I MOVED IN WITH THEM, NOW I AM POWERLESS
I met my current SO, we both owned homes and because the only minor child was there, I moved in. I guess I was unprepared for being "the outsider", one child who steals and does heroin, the other is locked in his room playing video games 24 hours a day, only comes out to eat huge amounts of food and leave mess in kitchen before he goes back to shoot more people in his violent game. I would never allow this in my home, with my kids. But these kids are almost grown, one 21 (gone now) and the other almost 18. He refuses to go anywhere, just eats and games. If I lave the house while making dinner, he will eat the whole family's meal, four servings gone. If I pack mine and my SO's lunch and don't hide them, he will eat them. I buy him lots of things he likes, but he is too lazy to prepare anything and wants everything made for him. When he does decide to heat up something, he cooks the whole package at once and eats it all, leaving the oven and pans for me. I threaten to turn off internet but my SO thinks that lecturing about "motivation" and "college in the future" is enough. This kid has NO social skills. He is not exceedingly intelligent. He is rotting in his room, overweight with no muscle tone. As the "step-parent" I am limited in my discipline and my power here. I am looking to move out because I can't be a part of this.I feel bad, this is the relationship, romantically, that I have been waiting for. Any advice?
Moving out will be best if
Moving out will be best if your OH continues being a lazy parent. However I do think in the mean time (before you get to move out) there are ways to ensure your life is easier - given what you are requesting of your OH and his son isnt exactly evil, its damn rude to greedily gobble everyone's meals that you have just cooked, WTF is your OH thinking by not throttling his 18 yr old son?!
So STOP. You know how your ss behaves now and you know how your OH will react to ss poor behaviour - ignoring it because it doesnt affect him, after all he isnt the one cooking, cleaning, shopping. My advice to you is to nicely tell your OH that you will be cooking, shopping and cleaning after yourself but that your OH is responsible for his own son. If your OH wants to enable ss's laziness and rudeness, then he can carry on - his choice, but I would refuse to enable them both to continue as they are as all thats doing is making YOUR life harder. They managed before you moved in, they can manage now if they refuse to adapt.
Then lock up your food and buy yourself a mini frige for your bedroom and lock that room too so ss cant steal your things - doesnt matter what excuse your OH labels for this behaviour, your ss is stealing.
If your OH and ss complain, well they know what they need to do in order to get YOU to re-engage = change.
MOVE! You have control over
MOVE! You have control over how YOU Live your life. You must realize this is a no win battle with the kids. For your sanity, and your health you need to move out.
Why are you still cooking?
Why are you still cooking? Why are you cleaning the mess left? Guess who does skids and SOs dishes when skids are here? Not me.
Simply live your life and let
Simply live your life and let your SO do the work of cleaning after his kid. And in the end, if he doesn't and the mess drives you nuts, you should seriously consider walking. Men will only react when they HAVE TO. NEVER A SECOND BEFORE THEN. They think that we will tolerate and bitch and in the end do nothing to change our situation. Because, alot of times, that's exactly what we do! If men bitched at us as much as we bitch at them, we would change. We assume that they will respond the same way. But nope. They just let it roll. You did your part. I'd say game over.
UPDATE.... I appreciate all
UPDATE....
I appreciate all your SUPPORT. I thought I was nuts for not wanting to "try harder" to fix something that I didn't break.I successfully parented my own child, he is in college and is a wonderful caring and respectful human being. He is concerned about me as well, he is confused about how my SK behave.He did, at one point, try to be a "big brother" to my SS, but after awhile said that my SS was socially wierd and made him uncomfortable.Plus, it is not his job to "fix" my SS.
My SS, last night, told my SO that he would go live with his other parent if they "had more stuff" i.e. computers and money. He said that he was jealous of our time alone "behind closed doors", and generally attacked the relationship. He demanded more 1:1 time with my SO, even though he never comes out of his room and when he does, is basically silent and sullen. I am in a place now where I don't care anymore. I was like "raise your kid call me when you're done", an 18 year old kid should not need to be coddled and babied. I felt like my SS was making my SO make a "choice" and my SO is so naive about manipulation...
So I am moving out in 3 weeks. I am so excited. I will still date my SO, but I want no part of parenting a young adult with no interest in growing up. He actually told my SO that he wanted parents who watched him play games, like one of his friends.LOL.
My SO can spend as much time with me as needed, on my turf. My rules.
I hope that my story can help someone who thinks they can step in and make things better. Stepkids who are teens are fully formed, they basically don't want someone stepping into their homes and trying to change things.It won't end well unless the teen is very focused and mature, i.e planning to grow up and go off to college to become an adult.
I just hope my relationship canwithstand this next year and maybe things will work out.