Origami
Active Member
I figure it's time to introduce myself since I've been reading the forums for over a year now. I have two difficult child sons at home, and they seem to take turns being the center of attention. They are 10 years apart at ages 27 and 17. Two other sons are successfully out of the home, and easy child daughter is in college locally and living in the dorm.
There are several things going on that are troubling, and I feel like I'm losing sight of what's normal or what I should be doing. Right now, we're not in crisis mode, although the police have been at our house twice in the last few months to break up fights between these two. I could elaborate on that but it would take a while. During the first fight, difficult child 27 smashed GFG17s television and gaming system. They were both being jerks, but I felt like 27 escalated it more than necessary.
Also, during the last fight about 2 weeks ago, my daughter's laptop was "lost" in the scuffle and hasn't been seen since then. difficult child 27 said he gave it to my husband so it wouldn't get broken, but my husband did not have it, I'm sure of that. There's no way he would have hidden it that well without either giving it to me or telling me about it. husband said he saw daughter in law hand the computer to difficult child 27. So I'm fairly certain one or both of them either have the computer or have sold it, although they both claim innocence and have been helping us look for it (supposedly). Despite difficult child 17s faults (again, too numerous for one posting), he's a pretty honest person and said he never had the laptop. My daughter believes him, too. So somebody is lying in this scenario. We live on the third floor of a walkup apartment building, and nobody else has been in our apartment or even walks by the front or back doors.
(taking a breath now)--
I guess the thing that keeps me up most at night now is that I feel like my older difficult child son, his estranged wife, and the two grandkids have now set up permanent residence in our apartment. On the one hand, I resent the loss of privacy and the fact that they just assumed it was OK to move in, and I really didn't want to be taking care of a whole family including young children again. On the other hand, I realize our daughter in law had the rug pulled from underneath her when difficult child got fired, as he was the main breadwinner of their family. I worry about the grandchildren and hate to see them shuffled about from house to house. In general, difficult child and daughter in law are not that bad to live with between fistfights, and do some household chores and cooking, etc. This makes the whole thing more cloudy in my mind, as I'm not even sure if I should be complaining. My husband says we don't have a choice and we need to keep helping them until they get back on their feet.
difficult child age 27 moved in with us last November after a frantic call from his wife to us in the early morning. She said she had found out he was using heroin and she couldn't take it anymore and we needed to come and get him. They've been married for about 7 years and have two small children. He was still using, although we didn't know the signs at the time (we do now) and thought he had quit. By April, he had been fired from the job he had for three years where he earned a decent salary. Although he blames a hotheaded client, I found paperwork in his room later showing he had been disciplined over a period of months for coming in late, not doing projects on time, etc. He had been given several chances. He's been fired from numerous jobs including the military, but that's another long story.
Within a week of getting fired, he got arrested for possession of heroin. Two days after the arrest, I got a call at work from the sheriff's office asking if he could be released to us for house arrest. Without thinking, I said "yes," as it just seemed like the natural response. Well, who know that house arrest could last so long? The incident happened on April 3, and his court date has been continued three times now with no action. The next date is Sept. 17.
At each court date he has told the judge he has no job and no income and would like a public defender, and he said the judge questions him about how much he earned at his last job, how much he got in his income tax refund, etc. and just continues the court date.
During this whole time, he has been babysitting his children while his estranged wife works. At first it was two or three days a week, but now the wife and kids have moved in and are with us all the time. I still don't quite know how we let this happen, but here we are. They inhabit the middle bedroom that was my daughter's who is in the dorm at college. She had to sleep on an inflatable mattress in our living room all summer until school started again.
My daughter-in-law had been living with her sister until two weeks ago, when they had some kind of argument. The sister and her husband are moving out of state in a month, so daughter in law needed somewhere to live anyway. She told us that nobody in her family was in a position to help, and just started bringing boxes of clothes over without really asking us. She has six or seven siblings plus her parents and stepparents.
Since then she has brought over the kids' bunk beds, and they are camped out in that bedroom. They've also taken over half of the living room with enough toys to start a day-care center. The kids are starting preschool and kindergarten at our neighborhood school next week.
I also found out that daughter in law and difficult child have been smoking weed on our back porch although they both know I'm against it. difficult child is pretty adamant that there is nothing wrong with it, and he may be right, but I still don't like having illegal substances on my premises. Our downstairs neighbors already hate us for the noise we make between kids running around and police calls, and wouldn't hesitate to call the police if they smelled pot.
I don't know where I'm going with this long message, but really just wanted to vent and maybe get some feedback from those who've dealt with these kinds of things.
There are several things going on that are troubling, and I feel like I'm losing sight of what's normal or what I should be doing. Right now, we're not in crisis mode, although the police have been at our house twice in the last few months to break up fights between these two. I could elaborate on that but it would take a while. During the first fight, difficult child 27 smashed GFG17s television and gaming system. They were both being jerks, but I felt like 27 escalated it more than necessary.
Also, during the last fight about 2 weeks ago, my daughter's laptop was "lost" in the scuffle and hasn't been seen since then. difficult child 27 said he gave it to my husband so it wouldn't get broken, but my husband did not have it, I'm sure of that. There's no way he would have hidden it that well without either giving it to me or telling me about it. husband said he saw daughter in law hand the computer to difficult child 27. So I'm fairly certain one or both of them either have the computer or have sold it, although they both claim innocence and have been helping us look for it (supposedly). Despite difficult child 17s faults (again, too numerous for one posting), he's a pretty honest person and said he never had the laptop. My daughter believes him, too. So somebody is lying in this scenario. We live on the third floor of a walkup apartment building, and nobody else has been in our apartment or even walks by the front or back doors.
(taking a breath now)--
I guess the thing that keeps me up most at night now is that I feel like my older difficult child son, his estranged wife, and the two grandkids have now set up permanent residence in our apartment. On the one hand, I resent the loss of privacy and the fact that they just assumed it was OK to move in, and I really didn't want to be taking care of a whole family including young children again. On the other hand, I realize our daughter in law had the rug pulled from underneath her when difficult child got fired, as he was the main breadwinner of their family. I worry about the grandchildren and hate to see them shuffled about from house to house. In general, difficult child and daughter in law are not that bad to live with between fistfights, and do some household chores and cooking, etc. This makes the whole thing more cloudy in my mind, as I'm not even sure if I should be complaining. My husband says we don't have a choice and we need to keep helping them until they get back on their feet.
difficult child age 27 moved in with us last November after a frantic call from his wife to us in the early morning. She said she had found out he was using heroin and she couldn't take it anymore and we needed to come and get him. They've been married for about 7 years and have two small children. He was still using, although we didn't know the signs at the time (we do now) and thought he had quit. By April, he had been fired from the job he had for three years where he earned a decent salary. Although he blames a hotheaded client, I found paperwork in his room later showing he had been disciplined over a period of months for coming in late, not doing projects on time, etc. He had been given several chances. He's been fired from numerous jobs including the military, but that's another long story.
Within a week of getting fired, he got arrested for possession of heroin. Two days after the arrest, I got a call at work from the sheriff's office asking if he could be released to us for house arrest. Without thinking, I said "yes," as it just seemed like the natural response. Well, who know that house arrest could last so long? The incident happened on April 3, and his court date has been continued three times now with no action. The next date is Sept. 17.
At each court date he has told the judge he has no job and no income and would like a public defender, and he said the judge questions him about how much he earned at his last job, how much he got in his income tax refund, etc. and just continues the court date.
During this whole time, he has been babysitting his children while his estranged wife works. At first it was two or three days a week, but now the wife and kids have moved in and are with us all the time. I still don't quite know how we let this happen, but here we are. They inhabit the middle bedroom that was my daughter's who is in the dorm at college. She had to sleep on an inflatable mattress in our living room all summer until school started again.
My daughter-in-law had been living with her sister until two weeks ago, when they had some kind of argument. The sister and her husband are moving out of state in a month, so daughter in law needed somewhere to live anyway. She told us that nobody in her family was in a position to help, and just started bringing boxes of clothes over without really asking us. She has six or seven siblings plus her parents and stepparents.
Since then she has brought over the kids' bunk beds, and they are camped out in that bedroom. They've also taken over half of the living room with enough toys to start a day-care center. The kids are starting preschool and kindergarten at our neighborhood school next week.
I also found out that daughter in law and difficult child have been smoking weed on our back porch although they both know I'm against it. difficult child is pretty adamant that there is nothing wrong with it, and he may be right, but I still don't like having illegal substances on my premises. Our downstairs neighbors already hate us for the noise we make between kids running around and police calls, and wouldn't hesitate to call the police if they smelled pot.
I don't know where I'm going with this long message, but really just wanted to vent and maybe get some feedback from those who've dealt with these kinds of things.
