I feel like I hate my stepson

[ExhaustedStepmum]

This may be long but i’m honestly really struggling now, this has been going on for years and I’ve had enough. Don’t say to leave DH as it’s not that easy.

I’ve been with DH for about 14 years, I have a DS aged 20 and a SD aged 28, and a SS aged 16.

I get on pretty well with SD although she moved a few hours away at 16 and was living with a family member to be able to attend a really good college in that area, she still lives there and we see her a couple of times a year but she doesn't come here much, she's said she's sick of SS and has referred to him as DH’s “golden boy” and has said he lets him get away with anything to which DH shuts the conversation down.

Their mum passed away when SS was a young baby and I think DH has over compensated and maybe spoilt him but I can tell he's also now getting fed up even though hes sort of to blame for the way he is. But SS says we don't like him

When growing up I don’t really remember him ever being particularly difficult although there were times we let him get away with silliness and answering back for example but he wasn’t an awful child , although he and ds have never been close and when he was younger would destroy his lego builds and they’d argue at any opportunity they got, usually with ss being the cause although DS very much got the “you’re older you should know better” from DH.

Things really changed when he was about 12 with constantly lying and stealing things (anything he got his hands on) being disrespectful at school and at home etc, DH somewhat blamed the school as it was in a bad area and at 13 he got him into a private school and he boarded monday-friday initially, he seemed happy there but at home his behaviour was getting worse and worse.

He began to shoplift when he had no reason to! He likely would’ve got whatever he wanted if he had asked and he wasn’t short on pocket money either (at the time but it did eventually stop), he stole my underwear to the point we had to have a lock on our bedroom door and after that I felt uncomfortable being around him tbh but I still don’t know if it was a “me” thing as in targeting me or if he just wanted underwear iykwim. After that DH paid for a private therapist but it was pointless because he lied the majority of the time and he can be believable which is the scary thing. He was watching some really explicit porn which we had thought we’d blocked on the wifi so i still have no idea how he got around it.

He ended up boarding FT and only coming home during holidays and while the holidays were hell, it was much better which sounds horrible to say. His behaviour at school wasn’t great though and he was permanently suspended at 15 for being caught with weed and there was alcohol in his room, he didn’t care but found it funny. It was a struggle but he started Y11 at a state school which was hard to find as no one wanted him and it was so late he couldn’t do his options. He ended up failing his GCSEs and he didn’t turn up to half of them

DH says it’s pointless even trying to get him into college as he wouldn’t go so said he could work with him except he was messing about with equipment and not listening which was unsafe so now he’s at home 24/7, he has the whole loft conversion to himself so he has a HUGE room and en suite but he still acts hard done by. He despises DH as DH was the one who found the porn and some of it was gay porn and during an argument about the porn in general DH said it was disgusting ans SS has twisted his words that gay = disgusting when DH was just extremely shocked and he probably was disgusted by what he saw because of how explicit it was. He shuts down any conversation regarding sexuality when we brought it up incase that was a reason for his behaviour (as in being worried about it i don’t know) he said he’s not gay and it was just something to watch and gets defensive and accuses us of calling him the f slur (which he actually uses but no one has!)

He spends a lot of time in his room, he smokes cigarettes and vapes but has no money and we’ve hidden our cards etc from him, sometimes he can just appear during a conversation with DH and accuses us of talking about him or saying something totally random that takes us back a bit like for example a couple weeks or months ago we were having a normal conversation about dinner and he came downstairs and out of nowhere asked DH if he wished he (SS) had died instead of him mum and because DH didn’t answer straightaway (because he was shocked, it was the first thing he’d said to him all day) he took it as a yes. But the thing is he never talks about his mum

DS lives here but he spends a lot of time with his gf and i worry he will not come over either when he moves out just like SD doesn’t.

His gf already feels uncomfortable around SS and has said she thought he had taken pictures of her but when DH looked through his camera roll he hadn’t, but today they came over for sunday lunch and SS was downstairs trying to wind DS up but he wasn’t getting the attention and then his gf asked him to stop staring and he made out he wasn’t and that she had a problem with him but then about 15 minutes later he was properly staring blankly at her and DS witnessed it and told him to stop it he did but he then was doing it AGAIN (i was cooking so wasn’t watching him) DS told him to stop being a creep but he still denied it but got up and threw a fork at DS then stormed off to his room. DH was outside and came in to SS storming off but he still went to his room to take him his food when it was done which i don’t agree with

Im just so exhausted with it all and apart from this myself and DH are happy

I think the time for really taking care of this boy has passed.

By ignoring his emotional needs and shipping him off to boarding school it sounds like you have created a young man with a personality disorder that will almost certainly be entrenched by now, making him a danger to others.

Unless it's possible to get him some intensive, long-term, maybe even in-patient therapy, all you can do is protect the peace of your household however you can.

Please don’t opine on early childhood trauma when you obviously know nothing about it.
Study after study have shown that losing a parent before recallable memory is deeply affecting for children.

I agree. Developmental trauma is trauma that's affected how the brain has structurally developed, because neutron pathways are built in response to the environment you live in.

You don't have to have a recallable memory to be affected by an early traumatic experience.

Exactly. Who would have thought it would get worse? So surprising!

So he lost his mother as a baby and then his sister moved out when he was four? And the stepmother talks about him like a EOW step child she hardly knows despite being the only mother figure he's had since being 2. And then the solution to him lying in therapy at some age between 12 and 16 was to stop therapy rather than double down on the support.

Poor boy !!

Sounds like dad fucked up by over compensating when he was young because his mum died and that led to a child with no rules and boundaries.

He sounds like his struggling with being gay and violent porn, his stealing woman’s undies and leering at women making them uncomfortable.

He needs therapy and he needs to get a job frankly. Not just let to rot in his room.

Dad needs to stop running to his every tune like with the dinner incident.

If this lad was as bad as his sounds I’m not surprised the sister jumped at the chance to leave for college.

Ultimately though theory and a job or he needs to leave if he refuses because you cannot help someone who doesn’t want help till they hit their rock bottom and finally realise they need help.

If this lad was as bad as his sounds I’m not surprised the sister jumped at the chance to leave for college.

He was four years old when his sister left, hardly feels fair he's being blamed for her leaving.

Serves me right I didn’t really look at the ages more this bit.

she still lives there and we see her a couple of times a year but she doesn't come here much, she's said she's sick of SS and has referred to him as DH’s “golden boy” and has said he lets him get away with anything to which DH shuts the conversation down.

SD didn't move because of me, I don't know why posters are making that a thing. It wasn't just on a whim she decided to go to a far away college, she had wanted to go for year's and worked hard to get high gcses as the college is selective, she then went to uni and we still get on we'll with her but we don’t see her much as she doesn’t like visiting due to SS because she believes he’s DH’s golden child and he gets away with everything and DH always shuts that conversation down even tho tbh he does.

I did mother him when he was growing up, posters here seem to be assuming i’ve always hated him which isn’t true at all. Maybe sending him to boarding school was a mistake but it wasn’t just to “get rid” of him, DH thought it’d be more structure for him and he only boarded originally because it was easier commute wise, when he came home at weekends and holidays we made his favourite food, we tried to spend time with him, it’s not like we weren’t happy he was back because we were until his behaviour got even worse and the school holidays were hell but we still continued to make his favourite food and try to do things with him even though most the time he refused and countless holidays were ruined and hed just be acting ungrateful

He had 2 different therapists and then refused to go, he very much sees that it’s everyone else with a problem and not him. He was lying to his therapist but really random lies like we had a dog that ran off because of DH and the therapist said he seemed really upset by it except it never happened, we have never even had a dog and he’s never asked for one or seemed interested in wanting one, quite the opposite actually.

Then after he was suspended from his school we tried again but he refused and wouldn’t even go to the first session

As for the porn, we had blocked it on the wifi so the porn he was viewing was extremely explicit for anyone let alone a 14/15 year old it wasn’t typical porn on “known” sites as those sites were already blocked but he kept repeatedly viewing some of the worst videos//sites, DH didn’t mention the porn being gay porn as some of it wasn’t, but it was way more than a “teenage boy watching porn” due to how explicit it was and the violence etc, i didn’t see it but DH did and he had just read the titles and he was shocked and he did say it was disgusting but he didn’t mean anything about his sexuality just the porn. The ipad ss was actually using actually had viruses.

Are you taking on board that it isn’t the boy, who needs therapy in isolation??

Whatever he said, he said. And clearly if the therapist got upset, they’re not trauma based specialists and very ill equipped to deal with what your dss is going through.

The majority of the work needs to be put in by the adults, not the child. I know someone, who can help by zoom if your dss won’t engage in family therapy. Otherwise do face to face family therapy and work with the therapist alone until your dss is ready to join.

He’s 16. His prefrontal cortex isn’t even half formed. There is plenty of time to turn this around.

And if it turns out he has or is developing a personality disorder, this is also reversible with the correct therapy.

And as I said, it comes from the adults first.

He was lying to his therapist but really random lies like we had a dog that ran off because of DH and the therapist said he seemed really upset by it except it never happened, we have never even had a dog and he’s never asked for one or seemed interested in wanting one, quite the opposite actually.

So his mum died when he was a baby, his sister left when he was four and he lied to his therapist that he had a dog that ran off. Well thats a clear sign of a child that doesn't need therapy at all.

And also a pretty craoot therapist if they couldn't work out why he made up the dog to talk about loss.

Step-parent or not you've shipped the poor kid off first pt then ft so you didn't have to deal with the problems as parents should. Poor poor kid, he will absolutely feel un wanted, un loved for years plus losing his own mum, he will absolutely feel like nothing compared to the other siblings. Absolutely no way you knew this kid well if he wasn't with yous for quite a time so he's turned to what makes him feel better bad stuff. If the disdain comes across just by what you've written to a stranger wow how much more so it will feel in person. Poor kid, you both have time to turn the relationship around by actually being parents. Never would I have treat my step children like this there all one and the same the kids together

Absolutely this- sounds like this poor boy has grown up with alot of abandonment and rejection, yet your DS is the golden boy.

The fact you clearly think a child CAN be 'awful' is telling and using the word 'Hate' seems unkind, although i'm not saying your situation isn't extremely challenging.

He should have had therapy many years ago to help him process the loss of his mum.... has he ever had much opportunity to talk about it? 16 is a tricky age for even a child who has had a relatively easy life, not alone one in his situation.
Losing a parent at whatever age will cause significant and lifelong trauma, even if he was too young to remember it, it will be there....there will be constant reminders and triggers that he doesn't have a mum, and these things usually peak in teenagers too.

Rather than clamping down on the heavy discipline, he needs reasonable boundaries aligned with compassion and understanding that he has faced the most horrible thing a child can go through, and no wonder life feels bloody hard because of it.

This boy sounds dangerous and I don't think you should be living with him. The underwear theft is sick and no woman should have to tolerate that.

However this boy is also very traumatised and in need of strong parenting. Agree with other posters that the DH should take the DSS away for a number of months and focus on him, have therapy etc.

"Weed" is very strong nowadays. I've seen it trigger paranoid psychosis in young men, and they can be quite good at hiding it.

He was 4 years of age when his sister left for college.

I agree, he even talks about a dog he never had running away! Most therapists would have been curious about this as although he might be 'lying' about this it's actually an indication of feeling abandoned and rejected.

I would have thought that the therapist would have put this to his parents as OP lacks insight into this and just more blame that he was 'lying' etc.

The OP and DH need therapy first before SS as otherwise it might feel like he is the problem when it's likely to be the way he was parented.

I find it very strange that you've been in this boy's life since he was 2 and yet you still very much see him as a stepson.

My daughter's father died when she was 2. DP has been in her life since she was 5, and living with her since she was 6. She is his daughter and he would never see or treat her as anything else, no matter what might happen.

It doesn't sound like an easy situation for anyone. But at the heart of it is a kid who lost his mum, spent the majority of his life living with someone he had to watch being a mother (but not to him), and was then sent away when things got tough. That's a lot of trauma.

Lots of motherless boys get shipped off to boarding school by clueless fathers, they don’t all turn into creeps. I know two men who lost their mothers as children, the one that was sent to boarding school is better adjusted than the other, many factors involved so I’m not saying boarding school is a good thing just that it won’t be the only cause of your SS issues. It’s pretty clear this boy needed emotional support early on and his father doesn’t seem to have dealt with it.

However there is nothing you can do respectively about how things were handled or not by her DH in the early days.

You absolutely need to keep some boundaries in place now, so don’t remove your bedroom lock, I understand why he makes you feel uneasy. Right now he sounds a disturbed young man who likes to scare women and you don’t have to accept that. But boundaries need to be calm, firm and consistent.

Your DH needs to do family therapy with his DS. Your SS needs therapy but your DH needs to understand how his behaviour has contributed to the problems and how he can help improve things. Later you might need to be part of that family therapy but first your DH is going to need to put the work in and he needs to be honest and try to understand the underlying issues without blame or being defensive.

Hey OP, this sounds really tough and exhausting. Have you considered family therapy rather than trying individual therapy with SS again?

It feels like the whole family has become stuck in a dynamic where SS sees himself as the victim of the family and the person everyone has a problem with, while the rest of you are understandably anticipating the next problem. Family therapy might make it less about “there's something wrong with SS that needs fixing” and more “this isn't working for any of us, so how do we make it better?” It also gives someone independent the chance to see how you all interact rather than relying entirely on what SS tells an individual therapist.

The comment about whether his dad wished he'd died instead of his mum really struck me. Even if he never normally talks about her, that's a huge thing for a 16-year-old to suddenly come out with. I wonder if there's much more going on underneath the anger/bravado than he's able or willing to articulate.

Alongside that I'd be trying really hard to find him some purpose and motivation. Who is he underneath all this behaviour? What does he like or think he's good at? What does he imagine himself doing at 18 or 20? Cars, computers, writing, films, graphics, gaming, sport, cooking, making money... anything?

At the moment he's 16, not in education or work and seemingly spending most of his life alone in his room. However much his own behaviour has contributed to that, I can't imagine it's going to help him change. I'd be looking for something practical that gives him a reason to get up and somewhere he's expected to be - vocational training, an apprenticeship, volunteering, a part-time job, whatever might spark something. Even a trusted adult outside the family who likes him but also expects something from him could be really valuable.

He needs firm boundaries around stealing, aggression and intimidating people, absolutely, but he also needs opportunities to experience that he matters and that what he does affects people positively as well as negatively. He already knows everyone thinks he's doing things wrong. He needs the chance to be useful, contribute to something and discover he's actually good at something too.

I'd maybe also speak to your GP about whether a proper adolescent mental health assessment would be appropriate. The big behavioural change, school problems, stealing, aggression, substance use, isolation and some of the things he's saying seem worth looking at as a whole, rather than concluding therapy doesn't work because he wouldn't engage previously. And if he's still using weed, I'd mention that too, particularly given some of the suspicious/paranoid-sounding reactions you've described, as cannabis can make that worse in some people.

None of this excuses throwing forks, stealing your underwear or making people uncomfortable in their own home. He needs consistent boundaries. But he also desperately needs some route out of being “the problem child” and a chance to build an identity around something other than everything he's done wrong.

My grandfather lost his mother at birth, his father married and produced more children. My grandfather didn’t steal things. After his father died, he paid for his younger sibling’s education and helped them settled down.

Yes, trauma impacted him too. He wasn’t a perfect man. But stealing, constant lying, misbehaving at school and stealing underwear of step mother is another level.

@Anon501178 : 'Absolutely this- sounds like this poor boy has grown up with alot of abandonment and rejection, yet your DS is the golden boy.'

The OP's son is not the golden boy – that description was given by the OP's stepdaughter to her brother (the OP's stepson).

Also, it doesn't sound like the OP's stepson grew up with 'lots of' abandonment and rejection from his living relatives. If you read the OP's narrative, the main issue was lack of boundaries from his father. To the extent there were some difficult interactions between the two boys, for example, the OP's husband tended to think the OP's son should accept or accommodate the behaviour of the DH's son. The OP said that it's only now that her DH is accepting there may be problems.

It also sounds like the stepson's behaviour became worse in his teenage years, and the first 'rejection' was going to a private school where he boarded during the week (albeit that her DH would probably deny that this was rejection, but rather finding a better school for him).

OP, you are getting lots of blame unfairly. Just because you got together with your now DH when his son was two does not mean you immediately stepped into a parenting role. Furthermore, it sounds like your DH has received plenty of feedback on the problems with his parenting strategies, and was simply not open to them. Your power in such a situation is limited.

One thing posters have said, which is fair and a good idea, is for you and your DH to obtain some support through counselling (individually and together).

In contrast, I am very uncomfortable with the suggestion that you are overreacting to your stepson stealing your underwear. I think your response is completely fair, and in fact that you should discuss this with your DH in counselling asap. Similarly, the comment's of your DS's girlfriend are worrying. Women have an intuition for creeps and sexual predators, and you should take her reaction seriously.

I think you're massively underplaying, or overlooking, the huge impact boarding school will have had on this boy. Sure it might work out for some kids, but this is a boy who lost his mother, then almost immediately had to share his father with a stepmum and new step siblings, then effectively lost his big sister too. Having him home in the holidays and giving him burgers and pizzas doesn't make up for the huge feelings of cumulative loss and rejection he must have felt.

Re it being easier because of the commute, I am a little bit aghast that that was the most persuasive factor here. Let me ask you this - if your workplace decided to move offices to a couple of hours away, but said it's ok, we've set up a dormitory for you to share with all your colleagues, you can just sleep over here during the week - would you think great, much easier, or would you dislike that setup for any reason?