I am at the end of my tether

Horasio

Thank you

I have found out that if we cancel the contract, our son will be pleased, as he wants to get a better phone. We will be stuck with the charges if we cancel too.

So cancelling it would be like rewarding him and I don't think even he would that stupid to let this happen again.

I can't win whatever I do:(

Tulip

*hugs* to you CCstar,your OH,Your Mum

Katie x

lolababy

Throw him into the big bad world. He is an adult and will act as one if you stop being his safety net .

BitterAndTwisted

CCStar wrote: »

Thank you

I have found out that if we cancel the contract, our son will be pleased, as he wants to get a better phone. We will be stuck with the charges if we cancel too. Yes, but the better phone will be at his own expense rather than yours. I suspected you'd be stuck with the charges for the remainder of the contract but what you want is to be stuck with the bare minimum, like the line-rental not all his calls on top. You could be ruthless and report the phone as lost or stolen, wouldn't that render the SIM useless? It's time to get TOUGH

So cancelling it would be like rewarding him and I don't think even he would be that stupid to let this happen again.

I can't win whatever I do:(

You can, but you've only just lost this first round. Once he's trashed the old flat and the landlord is going apesh1t, I daresay he'l be running round trying to get someone else to carry the can and if you've got any sense this time it will not be you.

Tough love and a united front is the only answer.

Horasio

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Good Lord! You can't be expected to raise your son properly if other members of the family are undermining you all the time. I suspect this might be at the root of the damned problem.

What I think you need to do is have a quiet family conference with your OH and your mother when you are feeling your calmest, explain that you understand quite well that what they have been doing in the past has been from good intentions but that this has obviously failed and you think it's time it all stopped. No amount of making excuses for him and bailing him out is going to help your son grow to be an autonomous and responsible adult, only facing up to his responsibilities personally will achieve this. Not helping him do this will be a terrible disservice in the long-term. It appears that he's been getting mixed messages for rather a long time and that's really, really not helpful

I honestly feel that you if you can't achieve a united front on the way forward your son is doomed to remain in his current infantile state.

Poor you!

Yes, for the first 5 years, my mother undermined us.

We moved 350 miles away when he was 5 and it was difficult.

At primary school, he was hyper. He wasn't aggressive but ultra hyper, unless he was interested and challenged well. We had to deal with really nasty teachers, which put us in a terrible dilemma, we wanted to co-operate but WE were being villified and put down, so put us on the defensive, so had we been approached in a decent manner, then we could have worked together to help with the behaviour.

We are decent caring people but feel teachers have more experience and training to deal with children, so being blamed in such a nasty way for his behaviour in THEIR class was difficult to deal with. We felt a lack of support from them at this stage, at a time we really needed help. He was better behaved for the nicer teachers, so wondered who was at fault, so we were inclined to support our son over the nastier teachers.

We tried to get support from people about how to deal with his hyper behaviour but to no avail. Decent affordable childminding in those days was like hen's teeth, so mum was the only alternative to give us a break!

In senior school, he changed completely. He flourished and did well in his Standards and Highers.

When he started uni, he did well for the first two years, then the third year was a waste of time, he didn't go in and he kept going out till all hours and disturbing us when my OH had to get up early for work. It caused massive rows between my OH and I, instead of dealing with our son.

We paid his allowance during this time and felt cheated when we found out he wasn't going to uni.

He then left home and we stopped supporting him financially. He got himself a cat and now we are looking after him. He allowed the cat to get infested with fleas in his current house, so had to get the cat defleaed and the house needs spraying.

We both needed leave our homes and a large house came up for rent, so we all moved in and he started to be better behaved again.

He got a job and a house nearer to the job and we all moved out due to our lease expiring.

A year later, he has been evicted due to disturbing his neighbours. My mother and I do NOT want him living with either of us and his behaviour has been deteriorating for the past 5 months. The state of the house is appalling and would not blame the owners for keeping ALL the deposit.

My mother felt bad she couldn't help me when I was younger, so helped him by paying the deposit and the rent up front, for him to pay us back. He paid all but two months rent to us but it wasn't easy getting him to pay us back.

She bought him a car one on his 18 and one on his 21st birthday, he hasn't looked after them that well. She has also bought us a car as well.

When she found out about the party, she was disgusted and is putting her foot down now. He accused my OH of being threatening when telling him about the bill and is being beligerent about his mistakes.

Now we are waiting for the contract to finish, getting him to pay us back for the bill and we will NOT be having any more financial contact with him.

I think finally, my family are seeing the light but a lot of damage has been done in the last 4 years.

ali-t

Just goes to show that the skills required to be good at school are entirely different to the ones needed to make a go of life! I agree with the others who have said to start treating him like an adult i.e. cancel the phone or get the simcard blocked. If it is you who has paid the contract and it is insured get the replacement phone but don't give it to him.

I truly believe that we rarely learn from other people's mistakes and have to make our own. If people keep bailing him out he is not learning from his mistakes as your family are misguidedly (sp?) rescuing him.

If he has low confidence and is behaving immaturely because he doesn't know how to function in the adult world then he needs to set himself small goals e.g. budgeting, working, getting on with family and when he makes progress with them his confidence and self belief will improve.

At the moment he sounds like a spoilt brat who is living the party lifestyle at other people's expense. I can't believe he isn't going to his (step) grandads funeral as he is tidying his house. One day he will hopefully realise that the world doesn't revolve around him.

tough love is the way forward and reward him (not necessarily with money but with time/affection etc) when he does something worth rewarding.

mdhughes03

CCStar I think you've found the root of your son's problems:

While you may have tried to be tough with him, your OH and Mother undermining this effort has sent him this very clear message: I can do whatever I want, it doesn't matter if someone criticises me as there will always be someone there to back me up. The people who criticise me therefore seem to be wrong as they have no back-up therefore they are just being hurtful with their words and I should ignore their instructions and lash out at them.

This would explain his problem with his boss and all who criticise him, and authority/rules in general.

It would be good if you, as a family, could teach him the valuable lesson that life is tough and he needs to stand on his own two feet, accept that sometimes he is wrong, and that actions have consequences.

Good luck, I hope you all do well.

Horasio

You are both right and knew what the problem was but dealing with two other people who are meant to be supportive, and not, has been virtually impossible to implement.

How can I cope with being undermined at the same time with no other support?

With the death of my stepdad, my mother's income has plummetted. She didn't realise how dreadful he was in Scotland and now getting impact of it now. It is my mother's wishes for him to not attend the funeral as he needs the time to clean the house plus it is a punishment/exclusion for being so heartless at such as stressful time.

The work situation. His immediate boss isn't good but the other workmates are much better but he does work long hours for no extra pay which is quite low, because he has no degree and lacked the relevant experience, but he is lucky to have a job in this climate. We have advised him on how to deal with it and my OH has offered to help him with further education but our son has had a year to get on track and failed.

He says to us, 'you don't believe in me'. We have given him time to get us to 'believe in him' by getting on track by staying home more often, getting more qualified and managing his money. His teeth are disgusting as well. Had he done the right thing, he would have been able to stay in his house and be doing really well now.

He found a job he could apply for in another town but doesn't want to leave his dosser mates.

He has a huge overdraft as well and is not saving for his car insurance.

I'm ashamed to say, our son is currently a loser and heading for a huge fall.:(

BitterAndTwisted

I completely understand about the things you have described about the past but that's what they are, in the past.

You need to concentrate on the present, as a family, united and in total agreement about how you move forward together. Just try to remember that if you don't help your son he won't be able to cope and that's not what successful parenting is supposed to be. It won't be any fun but it is absolutely necessary, for his own well-being as well as your sanity

Horasio

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I completely understand about the things you have described about the past but that's what they are, in the past.

You need to concentrate on the present, as a family, united and in total agreement about how you move forward together. Just try to remember that if you don't help your son he won't be able to cope and that's not what successful parenting is supposed to be. It won't be any fun but it is absolutely necessary, for his own well-being as well as your sanity

You are right

Can you suggest how this can be done, given the other members of my family being so inconsistent?