18 year old is pushing me to the limit with rudeness

You absolutely should not be putting up with this. I’d address the disrespect straight away. He either starts showing some respect for you and the house or he’s out. If he wants to lie in bed all day he can go and rent a room and do as he wishes but whilst he’s under your roof he needs to sort his shit out.

First of all. You and DH need to present a united front.

say what your expectations are

1. If he prefers to sort his own food, let him get on with it but he MUST clean up after himself.the must come shopping with you to buy his food. (Even if you pay for it)

1. He has some chores to complete each week. Bins, hoover, own laundry.

1. He speaks respectfully to you. You must make sure you model respectful behaviour between the whole family or this will not work.

1. You tell him that if he does this he will be rewarded with a phone contract and use of wifi. If he chooses not to, you will not be giving him any money, pay for phone and you will change the wifi code.

All privileges will be removed if he can'tmanage this basic courtesy. He needs to learn respect.

Leaving college and thinking about going to Uni without mates is scary. He may be finding it difficult to deal with that. I don’t think the laying down the law thing will help your relationship, but he needs skills like using the washing machine, managing his finances and cooking at Uni.
maybe he doesn’t want the course he signed up for, maybe he doesn’t want to leave home. Telling you to go away and not sitting down to meals together removes any chances for you to talk to him about it.
you could try texting him or writing him notes. Remind him that you live him, but this behaviour is not good for him or the family.

Hand wringing changes nothing and to add insult to injury you are enabling him.

If you have a router that doesn’t allow you to block IP addresses then buy one that does! This will allow you to only block the devices of the entitled child.

Stop paying for his phone, he takes over paying the bill or it will be disconnected.

He pays board.

You have leverage but for some unknown reason, you aren’t using it, instead you are rewarding his behaviour.

He’s acting this way because you’re allowing him to.
• Stop cooking for him, he’s wasting food and food isn’t cheap these days.
• tell him that if he is taking a year out he has to work more and pay to live with you (whether you save it or use it towards bills is your choice) I paid £50 a week from my first wage at 16 after not going to college.
•Tell him that your home is not a hotel and you want him to help out around the house.

he’s not a young child, at his age he can be doing more.

That’s awful 😢

Sorry, but this hasn't just happened overnight! You needed to nip this in the bud when he was a lot younger.

I'm speechless. Why are you putting so much time, effort and money into training your son to be an entitled ass whose chances of forming a meaningful relationship will be zero?

if this hasn’t been suggested yet, you could try changing the wifi password on a regular basis. And only give it out when expectations are met? It’s a pita re changing it on all devices but it might work, certainly helped when DS was younger.

If you're not in full time education in my house you have to work and pay rent, and live by the house rules that you and your Dh set.
It's a tough age, but I've got both my boys to adulthood and they are lovely if I say so myself they visit often, so we haven't scared them off. Dd is at Uni and knows the rules. Her room is a tip but she goes back in Sept and it'll be tidy till Christmas.

Charge him rent and food. He decided to take year off, he can get a job and pay for the room he is staying in if he is being such an awful tenant you may as well get money out of it, and at least get him out of the house to work. Or he can choose to rent somewhere else, bonus!

Does his chosen career 100% need a degree?

Most would be better working full time from 18 and getting ahead of their peers and no university debt either.

He's 18 - an adult.

In my house he'd have 3 choices -
1)work full-time (best option).
2) go to university (ONLY if it's absolutely necessary - no point getting into debt unnecessarily)
3) he moves out if he doesn't do either of the above.

Too many parents let their offspring laze around not working.

Blimey I worked 48 hours a week AND went to college - I wanted to get on in life though without handouts 🤷🏻‍♀️

Switch the Wi-Fi off or change the password.

if he wants to you use it he

1. Pays
2. Treats you with respect.

Stop cooking for him and send him shopping for what he does eat (with his own money)

Different strokes for different folks I guess and a few soft shites might think that is acceptable for whatever excuse they can dream up-usually containing phrases like, 'mental health' depressed' or 'brain not fully developed

Seems a bit aggressive

Agree.

He won't see it of course.

But allowing him to fester in his room, gaming, and only doing the minimum of work to keep himself in pocket money isn't going to help.

He clearly has no intention of going to university. Perhaps he is experiencing a sense of foreshortened future along with depression. Or extreme avoidant behaviour.

I've said exactly this to my own DCs and to one particular little friend of one of them.

Result? Nobody talked to me 'like that' again, and once we all understood where we stood, relatively speaking, we all got along fine. Nobody was terrified. The friend came over to play frequently and is still a friend.

Yep. Quite right too. Set the ground rules early. Or you risk ending up like the poor op. Far too many wet parents around and the end results are dreadful,

Take his bedroom door off the hinges.

I'm sorry, your 4 year old talked back to your husband and he spoke to her so "devastatingly" that she never dared to do it again? Sounds like she was terrified of him! If anyone said "nobody talks to me like that" to my child they would be out in an instant.

This is why you don’t keep cooking meals for 18 year olds! Especially lads. What must they think of women if they slob about and treat their mothers like some kind of domestic drone to abuse? I’m sorry op but you (and your DH) have kind of made a rod for your own back here. He should’ve been learning to become independent since year 7.

You can put in all the rules that other pp have mentioned but it doesn’t exactly scream happy families. Yes make him pay board and insist on A, B and C but if you’ve not put your foot down so far, it’s not going to fly now.

If it were me, I would strongly encourage him not to defer. If he defers, HE must do it, and let you know what he’s going to do in the intervening year. If he wants to game and junk food himself to death that’s up to him but cut him loose. Drop the rope. Stop the parenting. Stop the angst. Treat him like you would a lodger. Let him live his life, only pick him up if he oversteps the communal house rules.

Grey rock the shit out of him and make sure any vestiges of a parent relationship are built up on mutual respect and on your terms.

And if he decides not to go to university then I guess have a conversation with him about what he does intend to do. If the worst comes to the worst you could ask him to move out since he’s now an adult. As I said before a dose of the real world may do him good /give him a boot up the arse.

He isn’t refusing to cook his own food though. OP was upset because he was cooking his own food but that wasn’t what she wanted him to eat.
Obviously his laundry is his business.

Some financial contribution should be made if he is working.

No more cooking for him/asking him to come down for meals.
Tell him he needs to increase his shifts and from now on, he does his own cooking, cleaning, laundry. Little piss taker needs to grow up.

It isn’t too late for him to go through clearing for a uni place.

I will probably get flayed for saying this, but...

I think he needs a year in the army!