to feel i hate my 3 teenage sons

Teenagers can be absolute bastards.

I got to the point (I’m a single parent) where I totally lost my shit and made them go and move in with their dad.

I was absolutely seething and I have bad mental health as it is. I suffer from psychogenic black outs when I get overwhelmed and on this particular occasion I was passed out for 50 minutes. When I woke up I was in hospital and I just thought. NOPE.

They soon changed their tune when they went to their dads. Begging to come home but made them sweat it out. For 2 weeks. They hated it. They don’t have their own space there and he lives miles away so it was a major PITA to get to school

After this incident things drastically changed.

My point is that sometimes the only way to get them to understand is by extreme actions.

Not wrong OP
The sooner we can breed men out of the equation the better.

if your kids believe that you see them in a negative light and don't enjoy having them around, they might withdraw from you and behave worse.

maybe small changes could help, like praising them more often, giving them positive feedback and random affirmations to make them feel loved and good about themselves. sometimes this can inspire kids to want to behave better in a way that nagging/criticism can't.

obviously they still need to be held accountable and told when they are rude, but balancing this negative feedback with some more casual positivity (even if you have to try really hard..) could make them more receptive to you.

and I know it might be difficult to get them to engage at first, but establishing one evening/afternoon a week where you all do something as a family (playing a game, eating a sit-down meal, watching a movie together) could be a good start towards shifting the culture of your household and feeling more connected. family rituals can be really beneficial.

Please don’t continue as you are, boys don’t grow into decent men by their own accord, they need to be parented. The world doesn’t need any more incompetent selfish men who can’t cook and spend all their time on devices and gaming.

Ban screens and devices mid week and teach them all to cook before it’s too late.

I was OP, I could not look at my son on some days. But we battled on and honestly there has not been a cross word said in this house in three month's. I hope he overheard his Dad and I discussing his Christmas present tonight. We were chatting that it was expensive and I said but sure we have the money and he has been so good. He walked in the door. It’s an amazing turn round but was soo hard.

Teenagers are hard work .But small things , put something in a slowcooker in the morning , chilli or stew. Provide bread and butter , don’t run around all day cooking for unappreciative people.
Stop ironing uniforms, buy iron free ones.
The 16 year old needs a little job. Even if it’s an hour a week . Valuable life skills and shows the others that they’ll have to do the same . Don’t use studying for gcses as an excuse for him not to get a job, because if he chooses an apprenticeship or similar post gcse, work experience will be so important. It also changes the dynamic in the house so everyone isn’t driving each other crazy, particularly in the holidays.

You love your boys, never say that word hate, please

I have 3 girls and in their own ways they each had difficult phases in their teens. One was incredibly shouty and stroppy. She eventually grew out of it (mainly!) when she went to university, though she's still quite loud now, in her 40s! Next one was just... miserable. This manifested by making the rest of us feel like we were living with a particularly angry T rex. A glass door even got smashed at one point. Then she shut herself in her room for nearly a year. Once she went to college and then to work things improved to a large degree, though she still finds life extremely difficult at times. She has since been diagnosed with various things which has helped us all understand her better, and she to understand herself. Youngest was quite easy as a teenager, apart from a (luckily fairly minor) eating disorder. Her turn to go off the rails was after she left school and even more when she went to university. She got through it and though she will always find aspects of life a trial, she's OK on the whole.
All three are great company, kind and usually helpful. They make me proud and I love them to bits. Every so often, maybe once a year I make one or other of them sit down with me and watch Harry Enfield being Kevin the Teenager. They are suitably mortified and I laugh myself sick. Great family therapy!
I wish you all the best OP. Your family will come out the other side, things will be better with a little more strictness coupled with a dose of compromise from everybody and the inevitable maturing of your boys. Try to see them as individuals, not some awful, monolithic teenage blob. All 3 of mine were alike in some ways but so different in others. Recognising that helped me enormously.

@Imnotsurvivingthis you want to enjoy your boys and your family life, you want to impose more order and consistency- but you sound burned out. Could you maybe agree with your husband and book a weekend away just you (husband looks after kids) in the new year? Go and reset, sit in a hot tub and read a book, recharge. Then come with more battery and tackle some of the things you genuinely want to change.

You’re not doing badly as a mum, this is a tough stage. They’ll humanise over time and this will be a memory - just like the sleepless nights were when you had babies. Don’t beat yourself up over any of it x

You’re not an awful mum! You’ve got 3 teens who love you so much that they feel comfortable enough to be moody with you.

You ‘nagging’ them is for their own good and they will thank you later on.

DH seems more of a Disney dad just doing the fun things but that won’t help them in the long run.

Sorry OP but it isn’t okay that all boys are like this. I have teenagers and they don’t need nagging, aren’t rude and help around the house - because we set clear expectations and boundaries.

I would call a family meeting and tell everyone how you are feeling and that things need to change: Let them speak and hear them out and then set expectations.

This had to stop and needs addressing asap.

Teens are the hardest stage.

They go from being loving, enthusiastic and happy to moody, lazy, self conscious etc.

You will come out of the other side!

DH needs to model good behaviour.

Apart from that try and get them out of the house as much as possible or you go out the house as much as possible.
When my DD turned into a teen, I started running and that was me time.

Also maybe lower your standards - my DD had to bring her dishes down etc but her room didn’t have to be spotless.
I would make the meals but breakfast on the weekends or other food outside of meals needed to be prepared herself and cleaned up after.

I was an awful teen and I just kept reminding myself that.

Can you try and do family meal times with a home cooked dish they will all enjoy including a yummy dessert? This is when our family relaxes and really begins to talk.

It’s sad that they won’t walk your dog, do they not care about the dog’s welfare? What about just playing with the dog outside? Do you do things like go to the cinema and theme parks etc as a family? Active holidays have also worked well
for us in terms of bonding.

They wont necessarily leave either.

Can your eldest get a job? I was working at 16 and definitely think it helped my Mum get off my case a bit 😅

You say it's got worse since they're all in high school. This seems quite typical, and puberty is not the only reason. Schools are very different now, and sometimes they can see bad behaviour all day (a lot of the kids don't have caring parents) and are made to act in certain ways. My friends' kids say it's very hard for boys to challenge stereotypical expectations, they're still told they can't cry or show emotions like in our day, yet are (rightly) criticised for not talking about their feelings etc.
You wanted good news-one of these friends has a boy who started college this year, and he's totally changed, because he says he doesn't have to act as a hard man all day, and there's not constant bad behaviour and issues going on. From what I read, she's not the only one saying this.

I really struggled with DS from 12-16, he was just deeply unpleasant to be around. I had to adopt a completely no nonsense approach, if he was a dick, he got punished - no exceptions. Then it all changed overnight and he was lovely again, he’s 17 now and I can’t remember the last time I had to take his phone/play station off him

Put classicFM on
classical music chills the mood - just in background
get them to eat at the table
be mum referee for a bit
relax
enjoy them

punishments taking phones away fishing out orders - is that the relationship you want?

announce
“right that’s it we are eating at the table from now on, 20 minutes in your busy lives just to eat together that’s all I am asking, plus it’s easier cleaning up the plates and means we won’t be feeding spiders”

it works eventually it does

At this age I had to ask DH to have a word every now and again about how boys should talk to their mums and women in general. I think it’s the teenage testosterone. So he would lay the law down and things would improve for a bit.
They definitely should have some chores. And consequences for not doing them after reminders. I also stopped doing laundry for therm aged 14/15 and they had to do it themselves.

We have two teen boys and eating with them, I find if you build up a small amount of time for them to talk it helps everything

So this evening we read out a couple of interesting round ups of the news last week, nothing major, not like the peace deal or anything heavy, one was a piece about a physicist in Tokyo possibly having found the evidence of dark matter, and last week there was a story about AI teddies giving bondage instructions - that sort of thing, much about football players, the politics and economics and corruption within football is staggering, like FIFA giving Trump a peace award last week they aren’t even trying to hide their corruption now!

And listen to them, let them talk, then you build up a more open way of talking to each other and they feel validated with their opinions and feelings.

They are not your little boys anymore, they are growing into young men, they want to be heard. Once you have an easier communication relationship you can explain calmly that if they want to be treated as adults more they need to start acting like one.

Your parent child relationship is changing but it doesn’t have to be for the worse.

The card game sussed is great for nonsense conversation starters, and could be played with all your boys 7 year old included.

Or do a round someone gets to pick 3 songs each evening, take an interest in what they are doing, even if it means having a go on Xbox FIFA just so they can roll their eyes and laugh at how little you can do.

And yes if any of my DCs were rude there absolutely would be consequences.

Phone, pocket money, WiFi, treat food, lifts - these are all privileges not givens!
The deal is that they help a bit around the house, and are respectful to me, their dad, and each other. They have a pretty good life which I do remind them about occasionally if they start taking things for granted.

Understood.
When my daughter plays up, l say to her you will need a favour more than l need you to do x, y, z so I'll just wait for that and l play the long game.
Even if it doesn't have an immediate effect, the next time she wants a lift to school because it's raining, l remind her why she isn't getting one. Can't control what she does but l can control how l decide to react.
It's tough though x