I really don't like my nephew

[Dellspoem]

He is living with us at the moment as a stop gap, we offered to help him out because things completely broke down at home and he had nowhere else to go. Hes 23 and the agreement was to live with us for a few months while he found a job and got back on his feet. That was back in August after he graduated.

He's just always trying to prove a point. He's always combative, argues with absolutely everything and doesn't respect anything I say - I'm an old person, a millennial, millennials are sad and pathetic (which is a whole thing with this generation). His entire belief system is based on what he sees online. He wakes up at 12, 1, 2pm every day. He hasn't found a job, and it's been six months. We've offered to get him in touch with our friend who works in his industry but no doesn't want to do that. Walks around with headphones in and can't hear us/ I think he's purposefully ignoring us. I suggested printing off CVs and walking up and down the high street giving it to restaurants and shops. He said no, that's so old fashioned no one does that anymore. Claiming universal credit and spending all day chatting to mates and playing games.

He doesn't get on with his parents (my brother and sister in law) and since he was a teenager I've said my doors are always open, I'm your aunty and I love you, that's what I'm here for. But bloody hell am I close to closing/ slamming those doors shut. He refuses to go back home, or to his grans, he just wants to live here. My husband has now asked him to start paying rent - £300 a month initially and increasing by 100 every month until it reaches market price.

His mum point blank refuses to have him back home. I'm sick and tired of her and her stupid offspring. I've just got to a point now I hate having him around. I hate seeing him in the 'morning' (today he woke up at 2.30pm) and casually came downstairs to ask how I am; DH is away and I am looking after my newborn and 2 year old. If (and when that was me) staying with my aunt I would have woken up early to help with the house and kids.

Urgh. And the worst thing is I'm now convinced I'm going to be a horrid mother to teenagers because I don't have patience for this.

Anyway AIBU let me hear your thoughts.

He's probably doing the right thing on paper for now. In a month or so that's when the sanctions will start.

In other words, as I said previously, both things can be true at the same time; their brain is still developing AND they need a push to get launched.

I think failure to launch is becoming a more prevalent phenomenon then previously. Partly because of the housing market and current economic climate, partly because parents have become too permissive, and partly because our youngsters - at vital
stages of their development - are spending more time on their phones , passively observing other people living life,rather than practicing practical skills themselves.

If his parents refused to have him because he's lazy/they always argue/whatever but his aunt and uncle decided to ignore that and have him, then it isn't his parents fault.

No one forced him to return back to his home town after graduation. I actually know young people who haven't returned home after graduation. Instead they found jobs to support themselves.(Funnily enough they are all in the same city.)

Yes I know, but the % like this now is unbelievable. It's like every family has at least one and that is, imo, alarming.

Out of a group of 10 young adults I know, 4 were thrown out by their parents and only now, 5 or so years later, have they started to recognise what a mess they made of their early adult life. These are kids from good middle class homes not the extremes you portray but their parents just got sick of them doing nothing etc. I suppose sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

Nephew - you're abusing our hospitality and have been unforgivably rude. Time for you to pack up your stuff and find somewhere else to live.
Any comebacks - You're an adult now, we're not responsible for where you live. Go and sort yourself out.
He's 23 years old FFS, you'll be doing him a favour to stop pandering to him.

His crocodile tears worked in your DH didn’t they?

In your shoes, I’d give him notice to leave. He is a grown up, an adult, a man. He can and will have to figure it out for himself.

He isn’t your responsibility, he hasn’t stuck to what he said he’d do so now it’s time to face the consequences.

I would say he has a week to move out and mean it. Make sure DH is on board before speaking and do not be swayed by the crocodile tears. If he was genuinely sorry, he’d have done things differently from last time.

I don’t understand why he’s not paying rent. He’s basically lazing about the house at OP’s snd the tax payers’ expense.

That’s his problem to sort out!
As others have said he needs some tough love and needing to pay rent (like any normal person) could be exactly what is needed….

Lodgers who live with the landlord do not have rights, she could still theoretically boot him out with zero notice

i hate all this developing brain stuff. My childhood friend has the mental age of an 8 year old and has a reading age of a 5 year old. He lives in sheltered accommodation, does his washing, cleaning, shopping and cooking. He works on a production line 30 hours a week. He’s never made an excuse for himself once, in fact he’s one of the most outgoing people I know. It’s just sheer laziness.

More to the point it’s not true as was based on very dodgy research.

As a pp has said this excuse seems to only ever be used about young men, never young women.
Yes you can be a bit unworldly or naive in your early 20s but you won’t learn to deal with shit if mummy is always there doing it for you.
Many of us on here were working, married, parents or living independently by our early 20s.

At this stage, the young man has to realise that any zero hours job or volunteering job has to be accepted.

His CV simply can’t have six months gaps like this if he is serious about a career. If he ever got to interview stage, he would be asked about this six month gap and how he filled it. He needs to show that he has taken some sort of initiative and responsibility if he ever expects to be properly employed in the future.
Six months will easily run into a year if he doesn’t get a grip. By then, he will have become depressed and will have joined the growing numbers on unemployment benefit with a mental health background…to be avoided at all costs if possible. He risks becoming homeless.
Any sort of work will help him gain skills for the work place and put him in a better position to grow rather than aimlessly hanging on for a miracle to happen.
Getting up in a morning for a working day is what he should now be aiming for.

The problem is that he has friends on-line who he is clinging on to for dear life and he is terrified to lose them as they make him feel ok about this awful situation he is in. They are losers like he is. He blocks out good advice as he is scared of life, scared of failing.

So tell him the wifi will be on from 7am to 10pm only, from today.
While you are telling him that, also add other new house rules to the list.
No more head phones. No contradicting you or DH. Cooking for you all twice a week. Cleaning rota jobs. Paying his way in respect, kindness, helpfulness and proper adulting, nothing less will do.

And then insist that he accepts any sort of work at this stage. He isn’t exactly spending all day networking and applying is he, if he’s asleep till past midday.
Tell him ‘I can’t get through’ is the weakest excuse ever heard, as if employers should be hanging around waiting for his call to grace them with his sleeping till midday abilities.

Help him find warehouse jobs, delivery jobs, bar jobs, portering jobs, cleaning jobs, hotel jobs, mowing the lawn jobs, factory jobs, labouring jobs, dog walking jobs, farm hand jobs and insist he must take one, and pay a percentage of his earnings for board and lodgings as well as doing his own laundry, cleaning and cooking etc. Like a grown up.
And yes, he does need to print off his cv and walk around town asking for work if he wants to keep your roof over his head.
Or he can volunteer for charity work and stick to it until he gets a good reference from it.

This failure to launch is a very serious health issue which is now threatening his future. So the plan to make him leave your home if he doesn’t get work within the month is a very serious step that you must put to him once more.
If he cries, tell him you will help him find a job…any job, but endorse that he is no longer allowed to refuse to work so he had better change his attitude as he can’t afford not to. Make sure he is clear on the consequences if he doesn’t.

The longer this goes on, the more scared he becomes and the more frozen to act for himself, but the more obnoxious he becomes because that’s the only way to defend himself. An intervention is imperative at this stage. He can’t do it by himself.

He’s on UC. OP should complete a lodgers agreement and specify a figure for rent. UC will pay a rent contribution up to £450 a month. She can give him an ultimatum at the same time - get the rent sorted, lose the attitude, and start seriously looking for work or you have one month to find somewhere else to live.

No it isn’t a scientific fact. It was based on poorly carried out experiments.

www.sciencefocus.com/comment/brain-myth-25-development

He’s 23 and literally does nothing.

He is not trying to do anything. That’s the point!

It isn’t a scientific fact at all. There isn’t one single study that’s shown incontrovertible evidence for the theory. It’s based on unsound observation and has taken on myth status, but well and truly debunked by eminent neurologists.

Yay! Thank you so much for providing that link. I've thought for ages that this can't be right. And every time someone jumps in with this excuse for shitty behaviour from an adult, it does my head in.

I'm so glad to see a rebuttal, and confirmation that it's an entirely inaccurate interpretation of that research.

Glad to be of service.
I hate it when it gets trotted out. It’s only ever used as an excuse.

OP, the fact you have a newborn and two-year old says so much. You can't take on a 23-year-old man child. You need to get your brother involved and ask him to have a word. It's not fair on you.

Now you u derstand what his parents and grandparents have been saying all along. He is going to keep doing this forever, nothing is going to change. Give him a month then actually throw him out. Tell your husband not to change his mind when he sees him cry. Because he is playing you both big time. If husband can't be trusted then he needs to help you get his stuff out then stay upstairs while you lock nephew out. Tell him to ho to the council house and declare his homelessness. They will put him into temporary accommodation. He needs to hit rock bottom before understanding he wants to do better for himself. You are not doing him any favours. I know because your nephew was my brother. My parents softly softly approach didn't work. Until they got mad and made him leave, in his 30s!!! That's going to be you! His parents must be relieved he is someone else's problem now. Remember he is a grown man, he can do this. So give him that push he needs.

What a load of old shitty behaviour excusing codswallop. He’s twenty bloody three - if he can’t get up at a reasonable hour, help around the house, pay anything for his keep or be arsed to look for a job, then he can pack his stuff and take his pre-frontal cortex to develop somewhere else !! And by the way the theory that your brain doesn’t fully develop until you’re twenty five, has no scientific basis whatsoever and has been debunked. The research wasn’t sound and there’s no clear evidence to support the theory.

Lovely sexist attitude you have of being sick and tired of your sil. You do realise your nephew is also your brother's child, right? Your nephew is also a grown man and making his own choices on how to behave. How about getting sick and tired of the men involved here?

I know this comment has got a strong reaction already.

He Looks like a fully grown adult because he is a fully grown adult. He is five years into being an adult.

he’s not a boy transitioning into adulthood - he arrived a good few years ago!

we make too many excuses for crap, immature behavior. This is why so many people in their twenties arrive in the workplace completely unprepared. They think they are all super stars - can’t take any form of constructive feedback - aren’t prepared to learn - dismiss anyone older than them as being a ‘boomer’ - want to get praise and promotion without having the talent, ability, experience and without doing the hard graft.

it’s frustrating.

Might sound harsh but if you are willing to put up with nonsense than maybe you will be a shit parent to teenagers
You need to put some boundaries in place right now and be prepared to chuck out this young man if he carries on the way he is. He is not your problem , you have gone above any beyond and he has abused your kindness.
You are actually doing him no favours either by enabling this loser lifestyle

This is why the bar is set so low for men. Yes, his prefrontal cortex is still developing. You are doubtless referring to the study which supposedly found that the prefrontal cortex is fully developed by aged 26. In fact, it found that the prefrontal cortex of the participants was still developing at 26 and stopped the study at that point, so we have no idea if and when it is ever fully developed. Maybe it's still developing at 35, does that mean that a 35 year old isn't really a full grown adult?

He's not "trying to work out how to be a man" he's trying to work out who he can take advantage to get through life with minimal effort.