Hi everyone. I am new to this forum but it sounds helpful! My hubby has an 18 yr old son who I met when he was 10. His mother named him a junior after another guy knowing my husband was the biodad-explanation in a bit. This guy is on the birth certificate as well. She took him out of state for the first 10 years of his life, told my husband HE was the biodad when the kid was 5 and they were in biodad's hometown for some reason. Stepkids older half-brother (on mom's side, I have 2 younger kids by my hubby)said to biodad "you know YOU'RE his real dad, right?" So biodad confronted mom and she reluctantly admitted the truth. Dad wasn't involved at that point as he was addicted to drugs at the time, wasn't ready to be a parent and couldn't afford to fly kid out of state for visits anyway. Fast foward a few years-now kid is 10, and I start dating hubby. He tells me he has a kid, and he visited for summer the first time at age 9, pulled a few stunts but it was b/c then evil girlfriend wouldn't give precious a chance or time of day-which is true to a point, but it's also equally true that this kid is a spoiled brat. He didn't give me the full picture of how bad the kid was so when he tells me "I'm a package deal" I say "when you're 'package deal' is so spoiled you should have told me the full truth-not unpleaseantly surprise me after I've already commited." So the first time I had him, hubby and I were in a camper trailer (I was pregnant and we were looking for a place)in the middle of summer and kid was scheduled to visit for a month. (mom decided she wanted a longer vacation and visit the guy she named the kid after so I got stuck with him an extra 2 weeks.) This kid gave me NOTHING BUT HELL. He was bored every 10 minutes, violent towards me when he didn't get his way, threw tantrums b/c we wouldn't let him listen to eminem at age 10 or watch R-rated movies. He has been in 3 different group homes, 2 of which he got kicked out of. One I know was on purpose, b/c he told me "I didn't get kicked out, I just didn't wanna be there anymore." He accomplished this by dumping a can of paint on a staff members car. His punishment was getting to come home for the summer-then when mom called us with the latest crisis-he'd choked his half-sister) he got to spend the night at our house and go swimming the next day. He's been in and out of juvenile hall as well...most offenses violent. He's had several felonies as a juvenile, but they haven't followed him into adulthood. Never got any real consequences aside from a few months in juvy and perhaps a peptalk from a judge. Poor baby. When he was 16, we were living 3 hours away and he got put into a facility that was half juvy and half group home. He acted like a little jerk there, but never got any real punishment. During a home visit I was cooking steak and kid stole a lighter from the store when they were going out to buy sodas for dinner. They get back, I sense something is wrong. After they tell me what happens hubby goes to take kid back, I learn that kid head-butted glovebox so hard he put a permanent dent in it. Also he scratched fake-wood side handle on door so hard he put a HUGE permanent scratch. In front of the place kid gets in Dad's face, acts like he's gonna hit dad and so dad gently pushes him out of arms reach so he doesn't GET hit. Kid lies and says dad hit him and we get CPS called for nothing-whole thing was videotaped so we knew brat was lying. I felt like brat backstabbed dad and was extremely pissed. One of the biggest issues I had when he was growing up was his mom made me out to be the bad guy b/c I didn't want to take over raising the kid for her b/c she was too lazy to discipline him. She let him do ANYthing and EVERYthing he wanted, watch what he wanted, dictate the family menu, listen to whatever he wanted, basically this kid was never told 'no'. She moved him into our town once he was 10 after her marriage to the guy she named kid after failed and it seems she thought she'd just get him to come live with us-she's asked several times. That was not an option for several reasons,one includig the fact that we had a baby's safety to consider. Not to mention our own-I am afraid of this kid. Now there are 2 little ones to consider-little ones who are in the 10th or a little lower percentile in weight and height on growth charts. Even a counselor (on the phone) once told me not to let kid out of my sight. I have to work for a living and hubby doesn't have same concern as I do. He knows kid is violent but thinks "well he loooooves his half-brothers so he'd never hurt them." I believe he DOES love them but I also think that wouldn't matter much if they got in the way of something he wanted. Now that this kid is 18, he's acting irresponsibly-head-butting his stepdad on a job (they've not gotten along since age 10 when HE met kid-don't know other details) then having dad travel 8 hours out of his way to go rescue him cuz he got trapped in that town. I think dad should have told him to hitchhike. He visited for Thanksgiving, acting rude by hogging the phone for hours on end, demanding cigarettes, hogging the last of the sparkling cider (so much for getting two glasses) not offering to lift ONE FINGER to help. Dad and grandma left early to take him home cuz of his BS. Now, dad claims I complained too much and that it wasn't worth confronting kid cuz it would have ruined Thanksgiving. I said if he was gonna act THAT badly he didn't deserve to come over. Now kid wants to visit but won't help with more than $5 for gas. (we live in an area where gas prices are second-highest in the nation.)Hubby told kid he has 2 little ones to think about and brat said "that's just an excuse." He's also apparently told dad to "be a dad." My personal opinion is he has gone above and beyond. We didnt ask for mom to lie in the beginning (and hubby had no reason to believe she'd lie) or for her to raise him with no discipline. Mom had 5 choices in the beginning with regard to parenting 1)keep kid 2)open adoption 3)closed adoption 4)abortion (I don't agree with it but it's legal) 5)give kid up to fire, police station after he was born. Dad didn't have these options. We never had custody of kid, he's never lived with us (would have destroyed the family anyway) but we HAVE tried to be there. But I'm sick of his BS and his "poor me" shit. My biodad was NEVER there for me. Never a phone call. Only a handful of visits, by age 3 they stopped. I only found out he died 3rd hand 5 years after the fact-apparently ONE phone call before he died was too much to ask. I have a hard time finding anything positive in this kid (friended him on facebook half out of obligation and half to try and be nice...then he changes his profile pic 2 days later to where he's got a scarf on his face gantster-style, a mean look in his eyes, a hoodie up over a baseball cap indoors, and he's very clearly flipping the viewer off.) But he claims not to be in a gang. Am I wrong to NOT want him to visit very often?