I posted a while ago about my stepson who was being very distruptive at home, made worse by problems in my relationship with his dad. We've been trying our hardest to work through the problems but DSS is continuing to cause so much stress at home that I am thinking we can't go on. I think some of it is because DH is actually trying too hard to be matey and is not taking control of him. On Easter Sunday I ended up in tears out of frustration. DSS was so demanding and attention seeking, we were all exhausted by him but his dad didn't do anything about it. During the easter hols I had the first week off and looked after the kids and DH took the second. I ended up booking DSS into a football academy for 3 days because I knew that if he was at home all week it would be a battleground. It worked because he was occupied and worn out and I had the other two girls (DSD and DD) and were able to do things for younger kids. However, I felt guilty for not wanting him around. I had them again on Friday and took them all out. He was reasonably behaved but only because I had to keep reminding him what to do, what the boundaries were etc. He said he had a brilliant day - which was great to hear. Except I was totally exhausted and frazzled!
He's been playing with fire - he lit matches in his room a couple of months ago, and a couple of weeks ago he stole matches and nail varnish remover and lit it next to our wooden shed. DH and I both went spare because of the dangers but clearly losing our temper was the desired reaction so we have got the fire brigade coming round for a series of visits to talk to him about why he did it. He's having counselling at school, and is also seeing a Connexions adviser. Everyone is saying the same to him - that he is in charge of his happiness, that if he learns how to improve his behaviour he'll be rewarded, that he's got lots of people that love him that he can talk to, that bottling feelings up are going to make him feel worse, etc etc. You'd think that the reinforcement of the same thing by so many people would get through eventually and may be it will but in the meantime I'm living in total unhappiness. He is rude, hangs around with some awful boys, misbehaves in school, misbehaved in the football academy (He was the only one to be mentioned negatively when I collected him which was embarrassing).
I just need (a) coping mechanisms so I don't feel so upset and angry and (b) advice on how to get the DH to realise he has to take control of him and that if I do it, it will just make DSS hate me more than he probably does already!