I'm not sure what I want to achieve by posting. I think maybe to know I'm not alone?
My 12 year old SS has constant hostility towards me and it's starting to get me down. I've never known such a stubborn, relentless child. I know when I was his age I would get moody but you get over it, right, even if just temporarily? But this has been going on solidly for about two months. I've tried talking to him, we've tried punishments but all the punishments seemed to do was drive a wedge between him and his Dad, which is the last thing I want. I made a decision that I needed to take a step back. I had been trying for 6 months to set a weekly routine, to spend as much time with him as I could, just to get him used to me being around. But this had no impact on him and started to have a damaging effect on me as I felt like it was all give give give with less than nothing in return. Since then I've obviously still been around but I've taken time for me, going to exercise classes, seeing friends, basically just living my life and being there for DP as a priority.
SS grunts when I speak to him, he will enter a room and leave immediately if I'm in it, if I walk past him he recoils from me as if I'm contagious, if I touch anything he will never touch it again, if I cook he won't eat it. He will never ask for my help, even when it will benefit him (eg. he has an iPad and his Dad doesn't understand Apple products so if he has an issue with it I could easily fix it but he won't ask me, therefore he hasn't touched his iPad in weeks because he doesn't know how to work it. He watches Amazon Prime under my account, but if he needs to re-enter the password he would rather go without than speak to me - even though he loves The Grand Tour!).
We've tried everything from punishments to positive reinforcement; we've offered to give him pocket money so he has a bit more independence from us but under the condition he has a baseline level of respect when he's in the house and he has refused. He'd rather have no money then have to treat me like a human being.
The only thing that did work was when DP had a chat with his ex - she wanted us to take him full time but we let her know that he was miserable with us and probably wouldn't want that and if that is what she wants she's going to have to be a bit more positive regarding our situation (FYI - DP and his ex broke up 10 years ago and we've been together for 2 ). She did this for about a month and we recognised an improvement immediately but then her and DP had an argument (regarding her taking SS out of school for a day and not telling DP) and she blew up and said she is not going to help and we need to deal with it on our own and she doesn't seem to be budging.
I know the above is all about me and clearly SS is miserable too - but what can you do when he doesn't seem to want to be happy? I recognise that 12 is a difficult age anyway without a step-mother on the scene. But I'm not an evil witch, I want him to have a good relationship with his Dad first and foremost and I just want him to feel comfortable in our home, we don't have to be BFFs or even Fs! Just a little give would go miles at this point. Has anyone else been through this? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Or should I just resign myself?