Problem son (sorry long)

choille

As I look back I realise he is lovely to me when he is in crisis , very appreciative when I help him out. He did apologise for the things that happened over Christmas but only to me (states will not apologise to my partner , but he has been very quick to turn when I wouldnt let him come here.
I was having counselling via work , but I stopped it after 3 sessions as things had gone quiet and I felt like I was covering the same ground , I also used to get very upset during the sessions and was unsure at the time if they were helping. I think maybe I should resume them as maybe they had helped.


Hiya Karen,

Your son is pretty manipulative - he manages to get what he needs. He knows what strings to pull - he will get by.

You say it doesn't feel right to sell your house while all this is going on. Thing is there is always stuff going on - life is that way. It depends what you want to do.
I think you have to decide what is best for you. It does seem as if you really care about what others think of what you do or what you don't re your son. You need to get to a place 'emotionally' where you feel that you are acting for you - you are actually driving the car - so to speak.
Your son is starting out & he will survive whether you are there to buy him food for the puppy & bail him out - he will survive.
You are now needing to look at you & what you need - look at you as a person not as someone who needs to be needed, but someone who has choices to make regarding YOUR life - where you live it & with whom.

You have done what you can for your son & now it is time for you & if that scares you you have to ask why & feel the fear in any case.

All the best
Excuse the ramble.


My house still hasnt sold , I am thinking of renting it out instead , but it seems wrong to move while this is still all ongoing (even though I dont feel he can be here) and he still doesnt feel that having to be physically pulled off my partner was unacceptable.

Not sure why I have posted all this and I am sure some people will disagree with how I have handled things , maybe I do too. I just needed to get it all out really.

samandona

Karen. Fang can be abit of an !!!!!! so dont take his words to heart ^^.

Fang_3

karen310 wrote: »

Thanks for replying , you ask how long his problems have been going on , he has always been a "handful" , even at primary school , cheekiness , etc and always denying things even when there could be no doubt he had done things.
Even while we were still a "happy family unit" he was helping himself to things from the other kids rooms , often hard to prove as I said in my first post .
He had various "mentors" when at high school for behavioural issues.
I didnt mean to compare him to my other kids when I say they all went through the same things , obviously they were at different ages , but if anything I think he had more input and support , he was the only one still at home for a long time and had time , attention ,holidays and things that the others didnt , I feel that often we had a good rapport , and I have been the first to sing his praises in the past and praised him often to his face obviously he also had his share of tellings off too due to things that went on.

My "skint single mum daughter " actually cut the whole family out of her life for 4 years when she took up with the father of her child so she recieved no support that he could feel was unfair. That is resolved now and would have been an entire thread of its own . We have returned to the good relationship we had (probably better if anything) she continues to have no contact with her father and I respect her decision , she is now doing a degree (hence being skint at the moment) and hopefully making good choices now , I hope he sees her as a good example but I hope I have never compared any of my kids to each other and even during the worst of times with him I have spoken of him with affection to other people , he has many really great qualities that I hope will shine through again one day.
I am sure he does feel I have abandoned him , but unconditional love is a hard one. I do love him and have told him so , but I have also told him I dont love some of his behaviour.
I dont want to sound like I am being defensive here as I have obviously made mistakes that obviously I dont see.
When you say I am enabling him now and not helping him , do you feel I shouldnt have helped him out ?
Its so hard to judge what to do when your heart says one thing and your head doesnt always agree

The thing that jumped out for me there was that he was the only one at home at the time, so he dealt with it all. Much more so than your other children. Obviously that didn't start anything, but it can't have been easy for him.

I don't think, after all he'd done, that you should've helped him out after he was 18. In fact I think you should have placed conditions on his living with you, and I think your 'helping' him now by volunteering to buy him things is not helping. But you know that, and you also know that it's going to be your fault the next time he asks for money from you. You can't on the one hand say no, and then on the other offer to buy him things, it's not consistent.

It's not easy but you need to be consistent and not allow him to take advantage from you, but I think to really help him, you need to find out why he is like this. I don't believe that anyone in innately 'bad' and if this started as a child, then start there. Try having counselling with him, but don't give him money or buy him things because you have to build a new relationship not based on those things.

Basically, you need expert advice, and no one here can give you that, but this place will probably give you a place to vent and get many different opinions on your situation. But please do seek professional help, for you so you can better deal with your son, and for him, so he can be better.

Fang_3

samandona wrote: »

Karen. Fang can be abit of an !!!!!! so dont take his words to heart ^^.

I'm thrilled that I have made such an impression on you though. Such kinds words.

samandona

Fang wrote: »

I'm thrilled that I have made such an impression on you though. Such kinds words.

Oh cmon, it was only abit of banter. Besides, its true :rotfl:

Fang_3

samandona wrote: »

Oh cmon, it was only abit of banter. Besides, its true :rotfl:

Bless. Can't quite grasp sarcasm, can we?;)

samandona

Fang wrote: »

Bless. Can't quite grasp sarcasm, can we?;)

And there was me thinking I had upset you! Damn, now I feel a fool.

paddy's_mum

I'm afraid I have to disagree very strongly with the view that says nobody is "innately bad". There are, sadly, many people on this earth who are and prisons across the world are full of them.

Steel_2

For me, the test of whether someone has any money is whether they are smoking and/or drinking? When your son is claiming poverty, is he doing so with a stash of fags and booze on him?

You are right about him being appreciative when you help him out. He's training you. If he's only nice to you when he wants someone and horrid the rest, sooner or later you'll start doing things for him so you get your nice boy appreciative boy.

Well done for refusing to have him back home. Do not bail him out any more. You only have his word for that story about someone coming to get you if he didn't leave. Quite frankly, he could have concocted a fairy story to get you to help him. He has done that before with his 'job', getting you to lend him money for work and then finding out he didn't have one any more at the time.

The only way he will make better decisions about his life is if he has to live with the consequences of his bad decisions.

eco

Thought I'd add my two penneth, my brother treated my mum in just the same way, he always needed money and said he'd pay it back, and never did, well it wasn't hi fault he'd run out was it? he worked full time would give my mum board then borrow it back by Sunday, he eventually left when he was 19, but was always buying things from catalogues and my mum would end up paying it back cos he didn't have the money. Nothing was his fault either.

Me and my Sisters weren't allowed to treat my mum like this, think she'd well and truly had enough of that kind of behaviour. It was only after she'd bailed him out cos he hadn't paid his CT and he was going to court I told her if she gave him another penny I'd take her bank stuff off her and she'd get spend. It didn't matter how many times we told her he'd be back for more she'd insist it was the last time.

In a way my mum was lucky when she became ill with cancer my brother doesn't like been around people who are ill,(he lived about 2 miles away) she hardly saw him, he rarely rang her to ask how she was, and when she did die he thought he was going to be the executor of the will, which came as a bit of a shock when he found out it was me and my sis, he'd promised to help sort stuff out but as soon as that bomb shell was dropped we didn't see him either.

Over the years we told her to stop baling him out, as it should make him stand on his own 2 feet instead of constantly propping himself up on someone else, but she was too soft. Mum died 8 years ago and he has had to look after himself it's come years too late tho every now and then he tries the tales on me and my sis and while we'll help if we can we don't give him money. By making your son act like an adult now could save you years of pain, wish my mum had done it.