How to deal with step son who acts middle aged!!

[marmon]

This sounds really unfair and i do feel abit mean but my dh son is what you may call anal and i do not know how to handle it. He is 14 and does not appear to have many friends that i know of, we see him every weekend which is fine but i find the constant digs about the way we live our lives infuriating. He has good home life with his Mum and stepdad and i get the feeling the influence may be from him. For example today he asked me "why do you buy such cheap food", i shop at Sainsburys ffs but he thinks Waitrose is where everyone should go and cannot seem to grasp that people in this world are poor. He buts in conversations my dh and i are having and my dh never picks him up on it. I tell my 5 year old ds to wait to speak. We had problems which were far more serious than this when dh and me got together 4 years ago, so alot has improved. Trouble is if i say anything to the boy he tells his Mum and she phones up and reads the riot act, she cannot see any faults in him, as far as she is concerned everyone else is wrong.

I am positive he does not like me that much, he had his dad to himself for 6 years before we came along so i appreciate his resentment, but i am worried because we are going away for a week in April and im concerned we are going to fall out. Just to wrap this up it seems that no matter what i say i do its wrong, im not perfect but i really do try but i feel abit under the microscope. Anyone else feel like this?

Is he called Adrian ? Does he have a diary ?

I had the same with my own teenagers. I think all teens go through a 'critise your elders' phase to be honest.

DD used to take great delight in telling me where I should shop for my clothes as the ones I normally wore were 'dowdy and dull'.

DS does the food thing like your DSS.

Oh, and his mum should pack it in with the ringing up reading riot act thing. She is being VERY silly and immature.

Ha ha ComeWhineWithMe. Isnt being a step parent bloody hard? Even though my dh ex left him for another man she seems to try and make us feel guilty if the boy starts acting up. Its always our fault. I remember once my husband wrote condoms on the shopping list and stepson read it and went mad. He said we were disgusting and could not believe it, omg when ex found out she said we were irresponsible for leaving a shopping list lying around. You would have thought we had left a copy of Playboy left open on the centre page the way she carried on.

Like you say themoon66 its probably a phase of putting us down but its very frustrating.

My step daughter is exactly the same re-shopping - if we get anything from Asda, or heaven forbid, Morrisons, she gets very snotty about it. It's extremely aggravating but I know for my step daughter is partly insecurity that makes her latch onto things like where you shop... she thinks it means the world is 'safer' if we are able to shop at Waitrose and Sainsburys and isn't able to see you are very often paying through the nose for identical items. There also a lot of silly pressure from school over these things I think. I do try to ignore it (although difficult cos it winds me up) or make a joke of it... as with so many things this is better option.

I wouldn't be so certain that you SS doesn't like you - it's so complicated for them - to show that they like you can feel as though they are being disloyal to other parent. Maybe this holiday will be a really good opportunity for you to bond? My experience of holidays is a) have low expectations b) expect it to be focussed on your children and leave nothing over for you as a couple c) activities don't have to be very expensive or over the top for children to have a good time. Apologies if I am telling you stuff you already know - I've only been doing this two and a half years. My SKs live with us fulltime and it has been a baptism of fire. Holidays can be really hard (I remember a week in Spain that nearly split us up) - but conversely a week in Feb in Northumberland going to lots of castles and fish and chip shops was fab... ):

I am very much dreading the holiday but i know you are right and i have to have low expectations. Its interesting what you say about schools and supermarkets i was not aware they put pressure on where you shop! My 2 children will be there and they are younger than him, so obviously my time will be more with them and my dh is teaching his son how to surf so fingers crossed it will be o.k. Lets just hope im not pre menstraul! Lol