ss was not calling continuously day and night, and when ex phone ran he would run to the bathroom if we were in a restaurant, or if we were having sex he would stop to chat with his ds as he did not want his ds to feel slighted.

Gosh I really tried and the resentment just built up and my self esteem fell to the floor because my ex refused to put boundaries on his behavior. The last year we were together I was taking 21 pills of medication and I believe it was because of all the stress. My ex divorced me after 25 years, he was 70 years old, why because I complained once about the time he was spending with his ds when he should have been spending it with me. They went together to do our grocery shopping, to each others drs appts, dentist appointments. If we invited ss to join us for a movie at a theater ss would try to sit between us. SS ended up moving 5 minutes from us and wanted to spend every night with his df and call all day starting at 9:00 am and every 30 minutes if he did not answer. So my ex got angry at me for complaining, after the divorce, ss moves in with his daddy and takes over what was my bedroom and all its furnishings.

I could have written your post, draw your line in the sand and let your dh choose. Otherwise you will end up like me 25 years later.

If you do decide to move forward with this relationship. make sure you and your SO sit down and specifically discuss financial expectations. I would be willing to bet money that your SO is still contributing to SS's finances. SO needs to be held accountable for contributing his fair share to your household expenses: half if the two of you are living alone together, two-thirds if he allows SS to move back in. SO should also be expected to put something away towards your collective future retirement funds. You may also want to call out rules about discretionary spending and gift giving.

You do not want to end up supporting your SO while he supports his dysfunctional son.

You are both where you will be in 15 years. Even if it changes for the better, you will still remember these early days and think he should have been a parent and intervened and he will always think his son's behavior was OK. So that means if SS does something worse, or just other annoying things, you shouldn't expect his dad to intervene. And although he is an adult, he will play havoc with your relationship more than you can ever think possible. It's just always kind of there, even when the stepkid isn't.

It's good you're asking for advice. Ask others outside of this forum because people here are pretty jaded. Happy stepparents (if they exist) don't come here.

Your decision is simple to boil down: Can you live with this? But making the decision will be hard.

I would not marry my husband again for exactly this issue. The resentment and sense of betrayal never go away. I always question if it's something I did, but I can't think of one more way to try to make it work with SD30.

Marblefawn I think one of the hardest for me is to actually SEE my dh at the time debating whether to please and prioritize his ds demands or to be with me. It really hurt when he always picked his ds even in situations where I was very upset as something tramatic had happened or I was quite ill. He always put his ds wants first. One example was I had some bone removed from my foot and was sent home immediately after the surgery was done, and at the same time I developed a severe ear infection. Instead of tending to me, he has his ds over as ds wanted to spend time with him and watch a game. Those are the things that you never forget and the hurt lingers and then it turns into resentment.

Thank goodness those feelings have finally left, and I do not have to deal with those situations ever again. Ex divorced me to teach me a lesson, in the end it turned out to be a godsend, and maybe karmic justice for him as he no longer has anyone to blame but himself for the way his ds is but himself, as he kicked the scapegoat out. He always said the his ds was the "bane of his existence". Little did he know he was forecasting his future when he said that.

Please bear in mind, many kids are born on the autism scale. When they fail to launch, it isn’t always that they are selfish but that they cling to their parents as their only anchor in life. If they’ve failed to find a meaningful relationship of their own it may not be due to their not wanting it but their inability to make it happen. Sometimes the perception of rejection by these people is nothing more than an inability to connect – to socialise on an acceptable level. They cling to the person they know will not reject them.
It is incredibly hard for a new partner – who may have successful offspring of their own – to accept the burden of another’s apparent failures.
I’m not here to judge. I was myself the victim of a ruthless ‘Miniwife’ for more years than I care to remember. I do not belittle the horrendous effects of this in any way – but please, before you condemn the son or daughter, please consider the possibility of mental disorder. It is prevalent throughout the world with no regard to colour, class, race, religion or anything else and does wreek havoc on relationships – 1st, 2nd , 3rd and on.

Dunwiththem I agree with you, however I have seen young adults with down syndrome behave better and with more kindness than my ss did with me. The big clue for me is when I observed him in other social settings and he did not shun anyone, however let him be with just me and his df and he shunned me every single time. His behavior was intentional. What irked me was that for 25 years every time ss walked in our door without knocking, dh would tell ss so that I could hear to"say hi to Miss Invisible", then ss would say "hey" and then ignore me and within that period of time even raise his voice to me and ex would just ignore it and when I questioned him about it ex would tell me "it never happened and it was my dark view of the world.".

Congrats to your bf for raising a co-dependant, passive aggressive little brat instead of a man. My bf's mini wife daughter pulled this with me. We were only dating so I simply didn't go over to his house if his kids were around (and she was over 18 still pulling this crap). Then I decided I just wouldn't go to his house, period. I didn't like the environment regardless. He had fun sitting there alone when his Princess decided not to have anything to do with him if I wasn't around. A few years ago he sold his place and moved in with me. No one disrespects me in my home. She's not welcome on my property. She's not speaking to DADDY anyway, too busy punishing him.

Oh, and my bf's daughter would pull similar stunts if we were together... always texts or phone calls, make pretend drama's to try to get him to ditch me, etc. Shut that down. He can turn his phone off when you're together and maybe his adult baby will learn to handle things on his own.

My honest advise? Don’t mary him unless u sort this out first . Sometime I regret marrying my sh because of his adult mini wives. They were fine until the wedding but signs were there.

I have seen examples of enmeshment in my own family (mother and brother), my in-laws (FIL with his daughters and granddaughters), and my neighbor (mother and son).

My older brother, an unemployed thirty-something alcoholic, moved back in with our mother after she was widowed. They had a toxic, love/hate dynamic but mom would never kick him out or hold him to any minimum standards of self sufficiency. When she died nearly twenty years later, he was left destitute.

My FIL was deeply enmeshed with his daughters, and to a lesser degree with his granddaughters. When he died, we discovered FIL was nearly flat broke. Decades of enabling and spoiling had frittered away his entire retirement. My eldest SIL, an addict in her fifties, literally cannot take care of herself. She was never taught or required to, and ended up in an adult group home after FIL died.

Then you have my neighbor, a very well educated professional woman in her fifties. Her adult son, age 31 lives with her, and probably always will as he is extremely introverted and so socially awkward that he gives people the creeps. (Son is from her first marriage; her second marriage ended in divorce a few years ago - no surprise). Mother just dotes on her son (they are BESTIES!!!) allowing him to live off her and oblivious to the fact that her son is the reason her out-of-town "sort of" BF won't commit to a more serious relationship. Sonny boy still behaves like a child, even sleeping in mommy's bed when she travels for work.

In each of these situations, we see the parent getting certain emotional needs met by their child(ren). It's not only inappropriate, but also extremely selfish as enmeshment stunts the personal growth and development of the enmeshed child. They may get older but never achieve independence or reach their full potential. It's also worth noting that in two of the three scenarios, only death ended the enmeshment. The jury is still out as far as my neighbor is concerned, but it doesn't look good.

Your SO already has a primary relationship. Even if he's willing to start therapy and develop a plan for his son's transition to adulthood, the manchild will always resent you for coming between him and his ATM. You're up against a deck stacked against you.

To be honest, thank god he talks only to dad. By leaving you out of it you will not used or manipulated to me that's a blessing ( i wish my adult stepkids would leave me alone). i would say hi to him and just keep doing what i'm doing. take care.