Where to start?
Last Friday I had fetched my 18mo grandchild. When I got home with him my dad and son were already in my house. We had a cup of tea and got ready to take the dog out. Because I suspected money had gone missing from my bag I keep it by me when at home. With the kerfuffle of DGC, cups of tea and getting the dog ready I had left my bag in the kitchen.
Before I left to fetch DGC I had put in £40 (2 x £20). When I checked the contents as we were about to set off on our walk there was only £20 in it. I knew the money had been taken in the last 10 minutes, so it could only have been my son who had taken it. I confronted him and when I asked where my £20 was he said "it's in my pocket. Sorry mom, sorry". I took it back off him, told him to get out, and that I should be calling the police. I didn't.
My son's situation is dire ATM. His partner (the mother of his child) asked him to leave the family home about a month ago. Son was made redundant in February, and from what I can gather they were arguing a lot and he was generally unsupportive as a partner and father. He's supposed to be starting a new job in May, and we hoped that once he was supporting the family financially again, they could sort their problems out and hopefully get back together as a family again.
He was welcome to stay with us as long as he followed the house rules - basically keep yourself clean and tidy and tidy up after yourself. He declined and has been staying at my dad's house around the corner. Family are coming to visit dad this week and he asked son to move out for a few days. Dad assumed he'd be coming to me. Well, after the thieving incident that wasn't going to happen. Son sent me an email saying "Hi mom, ok to stay with you a few days? Love you." I replied that it wasn't ok.
So, I don't know where he is staying atm. I'm worried about him, but he doesn't seem to acknowledge that his stealing is a problem. I suspected he's been helping himself for ages, but i doubted myself. I even confronted him a couple of times over the last 6 months or so when I thought I should have had more cash in my bag than I had, but he denied taking it and left me feeling very confused.
In fact, this incident has brought things to a head for me.
He's lied a lot in the past. It's mostly been stuff that he knows I want to hear, but there've been a few incidents where his lying has got him into trouble. We have extricated him from trouble with the police, where if he'd told us the truth in the first instance we could have advised him how to sort it out easily. But his continued vehement denials he was any way involved lead to him going to court with a solicitor. And when we had irrefutable proof that he was involved, he continued to deny it until I pointed out that the people we'd spoken to about the incident must also be lying. You could see the ratchets in his brain clanking away until he realised all his lying options weren't going to get him out of trouble and he finally admitted his involvement.
There's other things he's said and done which made me wonder how on earth his brain works. He's rubbish with money. He wants instant gratification. With his redundancy money he bought himself a PS4 when he was advised to wait until his new job started before treating himself. He's made a mess of paying the rent on the house my DH and I bought for him and his partner to ensure our DGC had a roof over his head.
We've bailed him out so many times and each time we thought well, he must have learned from this. But no.
Over the weekend I read the thread in Chat about sociopaths and I think he ticks a lot of the boxes. It appears there's no cure for someone who has no empathy, no conscience and doesn't believe they are or have a problem at all.
So, where do I go from here?