Looking for some advice on this:

My fiance and I (so not *quite* a step parent) have been living together for close to 7 years. He has two sons from two different mothers. The youngest is about to turn 9. The oldest is 16 1/2. I have some issues with both children, but in particular, right now, the teen. The story is more complicated than simple "teen angst", as my fiance only recently reunited with his eldest about 5 months ago after not seeing him since he was about 5 years old (due to a lot of complicating factors). My fiance has *always* wanted to reestablish a relationship with this son, and held off primarily due to his fear of his son rejecting him. Now that they have reunited (son wanted to reestablish relationship as well), the son is coming here nearly every other weekend. I was thrilled that they reconnected - I had urged my fiance to do this for years. However, I've pretty much had my fill of the son at this point.

While he is here, he is generally agreeable enough but he's very "rough around the edges" and seems to have been taught no manners at all (no please, no thankyou, never picks up after himself, has no table manners, is constantly sending/recieving texts while we're talking, smokes, is rough on my pets, etc). I do realize that's primarily him being a teen, but also feel he suffers from a lack of supervision at home. And here as well, as I'll get to... There's a lot of trying to make himself look cool for his dad, I feel sure.

The big problem is this: the son lives about 90 minutes away, has his license, and drives himself here. We never know when or even if he is going to come on the weekends. My fiance starts trying to find out generally on the Wed before the weekend whether he's coming or not. The son refuses to commit and says he'll call "tomorrow" (Thursday) and let you know. "Tomorrow" comes and he doesn't call. MY fiance calls him again, and then generally gets "I'll call you tomorrow" (Friday). Friday arrives and he doesn't call. So, fiance calls him again. Then he'll either say he's coming tonight or will be here at "X" time on Saturday (whichever *he* decides). Nearly always, the time he has said he will arrive comes and goes, and he doesn't arrive. My fiance will call him again only to find that he's not even ready to leave yet. Generally speaking, he is always hours late in arriving, and typically on a last minute notice (its not a couple minutes - he'll say he'll be here at 10:00 a.m. and not come until 7:00 p.m.). He has taken to making up excuses for why he can't/isn't there at the specified time (and the stories are often real WHOPPERS that are PLAINLY lies). Sometimes he doesn't come at all, and we wouldn't even know except we called him. This leaves us sitting here waiting around the house for hours every weekend for him to show up. I find this behavior, and the LIES (especially) infuriating. I work two jobs and only have two weekends a month off, and it really makes me angry that I have to spend any portion of them waiting for this kid to show up, virtually tied to the house. My time with my fiance is important to me, and while I *can* go off and do things alone, we have little free time together (and with the 9 year old) so we like to do things as a family. My fiance has tried to gently and politely address this issue several times by explaining to him that while he can choose whatever time it is that the son wants to come, he has to let us know no later than Thursday and he has to stick to that time. Its been absolutely useless - now instead of giving us a time at all, he keeps us hanging until an hour before he leaves.

This weekend really took the cake and has pushed me over the edge from mild resentment to complete irritation. My fiance called his son Wed and his son told him that he wasn't sure if he was coming because he had to wait to find out if his paycheck (he works part-time at two different jobs, or so he claims) would have enough for gas money. He said he would call Thursday and let us know. Thursday came and went and he didn't call. Friday p.m. we still hadn't heard from him so my fiance called him. The son claimed now he couldn't come because "he had to work all weekend" (note - no mention of working on Wed. p.m. when we spoke to him, and no call to let us know this). To be frank, I didn't believe he was working. On Sat. noon time my fiance texted him and asked him where he was working, was it X job? (his plan was to call that location and see if he was really there). The reply was no, it was the other job (the one he conveniently can't be contacted at) and that he had just gotten done work anyway and was on his way with his friends to a fair. My fiance then texted and asked him what happened to working all weekend, and he replied that he had to work the following morning. Neither one of us believe for a moment that he was working at all this weekend (he claimed previously to have re-arranged his work schedule so that he would be off the same weekends as his brother was here). My fiance sent him another text that said, roughly "Oh, I thought you weren't sure you could come because of gas $ and then you said you had to work all weekend, and now you're going to a fair. Please tell your mother that she and I NEED to talk. Love you." The only reply was "love you too".

I feel (and so does my fiance) that what he does is put off committing to coming here until he is sure he doesn't have a "better offer" at home with his buddies. If nothing better comes along, he shows up. If something does, he blows us off. To excuse this, he tells lies. Its been made clear to him that if he has something else he'd rather do, that's OK, he just needs to let us know and not keep us waiting for him to decide, so that we too can make plans for our weekend. He just doesn't seem to care.

I find this behavior extremely rude and discourteous. Combined with the fact that when he is here, he tells one ridiculous lie after the other (things like he's on the fire department, his teacher allows him to bring a knife to school, he was late because he was "on a fire call", etc,) I find myself very angry and resentful toward him. To be perfectly honest, I resent the entire situation and while I understand how important this is to my fiance, and really want him to re-establish this relationship, I find his allowing this behavior to continue to be very frustrating (and also because he is extremely permissive/solicitous with his younger son as well and can not seem to address those problems either - he's a very non-confrontational person and a real push over.) It irritates me that his son is treating him this way and that it is very hurtful to my fiance.
My fiance and I have discussed this repeatedly. The situation though is difficult because my fiance is so guilt-ridden about not being in his son's life for all of these years that I believe he is afraid to "lay down the law" so to speak for fear of alienating his son. We have virtually no control over this kid - we can't discuss the problem w/ him without fear of alienating him. I don't know how to address the lying without calling him a liar. We have concerns about even discussing it with him because we don't want to drive him away. We can't punish him, because he simply will not show up and really, we have nothing to punish him with (we can't ground him, take away the car, etc).

OTOH, I don't feel we should put up with this behavior and I feel that and the lying needs to be addressed so that the boy learns its unacceptable behavior. Unfortunately, there is ZERO communication with the BM - we do not have her phone and can't contact her. We've repeatedly asked the son to have her call us, or to give us her # and he won't (I feel sure because he absolutely does NOT want us talking to her to uncover the lies he's told us). We asked for his mailing address - he claims he doesn't know it. Not to blame BM entirely, but a large part of my fiance not seeing his son was BM moving repeatedly and failing to provide the child for visitation and he was unable to locate her for years (though really, he knows he could have tried harder)and he eventually just gave up.

The son complains bitterly about his home life, his mother, her fiance (which would be her third husband, who is 15 or so years her junior and with whom she recently had a baby - husband #2 passed away a couple of years ago, just a few months before she became pregnant with the new baby and the son is *very* resentful of this. She also has an adult older child from a previous relationship *before* my fiance who is, according to the son, currently in jail and not for the first time.) This child seems to have virtually NO supervision (judging from the fact that he comes and goes as he pleases, is out all night, etc. - she never even calls him to make sure he's made the 90 minute ride here ok). We don't want him turning out like his brother.

He claims he and his mother's boyfriend don't get along, that his mother and the BF fight constantly. Two weeks ago, he called saying he was going to move out and go live with some friends until his brother gets out of jail and then he'd go live with him. He has claimed he's done this several times in the past as well. My fiance is *VERY* careful to not play into this sort of thing, never, ever criticizes the mother and doesn't offer either judgement on her or reinforcement of his son's complaints (since we simply do not know the truth or the situation). He listens and tries to offer sound advice, but nothing more. I was unclear if the son was trying to solicit an invite to live here, but we didn't make one because we have NO idea what the situation is there and don't want to interfere with the BM parenting.

I feel he needs to firmly address these issues with him son and have a frank discussion with him about honesty. I feel its time for him to stop trying to be his son's friend and to start being his father. I think he needs to find a way to get in touch with BM even if he has to drive to her house to discuss things. (According to the son, BM, BTW, was very opposed to him seeing his father).
I've told him that I feel he needs to stop chasing this kid around every weekend, and if he isn't here when he says he'll be here, that we should go out for the day and let him spend his time sitting in the driveway waiting on US. Perhaps then he'll see there are consequences to his behavior. I really don't know what else to do. I feel if my fiance doesn't address the issue, then *I* am going to have to and I am really tired of being the bad guy (which is the role I get stuck with in terms of the younger son as well). I have no desire to alienate this boy either, but enough is enough.

Does anyone have any advice on the best way to handle this? Its really becoming a significant issue here and I dread the weekends and the inevitable aggravation of "will he or won't he", on top of putting up with an impolite virtual stranger in my house. We don't want to drive him away, but we don't want to allow this behavior to continue either. I am tired of debating this with my fiance (he agrees with me, incidentally, and promises to address things but never does so in a way that makes it clear that the behavior is unacceptable.)
If someone has advice, I'd be grateful.