My 15 year old Son refuses to let me adopt my stepkids

... without the OP in it.

Her inability to communicate and lack of discussion with her son is why she is in this situation. She bitched to all and sundry about her marriage to his Dad and he overheard her.
She discussed adoption with her current husband and his children but TOLD her son last it was happening. This is what she said. You should at least read her own words. They are very clear.
Her son should come first but clearly he feels like an appendage to her new family unit. He is not making the decision for her, she had already decided the composition of her new family following discussion with them but not him.

Are you really that desparate to absolve the OP from her responsibility in this and move it to the father?

Sorry OP, but I do think you need to cancel the idea of adopting your husband's children. Can I ask why you actually feel the need to do this, as if they're all around age 15, it's surely a bit late in the day to be bothering with this, and if it's going to ruin your relationship with your DS, then I think it would be a huge mistake, after all HE is the only one who is your own flesh and blood, so while you may have grown to love the others, they should never be more important than your own child.

I think you need to sit down with your DS, and tell him that you hadn't realised how he felt, you've now given it a lot of thought, and realise adopting the other youngsters would be a mistake, and TOTALLY unfair on him, your own flesh and blood child. Maybe you could tell him that you were only going to do it, in order to protect them if anything happened to their Dad, but you've now found out that you don't need to do that, as your DH is going to write in his Will that should anything happen to him, his children should remain in your care. Reassure him how much you love him, and suggest that it may be a good idea for him to have some counselling to deal with the feelings that he's been internalising. I'm afraid you are really going to have to work very hard with your son, to prove to him that he is your ABSOLUTE NUMBER ONE!

Another story of blended family bliss 🤦‍♀️

@pirdgz

I think you if you want to salvage a relationship with your son, you need to put this on hold. You should have discussed it with your son before speaking with the other children- you have presented it as a faite accompli, rather than something he is involved in. And it seems he feels he has been pushed out by you for a long time. I think you need to take this seriously- and be honest with yourself about whether he has a point.

I suspect this has not come out of nowhere, this has been building for a while and I think you have a lot of reparative work to do if you want a relationship of any sort with your son. And I think you really need to stop and reflect- possibly with professional help- on how you have ended up here.

I think your key statement in your post is this (with my emphasis applied): “When she died, they came to live with us full-time. They needed extra care and support, so my attention naturally shifted to helping them through it. Over the last 6 years, we’ve built an incredibly close bond they call me Mum, and I take care of them as my own.”
I wonder if you have- albeit inadvertently- poured so much into your stepchildren that you have left your son feeling like he is not as important to you. They have you 100% of the time and you had “shifted” your attention to them “naturally”. He gets 50% of the time (for good reasons) and loses your focus too. I think you may also have forgotten about the difficulties your son faced following his parents split and navigating shared custody. How long between end of your marriage and you introducing your now DH to your son? How long before you moved him in? It’s possible he feels like you don’t consider his needs/wishes when you make big decisions. Then he has overheard what you said, which was careless, and you have the perfect storm for a very hurt, angry and confused child.

if you really do want to repair things- rather than just get him to agree to what you want so you feel fine about doing it- you need to try to get to the root of it all, and try to work through. Your step-children may need to have attention shifted from them for a time.

"When she died, they came to live with us full-time. They needed extra care and support, so my attention naturally shifted to helping them through it. Over the last 6 years, we’ve built an incredibly close bond they call me Mum, and I take care of them as my own"

If I'm understanding this correctly, you're saying when your son was nine, a few years after seeing his parents split up, your son had three other kids move in full time and get your full attention. So he's only able to see you 50% of the time, when he does he's now one of 4 kids, and the one getting the least attention? And on top of that he has heard you say how much you hated your time with his father, which for him will have sounded exactly like "my old family were terrible, my new family is great".

You seem to be really downplaying how much your son is impacted by his parents breaking up, and by 3 new kids suddenly being part of his family with no choice in the matter - and that's before you get to them needing all your attention and you wanting to adopt them. It's a bit concerning it never crossed your mind to check in with how he was doing before even talking seriously about adopting 3 kids!!

As loads of posters have pointed out, despite your insistence otherwise he isn't 'your entire world'; you couldn't even be bothered to discuss such an important life event with him and didn't take his feelings into account.

Honestly, it really does seem like he's been sidelined for your new life, however unintentionally , and this is the breaking point for him.

This! ☝️

Albeit unintended, you've deprioritised & emotionally neglected him. He's now asking you to finally prioritise him. I think you'll find that if you do, your relationship will improve, his self worth will improve & it won't be long before he's telling you he's fine with the adoption. IMO, he should have been the one you spoke to first about this when it sounds like he's the last to know. You've set your own flesh & blood on fire, to keep someone else's warm. That's not ok, you've a lot of making up to do.

You've made it clear in your post that your step kids come first. Your son has picked up on that. He feels you dont love him more than them. Ans you should. You absolutely should. So either you demonstrate that or you loose him. The balls in your court.

i Know it can’t be easy, but I hope you have read and taken in what everyone is saying

Haha. I thought that. It's an odd way to describe the ages of children you're planning on adopting. Not really specific is it?
'How old are your kids?'
'Oh, all four of them are about 15'. 😁

How do you fix it?

You tell him the plans are on hold then you sit down and try to find a way to explain why he’s being treated like a 2nd class member of his own family.
He’s a part-time child to his own mother, while his step sibs get the benefit of you FULL time. He probably feels very left out at times.
He feels like he’s not always included and not I always thought of - and he isn’t, because the rest of you went and made a HUGE decision without him.

The adoption can wait why do you want it anyway?
You talk to your son and tell him that he IS the priority in your life, that he IS your only child, regardless of how close you are to the step kids they will always be step children.

Can you speak to your ex, explain what happened and try to reassure your child?

I’m not surprised he’s upset.

Talk to your boy, apologise, promise you’ll never make such decisions again without him being consulted, spend some time with him.
He’ll feel very differently in another year hopefully.

This