DSS resents his did for the situation his mum is in.

[nevermatchtoesandfingers]

DSS is 19, at uni he is disrespectful to DH and treats him like an ATM. DH and DSS’s mum split after a relatively short relationship when he was 1. No marriage, no assets. He met me shortly after, married relatively quickly bought a house and we worked hard to support DSS whilst accumulating wealth for ourselves. DH and I have supported him and his mum, paid for him to be privately educated and he is now at a top tier uni. His mum struggles, can’t seem to keep a steady job and has moved from rental to rental. Now at 19, DSS needs to be on the rental agreement, she has had to move far away from his uni due to costs. DSS works to contribute to his mum. He is SO angry at his dad for leaving his mum, he thinks he should have stayed and given him a stable upbringing rather than him feeling responsible for his mum. I think he IBU?

Yes dh tried for “full custody” ie main parent.

legal advice was unless she could show she was neglecting their children, or an active addict leading to neglect- bearing in mind the bar for neglect is actually very high- it means not meeting basic needs like food and clothing, he would not be able to challenge as courts always leave custody with the mother. Add to that she’d changed the locks to the family home while he was out leaving him homeless, so he’d have had to fight to get her removed as well.

his ex has also slowly convinced their children over the years that it was all Dh’s fault. And mine, of course.

It’s hard to understand how this situation was allowed to happen tbh.

I’m sitting here with my 1 year old son in my arms contemplating whether i could leave him alone in the care of a drug taking alcoholic and the truth is I wouldnt even do it for 10 minutes, let alone allow someone like that to raise him. ESPECIALLY in your husband’s situation where he had the advantage of more money for better lawyers and could demonstrate a stable home. did he even do 50-50?

I am struggling to believe that he truly tried his best to get custody of his son, but perhaps you are right. If that’s the case I’m sure you have a solid paper trail of all the petitions that you made to the court to prove to DSS that you did all you could. you should tell him so he knows he wasn’t abandoned without a fight.

He sees the disparity and it is difficult for him probably, his 19 year old brain thinks that if his parents had stayed together he wouldn’t have all this hassle worrying about his mum.

There is no easy answer except his Dad needs to have a heart to heart with him and explain that they were not compatible and that’s how things work sometimes.

He needs to be told that he is not responsible for his mum and needs to forge his own path. If he is away at uni he should be able to stay out of things a little bit more than when he was younger?

I think this is fairly multifaceted. Part will be to do with the fact they broke up when he was a baby meaning he was split between two worlds from the get go. It’s hard for children at the best of times but particularly difficult when you have no memories of your parents being a unit (I know- it happened to me too). A substantial part will be because your DH decided to marry you almost instantly after splitting.

Were you always around as well? My Dad had girlfriends when I was growing up but I never met any of them. Our time at the weekend was just us and I think it should be this way. If you were constantly there, he never got time to bond with his father so that’s probably resulted in an element of resentment.

I guess it’s also because his mum has struggled so much with addiction, presumably MH issues and finances as a result. He then conversely sees his Dad doing exceptionally well financially so it’s easy to think his mum’s issues are his fault for leaving. If he doesn’t know about the court cases and such he doesn’t have the full picture.

I’d also say the private schooling sounds like overcompensation. Your DH feels guilty for leaving and not being in his child’s life as much as he should have been so he threw money at the situation.

Doesn't that very much depend if DSS Mum had to work around baby and childcare in jobs that are fragile and poorly paid?

Who did the work of bringing up the child though? Shopped, cooked, cleaned, housed, supported to school, looked after when they were ill, homework etc.. at a time when you say his DM was also ill? What would the cost have been to have a Nanny, Cleaner, Cook, Driver?
The fact you say DSS sees DP as an ATM whilst at Uni I imagine most caring parents fulfill that function.. its normal / important

But right now that is what his son is dealing with with the added complication of it being his mother and not a relationship he can walk away from.

Has he had therapy at all to deal with what must be really complicated emotions about it all and have you talked to him (well his Dad) about the fact he is taking on all of this

Your DH walked away because he can’t cope his son is now struggling with the same issues but can’t so easily walk away

I’m not sure all the hand-wringing plaintive ‘ but what kind of Dad actually was he OP’ gotchas help here… The current situation with the adult child is what it is.

How or why does DSS need to go on a second rental agreement with his mum? He’s already on one for his uni living, unless he is living at his/Mums home for Uni- is he? In which case what does he expect adulting is? He would need to have some rental agreement wherever he is- in halls, landlord student house, private bedsit. Going on Mums tenancy isn’t any different from what I can see.

A. Far higher levels of risk

OP, did you post recently about not being invited to graduation drinks? Some details sound familiar

My ds is 24. On his 18th birthday my ex (his dad) dramatically cut off all financial support, including over £10k which should have been given to DS on his 18th birthday.
The difference in my scenerio? We split when ds was 2 and I vowed from day 1 that I wouldn't be financially dependent on what ex chose to dish out (and it was very much done that he was doing me a massive favour
Add to that what you've said about his mum having various problems, it's going to feel like a weighty burden. Id question the 'having' to be on the tenancy. I rented when ds was the same age as your dss and whilst he was listed as an occupant, he certainly wasn't on the tenancy and I claimed local housing allowance etc as a single person with an adult son. Yes, that means they look at the other adults earnings , but that shouldn't apply if he's a uni student anyway . I think your dh needs to try and open up a conversation as to what the stresses are, not that he should have to solve them, but as the other parent he may be able to suggest avenues dss isn't old enough to know about (citizens advice, what benefits can be claimed etc)
No, your DH isn't required to financially support his son at 19, but he may be able to lift the stress a bit by providing an allowance of some kind, particularly if he's financially very well off.
My ex won't give a penny anymore, and between age 18 and now it's caused ds relationship with his dad to crumble because the man simply won't help even though there's no reason he can't.

I'd wonder how it happened that as a baby one parent went off to build a stable life and left me with another parent who was an alcohol/ drug using person who is emotionally and financially unstable. I can imagine looking on this in my late teens with new eyes and having questions/ frustration.

However I think starting Uni he should not have to support his Mum financially and if I was him I'd resent this. I think if he had grown up with you, he would now be having a more normal student existence.

Relationships break down. It's a fact of life.
Why on earth would he be not wrong in his thinking?

100% this.

OP says they tried to get custody but how much childcare did they do? What percentage of time was DSS with them rather than with his 'unstable' mother? Why did they leave a child in this situation? I question how unstable she was if they weren't awarded custody too.

Whilst they may not have got custody, if his mother was that unstable and unable to cope, I find it difficult to believe she wouldn't have agreed to at least some kind of informal shared custody.

If she truly was unstable and an alcoholic then of course she wasn't going to be able to stick at a job whilst also being the resident single parent doing 100% of the childcare with school drops and pickups at difficult times (which I'm guessing is the situation given the OP is all about how much money DSS was given, not time spent).

If DSS is doing well academically then she can't have totally failed to get him to school. Jobs that fit around the school run are few and far between and generally paid extremely little. Now his Mum will likely be middle aged and it's extremely difficult to start a career as a middle aged woman. It's likely the years of single parenting ( the time commitment not the financial commitment) have left her in a very tricky situation career wise even if she wasn't 'unstable' or an 'alcoholic'.

She's obviously taking some steps to improve her financial situation given she has moved to a cheaper area. So not a total loser.

I'm totally unsurprised DSS feels resentment.

And just to be clear. 'Supporting' a child isn't just financial, it's the getting ready for and to school the drop offs, pick ups, homework, evenings, the night wakings, trips and holiday clubs, the endless endless cleaning up child messes / clothing / bedding and making of food. It's being present. All of which makes it more difficult to do a job that earns a lot of money.

I'm getting the definite vibe that Op and her H gave money but did none of the hard work of child rearing (which let's note if paid for as a nanny is considered a full-time job until about 5 and a part-time job thereafter, full time in the holidays unless someone does the job of sorting out alternative care) and this is where DSS's resentment is coming from because he can see it's left his Mum in the shit in terms of career and independence.

One assumes that he needs to because of her inability to hold anything down rather than him needing it based on what has been said

Is his dad paying anything to support him through university like most parents do?

I would imagine that going from being at private school, to university where he’s having to give money to his mum means his financial situation is worlds away from any of his old friends. Can some of this acquired wealth go on supporting him now?

@nevermatchtoesandfingers

your update about his mothers mood swings and use of drugs & alcohol is very telling. Can you genuinely not understand how this situation has evolved? Of course your DSS has a lot of resentment, anger and is struggling. Your DH bears the brunt of that because his son a) needs someone to blame; b) carries some resentment towards him, and you both need to recognise that some may be justifiable, whilst some will not be.

However, I can’t believe you are so naive that you have not realised that this young man has almost certainly had, at the very least, a high degree of instability and uncertainty throughout his childhood. Your DH might have contributed financially, but how much did he shield him from the behaviour of his mother- behaviour which was bad enough that your DH felt he had to leave? Was he an involved father, or was the majority of support financial?

You may have absolved yourselves of responsibility for the situation because you tried for custody- and perhaps you genuinely did exhaust every possible avenue to get custody of DSS- but your DSS probably feels that he was the one that paid the price for your DH getting out of an unhealthy and unhappy situation, as he was left behind in it. He possibly (and in all likelihood incorrectly) think that his mum might have been more stable had your DH stayed with his mother and been as financially successful. He would also not be feeling the pressure to support her whilst he studies, because you would be able to do it. He probably worries about his mum, and hates that her life is so difficult (despite it being her own doing), whilst seeing his dad create a good life. I suspect he has also had all sorts of narratives dripped in his ears over the years, about his dad abandoning them to build a better life without him. He is almost certainly aware that it’s not actually all your DH’s fault, but the situation hurts him and he will have all this thoughts in the background. It will also be hard to criticise his mum to you/accept any criticism of his mum from you or DH, so he won’t want to be honest about his feelings about her. I imagine he has quite a lot of conflicting emotions regarding his mum, and his dad.

I understand that you feel defensive towards your husband, but I think you should park your (understandable) that stance on this and try to understand why your DSS is reacting the way he is. If you can do that, perhaps you can all start to work a way through it. I don’t think framing it as unreasonable DSS vs reasonable DH is helpful in this instance. You making him into the “bad guy”, isn’t going to even start to repair that fractured relationship. It’ll drive him further away, which I don’t think your husband would want.

I’m not saying your DH should have stayed, but he did leave his young son in what sounds to be a very unstable home environment- one which it he could not tolerate living in. That was bound to leave its mark on his son, but it was the choice he made. Now he has to try to undo some of that damage, sadly.

Poor kid, if someone is prone to mental health issues they often come to the fore with the new pressure of uni.
added to that the worry about his mums coping ability and it’s easy to see why he’s distressed now.
i really feel for him.
He needs support and kindness, maybe he doesn’t know how to relate to his dad and doesn’t have the emotional maturity yet to fully understand why his dad’s life is so different to his mums.
maybe it looks like he treats his dad like an atm because that’s all he’s ever done, offer money ?

DH is an active parent. Custody was anything from
EOW, to Thur-Sun weekly, full school terms, school holidays. I wasn’t always around (travel with work), so does DH so occasionally DSS would be with me. They went on holiday together, we all went too. We took his friend on holiday sometimes. He had weekly tutoring at ours during high school, if he was at his mums DH would collect him or he’d get the school
bus down to ours, and DH or I would collect him. I taught him to swim, 7am every Saturday for years until he got to squad level. He played football from being a tot DH took him to twice weekly training (as a teen) and never missed a match. We’ve taken him to various parties, sleepovers, activities and hosted the same at ours.
He currently gets an allowance from us, some of which he gives to his mum.

I'm not sure there's a teenager alive that does not use their DP's like an ATM.

I feel for him, if he is feeling a responsibility to support his mum. That's just too much at his age.

Poor sod.

If his mum was so skint and unable to keep a job how did she afford private education?

@Pineapplewhip- we paid for it

Your SS is resentful of the burden of his mum, he feels she should be someone else’s responsibility and he is struggling. He blames your DH because throughout his childhood he’s had to adult his mum and it’s easier to blame dad than to see his mum is responsible for the mess she gets herself into. I’m sure as a young child he wanted to be rescued from the chaos and that’s tied into his resentment.

He needs therapy to untangle his feelings and realise that cutting the apron strings is not betrayal and to untether the ropes from his wings and fly free. He has had a traumatic childhood from his mum and been guilted by the privileges your husband has paid for whilst his mum struggled and expected him to share any money he received. Can you imagine the guilt she put him through when he got home and she told him whilst he had enjoyed himself she had gone hungry? For every treat or holiday he’s been made to feel ashamed she had to suffer whilst he was with you all. He would have been made to feel he had turned his back on her and had to pay the consequences of her instability and drama.

Ah the crazy ex