18 year old is pushing me to the limit with rudeness

[Myhouseisnotahotel]

I have name changed. My ds1 is 18 and was offered a university place. He has decided to defer his place and take a year out. He spends all day in bed and either games all night until the early hours or goes.out. He has a pair time job. I work different hours so I might be at home during the week and work weekends. Some days I work at home aswell. This week I'm off work. My.husband works nights. When we cook dinner for the family he doesn't come down for it until he decides he will. Yesterday he didn' have any of his dinner dh chucked it in the bin untouched. Today we decided as im off and dh was.stsrting at.430 we'd have.dinner at lunchtime. I called him down for dinner to be ignored over.and over. So I put.it in the fridge. Mr and ds2 went school shoes shopping this afternoon. At 9pm I found ds1 in the kitchen cooking loads of.pasta..I.said what about the dinner in the fridge no he said I don't want that you have it. But it was.nice.i said. Well you said yesterday's dinner was nice but it was disgusting so your opinion doesn't count. Today's dinner got binned aswell. I wouldn't mind but when I don't cook for him he says where's.my dinner why haven't you cooked.for me but obviously that's why!

This is how he has lived.since he's left school apart from doing a couple of shifts a week. He's so rude. His bedroom is strewn with takeaway packages. Even when we went away on holiday he drank all night and slept past lunch every day He came on holidaywith no.money and constantly asking us for money. Atleast if he was going away to university it'll be over soon but now he's not going to do that now.he says. I just feel so stressed thinking that he's going to live like this with no end. Am.i being unreasonable to want things to change?

His offer changed to unconditional last Thursday morning at 8am. So he has a place. He showed me. But then insisting on emailing to request to defer. I keep asking have they replied yet and he just says I haven't checked or I haven't looked yet

I don't think he wants to go to university.

Let him cook his own meals? If he doesn’t want what you’ve cooked he won’t eat it out of politeness as he’s not mature enough for that. Just leave him to it 🤷‍♀️

Also it might help you to reframe this clamp down as what parenting looks like now? I lived with boys at university who continued to live like this and it was a) disgusting and b) often meant they ended up dropping out of their degrees because they’d learned to live only for what they fancied doing that day.

Is he depressed?

I think there must be an element of that. Read the post above that says he sleeps till three then shouts go away. That’s more than just rude. Rude alone would be having his mates over and treating op like their maid; or going out and coming in demanding food . But there is a withdrawal element in this and the backing off university. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t need grappling with however. It’s not helping him to continue as is.

This seems like a lot of fuss for someone who’s (if you read the OP) has done little more than refuse to partake in family dinners. I would be worried if he was planning on living with his parents /not working indefinatly but if he’s actually going to university he can sink or swim as any other young adult.

Some of these responses seem to have missed that he’s 18 not 14. The time for grounding him and withholding pocket money has passed, leaving home will be the best learning experience for him now.

@Partylikeits1985
No, not just refusing to partake in family meals, unless I have read entirely different posts from the OP/

He has told her to fuck off, to go away, he drinks all night and sleeps all day, he whines for money, he is rude, his room is a shit-tip, he works the minimum hours and it seems as if he has the intention of laying up on the OP for at least the next year..

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,'.

I wouldn't and don't accept that sort of behaviour any more than my mother would have done before me, I have a duty to society not to send out twats into the world and I havea duty to my own home to make sure no one lays down the law except me. Everyone knows where they stand and everyone over 18 knows where the door is.

I accept it's easier for me than the OP because I threw The Explosive Child book in the bin and decided to make myself chief police woman, judge and executioner in my own house.

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

I think he needs a year in the army!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Take his bedroom door off the hinges.

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,

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.

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.

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

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)

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 🤷🏻‍♀️

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.

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!

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.

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.

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?