Step son doesn’t want to visit

[Waterwater101]

My 15 year old step son hasn’t enjoyed visiting us for a while now, and it’s reached the point he’s absolutely vile for the 2 days EOW he’s here. He sulks in his bed all day and lashes out at our children when he leaves his room. He won’t join us when we go anywhere and if he has no choice he sulks. We got him to sit in the living room with us last weekend and he faced the wall for an hour.

We can understand why he doesn’t want to come sometimes.. his life is at home .. his pc, friends, mum, home comforts and no younger siblings to irritate him (they only need to breathe to wind him up).

He’s pleaded with his mum to let him skip a weekend here and there, or only stay for 1 night sometimes but she will not have any of it. His friends often have things planned (IRL or on PC) he can’t join because he’s coming to us… we live quite a way from him.

We’ve stressed to her how unhappy he is when he visits but she will not listen.

I think forcing him to come is damaging the relationship he has with us all and it’s causing a lot of resentment.

I genuinely think this could be rectified if he could ‘skip a weekend’ here and there so he looked forward to coming? We do this every now and then if we have a holiday or whatever and honestly when he comes after having not seen us for a longer period of time he is much happier.

I also think at 15 you should have some sort of say in how you spend your weekend? I certainly did at that age! He literally spends the two days here waiting to go home, to a point half an hour before he leaves he sits on the stairs with his things.

I feel so sad for him. Any ideas how we could tackle this? He’s so welcome here, we’ve tried so hard with him and I have nothing more I can give.

Mate he’s a freaking teenager glued to his computer. She’s got a lot more free time than you think.

@Changechangechanging I do find it baffling because I have my daughter on the exact times you mention and if something was making her unhappy I would put her needs first even if it limited "my time". I don't remember signing up to being a parent with mandatory breaks at all costs.

A good mum or dad puts their kids first.

But I suppose different strokes for different folks...

I understand the need to be alone, but if my child is miserable, Ill first think about him

and the other parent? What are they doing for their miserable child? Why is that falling to you? The ‘bad mum’ inference because some people want a free night every now and again is ridiculous,

The OP said that they did what they could. Its not that the father doesnt want to be with his son, its that the son is making it impossible to have a peaceful or normal weekend, thats how miserable he is. He even refused to get in the car to go to the fathers. How can a mother feel ok while going out knowing that hes so unhappy? There should be a compromise, not forcing the teenager who seems to have a game addiction. He needs help, actually.

He’s bored. He at least should have a PC for his room at your house.

This is a zombie thread but since they paid in full for the ones at mums, I think either mum shutouts handover computer to keep at dads or pay for the one at mums.

Fairs fair after all.

Regardless of his age/unhappiness, it is COMPLETELY unacceptable for him to be behaving like this towards his siblings/ANY child. Id have taken the phone off him for the rest of the weekend. Is he allowed to behave like this? Hormones or not, it is not on, if they were my kids, he wouldnt be coming anywhere near them, he sounds like an absolute brat.

Im so lucky my two are good kids, eldest SS will be 15 next month and I cant see him not wanting to come to us any time soon, god help me 😂we live 45 minutes away (mother moved before anyone jumps on my back), unsurprisingly she still considers the distance our problem, but we make it work and until he can drive, we do what we have to to lug them back and forth to football.