wow. Isabelle, I feel for you. All the good advice has been given already. I wish your son could see how great he has it. A parent who wants him and loves him and worries for him. Bless you and I wish you strength in this.
Reading some of the other posts, I realize that I had it pretty good when I lived at home. It was expected that I pay for my own education. [Judging from the thread - doesn’t ANYONE do this anymore? Am I a fiend for expecting that my future kids will fend for themselves like I did? It’s only right that you follow house rules when the parent is paying your way through school. I’d have kissed feet, ass, anything, every waking moment if my parents were footing the bill.]
Sorry - So at 17 when I started college I was working and going to school. But I guess since I was paying for school, I was not asked to contribute monetarily. The usual chores were still required of me. After I finished and got a degree-related job, I still was not expected to contribute any money. I did insist on buying my own groceries though. I didnt have a curfew, I was basically a roomie/maid. I stayed until I was 23 - mom didnt want me to leave. heheh
Don’t apologize, just read my post clearly. You reiterated my point rather than contradict it.
“enmeshment” means that she and her son are perhaps too tightly knitted together, unable to act independently of each other to a healthy degree. Again, I’m just taking a half educated stab here, but based on the uninvolved father, the fact that she keeps making decisions against her better judgment, the divorce I’d bet was ugly and painful, she probably needed some support and maybe leaned on her son more than under ideal circumstances. Their relationship is likely very close yet they resent each other for it and that’s at the core of the disrespect.
There’s more to all this than just the dollars, cents, and the dirty bathroom. I think her mastery of her boundaries is the key to freeing her to make the decisions she wants to make and allowing her son to be free to respect his mother.
You may be. Tuition increases have greatly outpaced increases in inflation and in minimum wage, so a student working X hours today is going to be earning a much smaller percentage of her tuition than a student working the same number of hours 20 years ago did.
Isabelle, forgive me if I’m out of line here, but do you feel physically intimidated by your son? You do sound an awful lot like a woman who’s in an abusive relationship: “I want him to do X, but he refuses and gets mad and slams things.”
my mum is very good to me, to the point of me feeling guilty about it a lot of the time…
for example, i’m pretty much an unemployed and unemployable student, and when my money got critical she paid my fuel money for me. for my bday she paid for me to go to amsterdam and bought me a ticket to reading festival (one of the biggest music festivals in the uk. we got Metallica this year :)). and to boot, right now i’m housesitting for her for a few weeks while she’s in mexico where my dad’s working for a couple months, and she gave me £250 to do that. we are rather affluent, but as i myself have often been quite poor i know the value of money.
on the flipside, i do what she asks me most of the time (save when my memory goes. it’s worse than hers!), we get on quite well, and i’m always there to talk to if she needs it and dad isnt here…
anyway, now i got a part time job and i get a good amount for the work, i can afford once again to buy shit for myself, and i bought her some nice bday prezzies too.
the whole thing is about compromise and mutual kindness. and tbh Isabelle it doesnt sound like your son has it. i mean, i can spendthrift if i try, but i dont think i could spend $500 dollars in 3 days, even if i wasnt working lots…
sorry for the massive post guys. cos i’ve been here on my own the past week i think i’m startin to go a lil crazy…
Here’s what she said was that you are basing your assertion on -
This is MPSIMS and I’ll constrain what I really think about your above statement as there are not enough roll eye simleys in the world to convey it, and simply say that when we have defined the context of the term “abusive relationship” down to the point that a petulant, door slamming teenager is an incipient elder abuser, the weighty term “abusive relationship” has just become a silly, lightweight bit of nattering psycho babble.
astro: You think she’s telling us absolutely everything there is to tell, on a message board?
My nephew used my sister in a similar way, and he did hit her, on occasion. I am not saying that slamming a door is abusive. I am saying that this sounds like a relationship that could include physical abuse.
This is MPSIMS, so I’ll not tell you what you can do with your rolleyes.
No he does NOT physically abuse me or threaten me. But he can have a wild temper and slam things and has been known to punch a hole in the wall and kick a hole in the door. His father was physcially abusive and demonstrative with his anger so I feel he has picked up on some of these bad traits.
I think he is just a very selfish young man who thinks the world should revolve around him. A big problem with this child is that he is a DREAMER and often confuses REALITY from DREAMs…he doesn’t take the steps necessary to make his dreams come true. ANd he dreams BIG BIG BIG. Like he wants to buy a corvette but doesn’t have a permit or license and he doesn’t feel that he needs to become legal before trying to get a car. He is prepared to drive illegaly because he doesn’t want to take the steps necessary to become legal. He has been in trouble with the law 3x for getting caught driving illegally and must perform 30 hours of community service, attend 4 driving courses and his liscence will be suspended for 6 months AFTER he applies. (the clock doesn’t tick until he applies) So it will be a long time before he will be able to drive legally but he still insists on buying this car and driving. I caught him driving his company truck the other night on a busy road. He doesn’t care. He only wants what HE WANTS!
How terribly sad. I feel bad for you, Isabelle. It’s got to feel like pounding your head against a brick wall to try to get this young man to realize what an ass he’s being and how badly he’s fucking up his life. Since we’re already on page 2 of advice about restrictions and discipline, etc., may I be the first to recommend that you get your son into counselling immediately. In fact, given the nature of your family situation as you’ve described it, I’d highly recommend family counselling – or at least sessions where you and he can participate jointly.
It really sounds like this young man has some serious issues that you may only be aware of on the surface. I’m no psychiatrist, but I think I can pretty safely say that your divorce, his father’s abusive personality and his father’s absence from his life are major contributors to his behaviour. Unless he faces some of these issues and deals with them, he may never become the responsible man you hope he’ll be. And ultimatums just aren’t going to cut it, in my lay-person’s opinion.
Isabelle, from what you’re describing now, it sounds to me like your eldest son’s problems go beyond mere financial irresponsibility and general immaturity. In my opinion, the situation has gone beyond what can be coped with by simple “tough love” approaches, and you and your son would benefit from professional help. Some sessions with a good family therapist experienced in dealing with adolescents would benefit you both.
And I’m afraid you have to be prepared for the very real possibility that your son is going to crash hard, and sooner rather than later. He’s already having brushes with the law, and they aren’t fazing him. It may take jail time to wake him up to the ultimate consequences of his behavior. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but you should recognize that it might.
artemis, while I’m glad to see that you and I agree that this young man needs professional help, I disagree that his problem is as simple as immaturity. Based on what I’ve read in this thread about his parents’ divorce, his father’s abusiveness and absence, as well as the circumstances described in Isabelle’sother thread, where she describes how this son learned last year that he is in fact not her eldest son, I’d say it goes a whole lot deeper than just being immature.
I don’t know how much Isabelle has let on to him, but to us she says that “I later married and had children to try and replace the child I had lost, but it never worked.” If this son has picked up on that vibe in any way, trust me, he’s hurting and hurting badly. Not only that, but this newfound older brother apparently “was raised by a wealthy, Christan family and he is pretty normal”. Again, if this son feels in any way as though his mother sees him as abnormal and her older son as normal, there are probably some serious jealousy issues there. Not to mention envy that his older brother got to grow up in a wealthy home with (from what we’re told) loving married parents, while he grew up in a broken home as a “replacement” child that “If only [she] had counseling… would have never happend.” And even if Isabelle hasn’t said that to him outright, deep down he may very well suspect the truth of it.
This family is in dire need of counselling or Isabelle may be facing the same or similar problems with the younger ones as they get older. If she laments not having gotten help before, the best, most loving thing she can do for her children is to get it now.
Did you borrow my son by mistake? Except that mine is 19, and doesn’t have a job. His dad passed away in January, and he was receiving $1000 a month from Social Security. He quit school, pissed away all the money, and I’m about to throw him out. That is a hard thing to do. He is registered to get his GED Aug 20, and is supposedly getting a job starting Monday—but the guy is some fly-by-nighter who only pays in cash, that I have not heard good things about.
He also went to the beach during Spring Break, and got in trouble with the law. He says he just didn’t notice the cops behind him, and now has a felony evading arrest charge against him. His lawyer (that I paid $2500 for) told him to get in school or get a job before his court date, which is Aug 11. He is VERY liable to go to county jail, and at the least get probation, and still smokes pot all the time and hardly ever does the chores I ask him to do.
The last couple of weeks he has been trying a little harder, because I think he is starting to see the light, but it might be too late for him.
Shayna, I think if you re-read my post, you’ll find that I also said exactly that. I said his problems sound like MORE than just general immaturity (which, up until this point in the thread, everyone seemed to be assuming was the problem).
Absolutely. Younger siblings often model their behavior on the behavior of the older kids, after all - and that’s without even taking into account all the other factors you mentrioned in your very insightful post.
Don’t despair, Isabelle! But DO get help. A therapist is often able to see problems that even the most loving of parents can overlook, as well as suggest ways to improve the dynamics of your relationship with your son, so that you’re not constantly engaging in fruitless battles with him.
I don’t think a 17 year old can sign a cell contract, don’t they have to be 18? If he doesn’t have a phone, how are you going to reach him? How about one of those pay as you go phones from ATT?
Im still amazed he can make $500/wk, what happened to school? Out of school already at 17?
:smack: artemis, I did, in fact, misread that sentence. Low blood sugar from not having eaten lunch. [sub][sup]Yeah, that’s the ticket. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it![/sup][/sub] Thanks for the clarification. Now let’s see what Isabelle does with the advice. Her son’s life literally depends on it.
I’d like to clarify this further, if I may. And if it’s okay with UncleBeer—I promise to behave! And if it’s still relevant after what Shayna has brought up (I second the “very insightful post”!).
I was not, in fact, basing my speculation merely on the one quote astro pulled, but on the pattern Isabelle laid out both in this thread and the “allowance” one. This is a common pattern: “I want him to do something completely reasonable, something that’s good for both him, me, and the household, but he gets so hostile when I try to talk to him! I can’t continue a discussion if his immediate reaction is to storm out. What can I do? He’s just so angry all the time.” Women say that stuff all the time about their husbands; is it acceptable when it’s about a son?
I don’t think it’s too big a leap to speculate that Isabelle might find her son’s hostility intimidating. He’s a 17-year-old male: (probably) physically an adult. He already shows virtually no respect for her; who knows how far he might go? And regardless of what happens in the future, this relationship is dysfunctional right now. Physical violence or no, there’s a pattern that has to be broken.
Also, disregard the first line of my earlier post. I was on my way out the door when I wrote it.
Sorry, but her son’s life depends on what her son decides to do. She may do her best to guide and advise, and give tough love. But by age 17, the boy is the one responsible for his own actions. The law may not see it that way, but biologically, and ethically, that’s how it plays out.
