LizzyTishy
New Member
I'm really in a quandary with blended family problems. My husband's son, difficult child#2, causes such anxiety and stress when he is here on the weekends that I basically don't want him here at all anymore. I run a homeless shelter and believe me Ive got enough stress already. I need serious downtime on the weekends to get ready for the next workweek but our visitation schedule changed a couple months ago because bio-mom says she cant take it anymore. So now she makes him come over here every weekend instead of letting him come every other. Notice the verb usage because ironically, for years she has never missed an opportunity to tell her children what a horrible father they have and refused to give access in violation of the court-order. Now that difficult child 2 has hit the Terrible Twos again at 15 (only this time with a raging drug and behavior problem) she cant wait to push him out the door on Friday. Im not feeling really charitable in helping her out because she still is basically telling her boys that if she had any other choice she wouldnt let dad see them but to save her own sanity she sends them our way. As you might imagine, we dont get a whole lot of cooperation from them in terms of respect for our own house rules because of the message they get on a daily basis from bio-mom that their dad is not to be respected. Where all her venom comes from I dont know. My husband paid more in child support for his children than I brought home from my FT job, without fail every week, called his children every single night, begged to have them come over each week when they were younger (and good gosh, he only lived 6 blocks away from biomom) but she is like a junkyard dog on this divorce and it hasnt really changed much in the 7 years theyve been separated. She has a lot of family MI and dual diagnosis history; her sister died of a drug overdose in her 40s, her mother has been inpatient on many, many occasions for mania and her brother has been unemployed most of his life and still lives at home at 50-something. Anyway
..it is just one thing after another with difficult child 2.
My easy child 2 doesn't like difficult child 2 because he breaks every single rule of our house every time he is here (stays up after curfew bedtime, smokes on the back porch, speaks disrespectfully when he's not yelling vulgarly, stole money from my PC2s wallet, stole liquor from our cabinet, offered my easy child cigarettes in an attempt to gain complicity and my easy child 1 can't stand him because he has become somewhat of a social outcast at school (due to weirdness) and she doesnt want to be associated with him. They are in the same grade. He begs to go along with her when she goes out with friends because all of his have abandoned him due to his narcissism, grandiose entitlement issues, mood swings, lack of social skills (standing too close, talking all the time in a stream of consciousness way) and generally poor disposition. She told me one time that, After I leave he'll text whoever I'm with to ask if they'll come back and get him and he'll pay for gas or try to give them cigarettes as a bribe. She's like, "He is so embarrassing, plus he always talks about inappropriate stuff and puts us at risk because he tries to steal stuff or smoke when were out.
Long story short-this all came to a head one year ago when difficult child 2 posted extremely threatening stuff about schoolmates on his MySpace. Of course, someone immediately turned him in to police and school officials were called in. He was expelled even though he felt justified in threatening to kill students who made fun of him because he is gay. We had never heard one word about any bullying at school before this. So, schools being what they are, I was very sympathetic to the bullying issues (but not of course to the death threat method of handling them!) and my husband and I were very vocal in our complaints about what we discovered was rampant homophobia that was very rarely dealt with by the school (and like so many of you have said here, we couldnt even get info on whether the perpetrators were even reprimanded after we turned in Myspace blogs that identified the culprits). Since then it has been a down-hill slide.
My difficult child 2 step-son started (or more likely, continued) drugs, smoking weed and cigs, drinking Robitussin, and cutting himself whenever he didnt get his way. He has been in inpatient 3 times this year for the suicide threats but really, I think they are more "I'll fix you, you horrible people" and related to him being told no and he just literally loses it. After one particularly violent episode here (over not being able to go practice driving-because it was night and he only had his permit for like 2 weeks and because of medications he should never, ever drive, trust me Ive been in the car with him and asked to walk home) husband had to physically subdue him and this was an out and out freak show with even his toes literally going around in circles he was so out of control. difficult child kept yelling that he was going to call DCFS on husband who was sitting on top of him to stop him (broken stuff everywhere). husband ended up calling the cops himself.
Now tonight I find his seroquel tablet on the floor on the LR-which reminded me that I found a lexapro in the basement rec room last week, and another lexapro on the attic stairs the week before. Also last week, while husband and I were at difficult child 3s chorus concert in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, my easy child 2 told me when we got home that difficult child 2 had gotten a bottle out of the liquor cabinet and sat down next to him to watch TV and drink from it. This is also a month after he stole money from my PC2s wallet (with difficult child 2s friend watching who actually told my daughter what her stepbrother had done he thought it was so low). easy child 2 says, Cant you just not let him come here anymore? And what with difficult child 1 just having lost his license until hes 21 for three alcohol-related citations in 6 months, and difficult child 3 flunking three classes in Junior High in addition to being a chronic truant, I am about at the end of my step-mom rope. And they are only here 2 days a week! HELP!
My easy child 2 doesn't like difficult child 2 because he breaks every single rule of our house every time he is here (stays up after curfew bedtime, smokes on the back porch, speaks disrespectfully when he's not yelling vulgarly, stole money from my PC2s wallet, stole liquor from our cabinet, offered my easy child cigarettes in an attempt to gain complicity and my easy child 1 can't stand him because he has become somewhat of a social outcast at school (due to weirdness) and she doesnt want to be associated with him. They are in the same grade. He begs to go along with her when she goes out with friends because all of his have abandoned him due to his narcissism, grandiose entitlement issues, mood swings, lack of social skills (standing too close, talking all the time in a stream of consciousness way) and generally poor disposition. She told me one time that, After I leave he'll text whoever I'm with to ask if they'll come back and get him and he'll pay for gas or try to give them cigarettes as a bribe. She's like, "He is so embarrassing, plus he always talks about inappropriate stuff and puts us at risk because he tries to steal stuff or smoke when were out.
Long story short-this all came to a head one year ago when difficult child 2 posted extremely threatening stuff about schoolmates on his MySpace. Of course, someone immediately turned him in to police and school officials were called in. He was expelled even though he felt justified in threatening to kill students who made fun of him because he is gay. We had never heard one word about any bullying at school before this. So, schools being what they are, I was very sympathetic to the bullying issues (but not of course to the death threat method of handling them!) and my husband and I were very vocal in our complaints about what we discovered was rampant homophobia that was very rarely dealt with by the school (and like so many of you have said here, we couldnt even get info on whether the perpetrators were even reprimanded after we turned in Myspace blogs that identified the culprits). Since then it has been a down-hill slide.
My difficult child 2 step-son started (or more likely, continued) drugs, smoking weed and cigs, drinking Robitussin, and cutting himself whenever he didnt get his way. He has been in inpatient 3 times this year for the suicide threats but really, I think they are more "I'll fix you, you horrible people" and related to him being told no and he just literally loses it. After one particularly violent episode here (over not being able to go practice driving-because it was night and he only had his permit for like 2 weeks and because of medications he should never, ever drive, trust me Ive been in the car with him and asked to walk home) husband had to physically subdue him and this was an out and out freak show with even his toes literally going around in circles he was so out of control. difficult child kept yelling that he was going to call DCFS on husband who was sitting on top of him to stop him (broken stuff everywhere). husband ended up calling the cops himself.
Now tonight I find his seroquel tablet on the floor on the LR-which reminded me that I found a lexapro in the basement rec room last week, and another lexapro on the attic stairs the week before. Also last week, while husband and I were at difficult child 3s chorus concert in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, my easy child 2 told me when we got home that difficult child 2 had gotten a bottle out of the liquor cabinet and sat down next to him to watch TV and drink from it. This is also a month after he stole money from my PC2s wallet (with difficult child 2s friend watching who actually told my daughter what her stepbrother had done he thought it was so low). easy child 2 says, Cant you just not let him come here anymore? And what with difficult child 1 just having lost his license until hes 21 for three alcohol-related citations in 6 months, and difficult child 3 flunking three classes in Junior High in addition to being a chronic truant, I am about at the end of my step-mom rope. And they are only here 2 days a week! HELP!
