Son is not engaging in life - please help.

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I live with my partner of 16 years and her 18 year old son. He was abandoned by his biological father before he was born. My partner left him in the Philippines when she came to work in the UK. He came to the UK at the age of five. He has two older sisters, aged 24 and 26, who have left home and were no problem whatsoever.

He has just finished his college course and will go to Uni in the autumn. He will not speak to us, spends his whole life in his room in the dark. He has an extraordinarily restricted diet of crap and refuses to try any new foods. He agrees that he needs to get some sort of holiday job, but steadfastly avoids doing anything about it. He has never in his life called his mother Mum, Mummy, or anything at all. Oddly enough, he does call me Dad.

He has no friends or interests (other than computer games - there's a surprise) and takes no exercise. He is incredibly weedy and built like a racing broom handle.

About 5 years ago we took him to the GP because we were very concerned about his lack of engagement with life on any level. The GP referred him to Child and Adult Mental Health, but DS managed to convince them in a phone interview that there was nothing wrong with him.

I have asked my partner what she sees him doing in 5 years time and she wants him to be living independently. However, she does nothing to enable that: she treats him like a Prince and requires him to do nothing, unlike the girls who always played a part in the running of the house. She buys him rubbish food and allows him to treat the home like a 5 star hotel. She still feels guilty about having to leave him in the care of his grandmother and uncle when she returned to the UK to work and support him. He knows exactly which buttons to press to make her feel awful.

He wants to study computer games design (don't they all?) but to my mind has no prospect of ever getting a job as his communication skills are so dreadful. He has zero life skills and is incredibly lazy. If I make him do something like wash a pot, or a pan, he makes such a mess of it in order to never be asked again. He is OCD about getting dirty and it is painful to watch him do anything.

The situation is making me very depressed and it is beginning to cause friction between me and my partner. He has never been diagnosed with any conditions. What would you advise?

Unless he wants to seek help. There isnt much you can do.

Issuing an ultimatum is unlikely to work.

It prossibly stems from the perception if abandonment of both parents.

He mother, isnt actually helping at all. Although I get why she does, what she does through guilt.

I would suggest you have proper conversation with her and make a plan together. Sounds like both if them need some outside support and help.

He calls you "dad" despite the fact that you don't like him.

Poor lad.

This your problem, right here: she treats him like a Prince and requires him to do nothing, unlike the girls who always played a part in the running of the house. She buys him rubbish food and allows him to treat the home like a 5 star hotel

Unless she starts treating him like the adult he is and requiring him to participate fully in life and to contribute to the household then I'm afraid that you, as stepdad, can't do very much. Personally I would probably do the following, in this order:

1. You can try to change your DP's mind and attitude about her DS. Her current behaviour is not preparing him for independent life in any shape or form. In fact, it's holding him back, infantising him and setting him up for a life as an Incel in his room with his computer games.

2. If that fails, I would tell her that you cannot live like this with a sullen, useless adult who refuses to engage with life.

3. Leave them to it.

Why can't you be supportive of a desire to work in computer games? you do realise it's a huge and growing industry, right?

Perhaps he'd have a little more motivation to work on his communication skills if he was studying towards a qualification for a job in an area that he has a passion for?

Thing is modern woman won’t bow to his demands and he’ll make a terrible husband

She needs tot she one step at a time and make sure he washes his cloths and brings down cups etc

Meals should be home cooked or he can sort himself out

Where does he get money from? Who pays his phone bill? Or internet etc?

FuriousVexation where did I say that I didn't like him? I love him, but I hate his behaviour and the way he treats us - that is different from disliking him. I wish that I had a decent relationship with him and I have tried hard over the years to build one.

GreenTulips his mother funds him. I used to give his sisters pocket money and they both got little jobs as soon as they were 16. They funded their own trips to festivals, bought the clothes they wanted, etc.

Earlier this year he went on an expensive college trip to New York funded entirely by his mother, despite his agreeing to get a job and pay towards it. He never once said 'Thank You', showed any photos, or talked about what a great time he had. I am exasperated by his total lack of any manners.

SummerCharl I would be supportive of his ambition if I thought it in any way realistic. Such a job is about how well one integrates as a team member, as one man alone does not construct a computer game, and he has no chance of working in a team. No matter how brilliant he might be with his computer skills, he would have to impress someone at interview - and that is not going to happen with his inability to speak to people. At most one gets a grunt. Today we have friends around for a BBQ, but he has shut himself away in his room, despite there being other young people to interact with.

Good luck with trying to engage this boy, we're still trying with our 30+ boy !!

zafferana, thanks for your words of advice. I am gradually coming around to that position. I am nearly 63, and am semi-retired. I was looking forward to spending time with my partner when the last fledgling left the nest, but having him living like a recluse in his room is doing my mental health no good whatsoever. I have plans for my retirement that look as though they may be scuppered.

It might be a bit of a generalisation here OP but a lot of the characteristics you have described could point towards your SS being on the autistic spectrum. What do you think?

Is he moving away for uni? Surely he’ll have to learn to sort himself out if he does.

I have a son with autism and this just screams autism to be - and I never normally say that on posts as I know people are often quick to jump in and say that. Have a look at the national autistic society website for some help / advice re signs and diagnosis.

*me not be

www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis.aspx

I also think (from experience) autism is a strong possibility. Please don't be quick to judge or call lazy.

Computer game design is realistic, its a big industry and you can find internships online. Maybe he finds it hard to interact with family because they don't get him. Also is he spending all his time in multiplayer games where he is interacting with people online. He could socialising online which is pretty normal. He will be leaving for Uni soon and maybe he just wants to relax.

At the BBQ there might of been people his age but maybe they aren't people he would consider friends.

Maybe take an interest in his passions and connect on that level with him. I am a gamer and its an escape from real life.

Its clear you don't really like him. You have basically been on a countdown for years til he leaves home. Not sure what part of the country you're in but in some areas kids are still at home well into their 20s.

What do you do around the house? I note you're quick to judge but are you and his mum sharing tasks 50/50 or as I strongly suspect is she doing the lions share?

she treats him like a Prince and requires him to do nothing, unlike the girls who always played a part in the running of the house. She buys him rubbish food and allows him to treat the home like a 5 star hotel. She still feels guilty about having to leave him in the care of his grandmother and uncle when she returned to the UK to work and support him. He knows exactly which buttons to press to make her feel awful.

is the problem. Jobs are actually extremely important for developing sense of purpose, relating to others and self esteem.

My most spoilt child (Daddy's little girl) gets the least number of jobs, I have noticed. She has an allowance where her siblings didn't.

To be honest he sounds pretty typical, hundreds, thousands of parents have teens staring at computer screens eating junk as I type. As to his ambition, computer games design is not a career that is dependent on excellent communication skills thankfully and university will help anyway. It sounds like partly due to circumstances he could be struggling but he doesn't sound particularly unusual. My advice is to try to engage, let him know you are there for him and he can speak in confidence if it's something he is struggling to discuss with his mum but not to worry about him too much.

Google Hikikomori. It describes my son pretty well. He's now 27 and has Asperger's. His gradual withdrawal from life started as a period of depression which caused him to drop out in the second year of university.

Let's be clear about this: it is his choosing not to engage with either his mother, or me, on any level that I dislike. I make a conscious effort to start each day afresh with no preconceptions of how it will turn out.

I have thought about autism, but having worked in education for the past 13 years with mostly young children, many of whom were autistic, I don't think he is autistic. He has not always been poor at communicating; it is something that has developed over about the last 8 years.

As for those of you who are swift to make judgments on what I do around the house, may I just say that I used to do most of the ironing and cleaning, but having had both shoulder joints replaced means that I can no longer iron, or push the hoover around, without severe pain. That leaves me with a lot of the cooking, washing of clothes, and shopping. He has certainly not had a male slob on the sofa as a role model.

I heard about Hikikomori this week on a radio programme and it is certainly an avenue I will explore. I have asked him whether he likes his life as it is, and he claims he doesn't. Change has to come from within as they say and he either cannot, or will not, do anything about his situation.

He has no reason to do anything if all his needs are being met and he doesn't have to do anything in life.

Maybe you could try talking to your DW and remind her of the job of a parent: to raise a happy, healthy, productive member of society who can survive on their own.

It is easy to see that eating junk, staying in a dark room all the time and playing games/online would contribute to depression.
It's just not healthy to be glued to a screen all day to the exclusion of everything else in life.

My son is like this to a certain extent, however his is because of autism too. He is very happy and communicative with his "gang"; a couple of mates who enjoy gaming like he does, and one of his brothers.

He sounds either depressed or autistic or possibly both, or given 2 early "abandonments" by both parents he could easily have an attachment disorder, which looks very like autism (older sisters, being older when their mother left, would have had the crucial first 3 years of nurture, plus would have had a better chance at understanding her reasons for having to leave).

If your stepson truly only developed this recently then he probably has the skills to get a job when and if his mental health improves.
If not, he still needs support and small goals to work towards.

Have a look at the government's Pathways to Adulthood materials. This may help your partner get a better external view of how "limited" he is. It may also give you a few hints as to goals to begin working towards, via small steps of achievement. You can't expect someone in his state to just go and get a job, for example, but you could find a suitable summer course for games design and book him on that, which would get him out of the house and may begin to break this cycle he is stuck in.

www.preparingforadulthood.org.uk/downloads/education-health-and-care-planning/pfa-pathway.htm