I feel like I hate my stepson

A child who has had a loving and consistent presence in their life from babyhood, who has learned that they matter and are valuable, and that basically people can be trusted, will be much better off even after their key person dies than a baby who then has inconsistent or non attuned care. Of course both situations are dreadful and very sad, but one has had the opportunity to develop good attachment and the other (the baby) has not.

Absolutely this. There's the Aristotle/St Ignatius expression "give me a child until he he is 7 and I will give you the man." I think that's overstated, but the deeper point is that a young child's character and sense of self, in fact their whole sense of security in the world, is forged in those critical years. And this boy missed out on that where his sister didn't.

I'm a mother to two children who lost their dad young. And a stepmother to one who lost her mother young- this a particularly adverse experience as her mum was an addict.

Of course you're getting a bashing on here - you're a stepmother.

To try to give some constructive advice - we've had many ups and downs with ours. But ultimately, the bereavement is not the entire picture. It is really sad. It will always affect them. But they have their lives to lead too. And your stepson needs help finding his path - he's just languishing. That's where I would look first. To help him find a purpose now he's nearly an adult.

He has no right to be disrespectful to you, stealing, he has been spoiled with the wrong support, would he consider therapy?

What?

Babies born addicted to heroin are usually taken at birth and are not the children I mentioned who were removed from abusive situations as very young children.

In any case I was just using that as an example that shows that not having a loving and consistent parent in babyhood can have very lasting impact even if you don't remember it.

I assume OP's DH did his best, but he will also have been grieving, looking after his daughter, and then getting involved in a relationship with OP which was serious enough that they lived together from SS being 2, so it's not unlikely that he was unable to be as consistently attuned and responsive as his baby son needed.

There are too many variables. Babies taken from parents in the UK were often born addicted to heroin, for example.

OP
Take SS back to college. Ask him what he would like to do. He can enrol on a level 1 or 2 qualification that would give him meaning, purpose and potentially a good living, without needing qualifications. Plastering, bricklaying, electrician, plumbing - any of the trades. Or even an IT or hairdressing course.

Tell me you know nothing about trauma and loss....

A child who has had a loving and consistent presence in their life from babyhood, who has learned that they matter and are valuable, and that basically people can be trusted, will be much better off even after their key person dies than a baby who then has inconsistent or non attuned care. Of course both situations are dreadful and very sad, but one has had the opportunity to develop good attachment and the other (the baby) has not.

Think how adopted children adopted after being removed from abusive settings aged just 1 or 2 often show consequences of those disrupted attachments through their life. You don't have to remember something to be very deeply impacted by it.

Care to share your qualifications? You are being ignorant and downright nasty. How bloody dare you keep going when more than one poster has told you how wrong you are AND how hurtful your posts are. How presumptuous to think you know better than decades of researchers publishing actual factual, evidence based studies on childhood bereavement and loss.

better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.

I don't know why you're posting this stuff after being told by so many people that you're wrong.

Honestly reading this thread helps me to better understand how so many women fall for sociopaths

"Oh the poor poor baby he made the dog story up as a metaphor for loss!"

Please stop.

He lost his mother and then was carted off to boarding school, no wonder he is acting out, he will have attachment issues and probably feels abandoned and the only way he gets attention is by behaving this way.

Please stop trying to explain the trauma of childhood loss to people who have experienced it. Your insistence on dismissing our lived experience is insulting and frankly uncomprehensible. You have now been told multiple times by multiple people that concious memories are not necessary for trauma to be caused.

His trauma won’t be the same as what his sister went through as he was a baby and she was a child. She’ll have strong memories and would’ve gone through a lot and will miss her mum. I think the step son’s behaviour stems from boarding school. Maybe abuse, bullying etc.

Bit much there

Not interested in getting a job? Where's his work ethic? Where's his pride? What's he going to do with his days? Just grift off others and claim benefits? He needs a rocket up his arse and he needs telling that a job isn't optional. Lazy entitled shitbag.

The behaviour is disturbing. Putting together the extreme porn, the underwear stealing and the leering at DS’s girlfriend I wonder if he has been abused at some point.

I think the first steps should be to make a list of concerning behaviour and depending on where you are, make a referral or raise a safety concern with any of CAHMS, his GP, or the council social services. You can inform the GP about him making things up to the former therapists.

You need to rein in your own emotions and stop catastrophising about your son leaving. Look up the relevant service in your area and take action.

Given the family background, family therapy may well come into it at some point but the first and most important thing is to get him some professional psychological intervention. He is still young and can be helped.

you'll never understand how much your post has upset me.

babies may not may not remember their mum. Either way, can’t you imagine how bewildering it must be for them?

How dare you minimise the trauma experienced by babies when their mother dies.

the elder daughter will have different trauma. She’s done well to build a good life. I hope she continues to do so. Not having your mother alive can affect people in the oddest ways and at any point.

OP, I think some therapy or reading about Acute Childhood Experiences (ACE) might help you and might put you in a better position to be able to support your DS into making g good choices that do not harm others. I sympathise with the difficulties he is causing. No one deserves to feel uncomfortable and unhappy in their home because of the behaviours of another family member.

Be honest with yourself about the mistakes you have made

I think this is key, and it's why some posters feel people are being harsh on OP. Mostly to fix things, you need to accept - or even more than that that, comprehend - that you have made mistakes.

Blaming the boy won't go anywhere constructive. It might make everyone else's lives and conscience easier but it won't help him heal.

My stepmother would have you believe that I was the perfect child from the age of four when she got me with no recallable memories of my mother until I was 17. According to her, I just turned into a horrible spiteful child who wanted to make her life a misery and she had no idea why. Just like you she was unable to join the dots and realise that my running away and drinking and smoking was a direct reaction to my father being in hospital on deaths door for two months. All realised that my early perfect behaviour was born out of a fear that if I wasn’t perfect the people I loved would leave me.

it took me over 40 years to begin healing from the trauma of losing a parent that I couldn’t consciously recall, and a lot of that healing was actually dealing with the fact that the adults remaining in my life didn’t care enough about me to help me as a child.

You sent him to a Therapist and as soon as he opened up just a little bit and was able to tell them a story about his dog that ran away, instead of recognising that this was the first time he’d ever been in a position to trust somebody enough to talk about his emotions the person he trusted told his stepmother and father what he’d been saying to them and they denounced it as lies.

can you really not see the damage that you and his father heaped on this poor boy.

if you really want to fix this, then you and his father need to go speak to a child childhood bereavement specialist- you’ve been given some links to find one. Learn all the ways in which the two of you have badly handled him. Be honest with yourself about the mistakes you have made and when you can genuinely admit to them, first his father and then you need to have conversations with him, probably with the Therapist in the room, and committ to helping him heal so he doesn’t behave like a frightened screwed up child.

Or you could just wait two years and chuck him out and live with the fact that you, as an adult, took on a child who needed more love and attention than Most and did not supply that

Oh dear god. You have NO idea how childhood bereavement works.

Honestly, when you have no idea about something you have two options 1. Research and inform yourself 2. Don’t offer advice on something you know absolutely fuck all about.

there is SO much evidence based research about childhood loss and its impact on ALL children, whatever their age at the time of the bereavement. It’s really not difficult to research….i even provided links to resources.

also, you know some smokers live to 100 don’t you - that doesn’t negate the fact that smoking is one of the leading contributors to premature death. Similarly just because his sister ‘turned out fine’ (and we don’t actually know this btw, she could be masking the impact of the trauma) that doesn’t mean anything. THIS child is not fine and he suffered parental loss at an early age - along with other things op has written about his life experiences it doesn’t take much to join the dots.

Losing a parent before language and before you can recall later causes different but very substantial emotional impacts.

Judge away - but don’t expect it to help.

If you want to help somebody it is far better to offer advice and encouragement. What op is expressing is not unusual for a parent - birth, step or foster - who is feeling at the end of their tether and unable to see any hope.