Wife can’t live with my son

[Zihgty]

My wife and I have been together 6 years, we had our first child 4 years ago, and my son from a previous marriage moved in at the same time we had our baby (ex wife having trouble with him), and things have been ‘ok’ until recently when my son and wife have not been getting on- my son is almost 15 btw - he seems to resent her asking him to do things around the house, and when I was out for the eveing he called her a bitch. I spoke with him and told him if it happens again he can move back in with his mum, and things have been ok since.

However my wife now tells me I have to choose between him and her- if he stays she moves out, she’s not happy living with him.

Im so depressed that I’ve been put in this situation. My son’s mum is already looking after my 2 other kids, (11 and 16). Deep down I just want everyone to get along. I love my wife and want to have a happy life with her, my previous marriage failed and this time I’m sure it’s a good thing. I also don’t want to let my son down.

any advice appreciated.

That poster clearly has issues of their own with stepmums and it's being projected extremely obviously.

Really? How many "step-mumS" do you think people have generally?

This is not an issue to do with me. Some people are capable of objective assessment of a situation.

I am upset about so many adults treating so many children appallingly and - we are meant to believe - being clueless about the impact of their behaviour.

My children will never have a step-parent so I have no skin in this game personally. I just find children being treated in this manner disgusting.

My 15 year old is a cow to her own dad let alone a step parent. Honestly I could never remarry if my husband passed as my kids would eat them alive.. Teens are the devil at times.

There has to be more to it than this.

His own mother was unable to cope with him. The problem is not just the fact that a teenager called his stepmother a bitch.

@WearyAuldWumman nothing in OP's posts says anything about any aggression or violence from his son. You can't make stuff up and pretend he should be treated as though he's behaved violently simply because he is a teenage boy when OP's posts say nothing of the sort. That's disgraceful,

There has to be more to it than this.

Riiiight... so you admit you're just making things up then that the OP never said at all.

Your wife doesn't wish to share a home with an angry teenager. Take that seriously.
Your son is fifteen so needs close parenting for another three or four years.
How to meld the two situations? .
.
Look for a home with a secure Granny Flat in which your son can live with your total parental attention and strict, sensible rules which gradually have him doing his own laundry and cooking half the meals for you two.

You live between the two homes. It will be a stretch for you as you will have to meet the needs of both households for four years.
The benefit will be that in four years your son will be independent and ready to start his adult life.
Hopefully you can still have a happy, though fewer hours, family life with your new young family.

Perhaps I've seen too many problem teens through my work.

I've seen so many instances of teenage boys who became uncontrollable by the time they physically outgrew their mothers. Usually, this happened in households where the father had disappeared, but it also happened when they saw their fathers behaving in a misogynistic manner.

Sometimes, the boys would take their rage out on school staff. We had one who assaulted a pupil and three members of staff. He claimed he'd been the victim of a homophobic attack. In actual fact, it turned out that he was the victim of homophobic barbs from his own father.

Unfortunately, the boy caused serious damage.

I recall another whose father had left the household. The mother had a lovely family...apart from one son, for some reason. Unusually, he was eventually deemed to be "outwith parental control" and placed in foster care.

He went on to become a serious offender.

You can always tell which boys specifically have a problem with women. It's normally because they're mirroring behaviour that they're seeing elsewhere.

I don't believe that any woman would demand the removal of a teenager from the household for one instance of misogynistic name-calling, particularly after they've been living together for some years. Over a period of 40 years, I've seen too many women who were obviously frightened of their own children.

From the original post: "my son from a previous marriage moved in at the same time we had our baby (ex wife having trouble with him),"

There is clearly more to the situation than has been made clear. There was "trouble" before he moved in.

There is clearly more to the situation than has been made clear. There was "trouble" before he moved in.

Someone having "trouble" with a child (then 11 years old!) isn't a statement that he is violent or "dangerous" as these posters have invented. She might have had trouble with him for any number of reasons: him being anxious, having problems at school, him having some kind of health condition, her having mental health issues herself, her being a not very capable parent in general, any number of things.

You cannot just come onto a thread and make up things that the OP has never said and expect everybody to discuss the issue on the basis of what you've created in your imagination rather than the information actually provided.

Perhaps I've seen too many problem teens through my work.

I've seen so many instances of teenage boys who became uncontrollable by the time they physically outgrew their mothers

It's referred to as prejudice and discrimination when somebody majes judgements like this about somebody based on generalising from characteristics e.g. age or sex or race when they know nothing about the specific individual that supports these negative views being attributed to them.

Your wife doesn't wish to share a home with an angry teenager. Take that seriously.

Indeed. Take her up on her offer to leave: good riddance.

Then focus on why your son is feeling sad rejected and repairing that.

Sounds like a pretty normal teenager to me. You do know they can often be awful!

No, most don't. I don't know why people are saying that most teenagers will call their female parents a "bitch" or worse at some point.

Yes, most teens have their moments and can be moany and difficult, but only a very few verbally abuse their parents with misogynistic insults when asked to do their chores. It's more typical to get moaning or putting it off - "I'll do it later" and then it doesn't get done.

It's not a "tiny thing" at all. I wouldn't want to live with someone who called me a "bitch" - it suggests a nasty contempt for and disrespect towards women, especially if part of a pattern of disrespectful behaviour. And it is harassment - it's verbal abuse.

It is not usual behaviour from the majority of teens at all. Perhaps the ones who are causing trouble at school and terrorising their teachers, but not the majority.

There is absolutely nothing in the post to say that the mother disowned him and threw him out rather than, say, his two parents having a conversation and agreeing it would be good if he moved in with his dad. Possibly for male influence for a while, possibly all three children have challenging behaviour and their mum needed the dad to step up and parent at least one.

There is also nothing to say the son would be homeless! Given the OP threatened sending him back to his mum (and I still think the OP started this, with that comment) I assume the mum would house him if needed.

We don’t know why, and we don’t know if the son was quite happy with the idea - maybe he got a room to himself at his dad’s, or whatever.

It is a shit enough situation without piling made up hyperbole on it.

We don’t know why his mum couldn’t handle him at 11 or however old he was. However from my experience of my 16 yo dd’s friend’s parents, I see a lot of lack of resilience from the parents and incredibly shitty behaviour, that’s biological parents btw.

One mum is not talking to her 16 yo dd and blaming her dd for the demise of their marriage. This is so totally untrue and stems from something incredibly insignificant that the girl shouldn’t have been involved in but none of the adults have any boundaries. The mum has also blocked the girl and is refusing to do anything for her at all…not that she did much before. This girl doesn’t argue with her parents much at all, is being made to work in the family business full time and is too tired to study for the course she’s been enrolled on by her father. Mum (sahm with a housekeeper) cannot be bothered to cook the food her dd wants so at 16 she comes home from work and cooks for herself, this predates the current situation. She is a really good kid and how she doesn’t have serious mental health issues idk. Additionally she was made to go to work and apart from being allowed to go to the very small local town she had to stay at home the whole summer for an incredibly minor infraction, which the mum said her heart was broken over 🙄. That’s the summer post GCSE, which is supposed to be so much fun. She now is finally allowed out and on sleepovers again. Dad is a workaholic.

The second, her parents are nesting pending sale of the house and in the middle of a divorce. The mum threw her 16 yo dd out at the start of her week. Dad is staying with his new girlfriend on the weeks off (he’s moved on fast, no overlap btw) and she doesn’t have room in her house so she’s staying with a friend close to college. The girl has had recent issues with her mum and her mum slapped her about 6 months ago, which took a lot of repair work. I’m sure the girl is no angel. But she’s a good kid, studied for her GCSEs, is going to college, doing her work, helping out at home, holding down a part time job etc.

As for us, I am absolutely sure these parents would buckle with what we are facing with my dd, who has anorexia and I’ve fought tooth and nail to get her to where she is right now. A long way from being mentally well or healed but eating, gaining weight again very slowly atm. Most parents have no idea just how vile a mentally ill anorexic can be to their parents / caregivers when challenged and challenge I must as without intervention on the amount she was eating and drinking, she would have died.

As for the op. If this is what the boy has done and similar other incidents, they are minor infractions in the scheme of things. Yes, his dad needs to be clear this is totally unacceptable to treat his stepmum in this way. And explain to him how intimidating males can be to females. But to threaten to kick him out, that is just awful. If things like violence, intimidation or drugs are involved this would be a somewhat different situation and for both the dad and stepmum to decide on an action plan.

At 15/16 in my limited experience, boys are in the most part, if handled correctly, quite sweet and caring but in the wrong hands not. Dd’s male friends remind me of overgrown puppies waiting to grow into their bodies.

For the record, this is absolutely all OP has said about his 10 year old son moving in

my son from a previous marriage moved in at the same time we had our baby (ex wife having trouble with him)

No eviction, homelessness etc. Hopefully, a discussion between both parents on how best to handle their three children. Possibly the issue was with the two children who were very close in age and so it was felt better to separate them. Maybe not. But there’s no evidence for the worst of the suggestions being made.

If your child is struggling you try and get help for them, you don't just move them out. He was 10 and probably struggling with his parents splitting up.
Let's hope if he moves back with the mother she doesn't have trouble with him again and want him out again. A child shouldn't be moved out if they misbehave.

If the mother had trouble with her ds at 10 and moved him out, I don't fancy her chances coping with a nearly 15 year old who hasn't been used to living with her.

Again, with the "move them out" - you do not know what conversations were had with the child, or if the son was previously 60:40 and is now 60:40, say.

But OP hasn't returned and I find that unusual, so I am out.

The wife is choosing to leave.

The 4yo still has a home and can stay.

If the wife wants contact with the 4yo, then it will be her that’s removing him/making him leave.

So therefore you must think the DW is the one in the wrong here.

The problem seems to be that you're not parenting him.

He called your wife a bitch, and instead of actually dealing with that, you told him that he could go and live with his mum if he said anything like that again. Do you not see what a copout that is?

Why is your wife giving him chores to do around the house instead of you doing this as his dad?

And if things have been OK since the "bitch" incident, why exactly do you think that your wife doesn't want to live under the same roof as your child?

Sending him back to his mum's isn't the solution. You're his parent and you need to step up and deal with any bad behaviour. Whether your wife chooses to stick around or not.

The dad also chose to live with their child . This kid has two parents and perfectly acceptable to live with either parents . Nonsensical making a man chose between his kid and and herself . Us women like to pick and choose , if a man then picked his wife over the kid he instantly becomes a waste of space / a speerm donor 🙄

I don't think "bitch" is misogynistic; it's just an insult meaning a person that nags/is nasty/you don't want to deal with. Men call each other "bitch" too, to mean subordinate/cowardly. It's far removed from the original meaning of "female dog."

But, more to the point... the teenage years are when emotions and hormones are raging, children begin to separate themselves from and rebel against their parents (often in disrespectful ways), and its about when they start using curse words, to see what "adult" language they can get away with. I don't think it's uncommon at all for teens to insult their parents or step parents like that. I know I've said as much to my parents, and my step daughters have said as much to me and their mother (and they have had zero behavioral issues at school/no instances of getting into actual trouble outside of school), and I expect my own daughter will be a moody teen who curses at me too, at some point. I'm not gonna hold it to her individual character, by any means.

I don't want to pass judgement on you, but you might need to grow thicker skin if you're a parent.

In what scenario would my step daughter ever happen to be digging through my sock drawer to encounter the note she wrote when she was 14?? It's not like I'm throwing in her face and being like "REMEMBER THIS?!?"

Hubby said "throw it away" as in "I don't want it," not "get rid of it immediately and if you don't I'll be displeased."

Jesus

Even though I would say it's probably safe to assume the wife will take the 4-year old with her as that's what usually happens, we can't know for sure.

However, even IF it's his mum that leaves and he sees her at best 50% of the time, are you saying that the breakdown of the 4-year old's family unit won't affect him because he gets to stay in the house? Are you suggesting that his upheaval doesn't matter? That it's somehow less than?

OP isn't really choosing between his teenager and his DW, he's choosing between his sons. Nobody wins here. He either picks the teenager to continue living there -and thereby the wife and 4yo will leave - or he picks DW and the emotional stability of the 4yo.

If the OP picks the teenager, as you are so desperate for him to do, at some point the 4yo will understand that his life was altered because his dad chose his brother over him. You can diminish that all you like because you feel that the teenager takes priority, but parents divorcing is rarely a small event in any child's life.

You can 'blame' the DW if you like but the 4yo doesn't care how it's come about - he still suffers. The 'existing children were here first' argument as justification is pathetic.

Of course, OP could try actually disciplining his teenage son and laying down some firm boundaries. Some open communication between all the relevant parties wouldn't go amiss either. Then maybe nobody will 'have to' leave. But as OP has entirely disappeared and we know next to nothing about what's really been going on I doubt very much anything further will happen.