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<p>That is tough {{{hugs}}}</p>
<p>OP- you said you cannot afford to send DH to check out the boy, well, perhaps you cannot afford not to do that…and if that means no $$ for the rent & classes, so be it.</p>
<p>The more I read the more I think the answer is no money at all, not when it was given for rent all summer and did not go there. That is lying & cheating you. You should make it clear you are done financially, that was his last chance.</p>
<p>You can make the offer that he can come home to your home for free to regroup IFIFIF he obeys all your house rules. If he wants to do his own thing, then so be it. From what you have written he sounds like he is not in any position to be in school.</p>
<p>Also, if your DH does go visit, suggest he be the bad guy and buy a drug store drug screen test. If it is negative for things that stay in the system, then you’ve got good news; if it is positive, then you waste no more money and change the focus of your efforts.</p>
<p>I have known parents of kids thought to be doing drugs to have both positive and negative results and act accordingly thereafter.</p>
<p>IF he has a substance issue, being there in person may be the only way to intervene, but I would also suggest talking with some narcanon or alanon help ahead of time to prepare your DH for what he might find and how to best react</p>
<p>Vderon, best of luck to you and your family. It sounds like your DH is going to be more on the same page as you are now. That is so important. I hope that DH’s ex will also be on that page. Best of luck to your stepson too. </p>
<p>I hope that I was not too hard on you with my comments. I was trying to help you to see that offering money and giving a young person what they want is not always the way to help a son or daughter. I know that you are caught in the middle of this mess. Again, best of luck! Keep us posted on ss’s progress. It is could be a tough road for him.</p>
<p>My father displayed the same types of behavior as your son. If he was stressed, if my mother ever started criticizing him, or if things were looking down, his anger problems would well up. Basically the least bit of confrontation would set him off, he would start screaming and breaking things. He did this throughout my childhood.</p>
<p>Well, about six years ago he lost his job, my mother divorced him, and my dad’s debts piled up. He had taken out a bunch of loans to do very impulsive things- like buying a new car to move down to CA to work with his brother. Paying six months rent there, leaving in the middle and coming back to VA, going back again, buying a trailer there, and leaving it there and coming back again. </p>
<p>He went really downhill. He tried to straighten out, but his anger problems were terrible. He bought a new house and got a new job, but ended up breaking most of his stuff and quitting his job.</p>
<p>About a year ago, he attempted suicide twice, and ended up in a mental hospital. There he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and severe anger issues. He also had substance abuse problems, a common side effect of personality disorder. This may or may not be what your son has, but it seems like they act very similarly. You should look it up.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is, my dad just got better in this past year. And it wasn’t because he went to therapy, because he never did and couldn’t afford to. He also never got meds or anything like that. The reason why he got better is he hit rock bottom. Absolute rock bottom. When you have nothing left to lose, you have everything to gain. He re-evaluated his life, admitted his issues, and decided to just build from the ground up. </p>
<p>I urge you to cut your son off completely. Not to give in, at all. I would also recommend therapy.</p>
<p>My dad said most of his life was wasted because of his anger. He could never appreciate what he had, until he lost it all. We always gave into my dad. His family would help him out and give him money. My mother stayed with him throughtout his terrible behavior. If he had been cut off earlier, he wouldn’t have wasted this much of his life. Why get better if you can take the easier route and just have people help you out?</p>
<p>Know you’re not alone. People of mental disorders and addicts hurt those that love them just as much as they hurt themselves. And they will use those people. Know that they are not who they really are, and one day down the road they will realize what they’ve done and everything you did for them. Sometimes it’s a very long road, though. </p>
<p>Best of luck</p>
<p>I wish you the best of luck – situations like those are very difficult but I think there is a lot of good advice in this thread.</p>
<p>Nothing to add, but hugs.</p>
<p>V, sorry you are going through this. I do think he is still playing your, and your comment that “we need to figure out the rest”, and another post where you are looking into food stamps for him indicates that you are still trying to fix this for him. You and DH really need to step away. He is a 23 year old grown man. He is not without any social support (he still has the gf, right?). Every time you step in he WILL take advantage of you. It is not good for you or for him to continue to do so.</p>
<p>I do think that any suicidal threats should be met with an immediate call to the police.</p>
<p>((((hugs))))</p>
<p>I am so sorry you and your family are going through all this. It sad, and heartbreaking. It seems like your DSS23 has made his decisions. It’s time for him to face the consequences. Easier said then done.</p>
<p>I’d find out about Al-Anon meetings in your area, or a good family counselor for you and DH. You need help in managing your response to DSS23’s behavior. The next thing to figure out is how you and your DH go on from here–not how to change DSS23–you can’t change him until he wants to change, and it doesn’t sound like he wants to change.</p>
<p>Remember, you and your DH aren’t cutting him off, you are allowing him to deal with the consequences of his behavior. If he calls with threats of violence to himself or others call the police.</p>
<p>I do think that any suicidal threats should be met with an immediate call to the police.</p>
<p>The police can’t/won’t do anything unless those threats are extended to harm children/others.
I know from first hand experience.</p>
<p>nattilee- they do sound similair. I have been researching his behavior, and no matter what, he could use some help. The college mental health center will do an outreach and call him, but that is all they can do unless he says something threatening on the phone.</p>
<p>Where we are at right now is that he will not be attending school for sure. He did not petition the dean, and we are going to leave that alone.</p>
<p>He still has not talked to DH, but he did answer a couple of e-mails that DH sent him. He wants to leave the area. DH told him he could not skip out on the lease. Dh offered to pay one month of the back rent, but told him that he and the girlfriend would have to find a way to pay the rest. He answered that “if DH wasn’t going to pay all of it, thanks but no thanks, because they will get evicted anyway.” </p>
<p>DH talked to the girlfriend, who thanked him profusely for offering to pay one months rent, said she could come up with the other month, and has already called the landlord to work out terms on the deposit.</p>
<p>She also bullied DSS23 into applying for a job yesterday. She told him about a new store opening that was advertising for workers, and he said “he didn’t feel like going”. She told him that she feels like eating, so he needed to go.</p>
<p>Not sure what is coming next, and DH is waffling about further financial help. I strongly think we need to cut him off to force him to get a job, but DH is worried that even if he gets one, he won’t get money in time to pay next months rent.</p>
<p>I told DH that if he insists on helping them, no money to DSS23 directly. Any money needs to go to the landlord. DH agreed, but we aren’t done talking about this. I know that sending more money is the wrong strategy.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your support and suggestions. I would be taking more of your advice if he were my biological son, but since he isn’t, I have to tread carefully here.</p>
<p>best of luck Vderon … you have a ton of cyber friends pulling for you!</p>
<p>Vderon, good luck with this!</p>
<p>vderon, I was thinking more about your situation. If your DH really wants to pay back rent and if he decides to provide further financial help, then perhaps the money should be used as bargaining chip for your DH and for you to get SS moving in a better direction. Perhaps you should sit down (with or without a counselor, depending upon what you decide you need to do) and come up with a contract that ss has to abide by and if he breaks it, the bank account of Mr. and Mrs. vderon closes down. This can only really work if you have the funds for ss. If you are denying necessary resources for your other children because ss is depleting too much of your resources, then you and DH really need to reaccess what is and what is not possible. SS needs to learn that there is not a bottomless pit of money available and that he is one person within a family (all of which have needs too). He needs to see how much you have spent on him to this point. He can create that list for you, or if he won’t, DH can present it to him in black and white.</p>
<p>Another point, if your DH just pays the landlord what has SS learned? Perhaps that dad will always come to the rescue when son steals (yes, steals) dad’s money? I think that ss needs to change his attitude from anger to real remorse. Good luck with getting ss to see what he has done and to appreciate you and his father.</p>
<p>“Another point, if your DH just pays the landlord what has SS learned? Perhaps that dad will always come to the rescue when son steals (yes, steals) dad’s money?”</p>
<p>Exactly . I am trying hard to get DH to realize that this is emotional blackmail. It’s a pattern that we have seen over and over. DSS23 gets in trouble. His dad calls him on it. DSS23 cuts off contact with DH, and DH gets more and more upset. By the time DSS23 is ready to talk to dad again, dad is ready to give him whatever he wants, because he is just so relieved. DH is terrified that DSS23 will take off and never talk to him again. DSS23 barely talks to his mom, so DH knows it could happen.</p>
<p>When I tried to talk to DH about this, his says there is no way I could understand. He says my girls are so much more responsible than his kids, and they would never threaten to cut me out of their lives, so I can’t possibly say what I would do in this situation.</p>
<p>He is right, I guess. I can’t say what I would do if one of my girls got into this much financial trouble. But my girls don’t have a pattern of screwing up and then hitting us up for money, and DSS23 does.</p>
<p>We have to stop. All of the stuff that we are paying for, for all of our kids, is killing us, but DSS23 is by far the biggest offernder, the least grateful, and the most likely to hit us up for money the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Vderon, assume for the moment that your ss is ill until proven otherwise. I suppose that your DH needs to figure out if his son has either some kind of mental illness like being bipolar, or is ill with a type of addiction. Either way, your daughters don’t seem to have the same problems, so it is unfair to compare your kids IMO. Your husband’s heart is in the right place, but it seems like he is over his head because he does not have the skills necessary to deal with whatever his son’s problems might be. Perhaps as a place to start to help ss, in return for the month of back rent, ss has to agree to be tested for drugs and alcohol and be seen by a mental health professional AND has to sign a release so that dad can speak to all health professionals and be told if there is a diagnosis and how to proceed.</p>
<p>northeast mom, that is brilliant. I don’t think DSS23 will go for it, since he has already told his dad “no thanks” to paying one month of the back rent, but I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out how to get him to a mental health clinic. Maybe this is the way…</p>
<p>Well, DH has to be convinced first that SS will not harm anyone or himself. Then if ss says no, he needs a job or his GF to carry him, or they are evicted? Does he have other options to tap? What if he is evicted, how does that effect him and you? Dad can make it clear if he agrees that ss cannot move home and the natural consequence of not paying rent is eviction. Then dad can tell him that he is 23, an adult, and he has to pay the adult consequences for his choices. Your DH could probably use a therapist to support him through this hellish situation!</p>
<p>I was thinking, it sounds to me like your ss is not saying, “no thanks”, but rather that one month just is not good enough because it does not give me what I want (I will still be kicked out of my apartment)! Reading between the lines, I think he is being bold enough to insinuate that he needs dad to step it up and take care of ALL of the rent problems, and it sounds like he has no intention of lifting a finger to contribute to the rent either! It sounds to me like he has the same attitude with his GF. I hope that she doesn’t carry him while he does not work.</p>
<p>I have not read the thread but I am starting to see some similarities in threads where family financial issues are taking a toll on the health and relationships of family members. We have all heard that money does not guarentee happiness but a lack of it is really posing problems for so many families in this economy. The tensions are running deep and when people are so worried about how things will get paid it starts to drag up the nagging questions of what are you doing with your money and are you taking full advantage of the opportunities that you have had. </p>
<p>I hope that many parents reading these types of threads (problems with the kids) that they can see that much of the trouble seems to also involve financial issues. I hope as the knew freshman head off to college parents will have already set up some type of budget with their kids so tension later might be avoided.</p>
<p>Yes, you may not “understand” the way your dh does, but that’s because you’ve raised your girls with better boundaries. Dh needs to understand his role in his son’s continued bad behavior. As my friend, a therapist, says, “They don’t lick this stuff up off the floor.” I think counseling for your dh is in order.</p>