Aaaah!!! Just lost it with ds (13) again!!!

[overthehill]

Long-standing issues over bedtimes here, with ds basically refusing to go at a sensible time and deciding that he sets his bedtime. Dh basically thinks it's fine for him to set his own bedtime and ds respects him - and has said on numerous occasions that dh is "better" than me. On a week night I'm lucky if he's in bed by 11pm, by which time dh is always fast asleep, and he's so tired on a morning that he can never get up for school without being waken up repeatedly. One day recently when I didn't have to get up for work and had slept in after a late night I woke at 8.15 and went to wake him up, then again at 8.30, and he was being abusive to me and blaming me for the fact that he wasn't up for school as I was lazy! He has to get up early tomorrow (c.8.15) but still refused to go in the shower until nearly 11.45pm. At 12.10am he was still in the shower with the music blasting out so loudly that he couldn't even hear me knocking on the door telling him to turn it off and get out!

When he finally came downstairs whistling at 12.20 I went mad at him, screaming that I was going to leave home as I'd be in the psychiatric hospital if we had much more of this. I'd also just scribbled a note for dh saying the same. He asked why I was having a hissy fit and said that I would have been more likely to wake the others (dh and his 17-y-o sister) with my knocking than him - which is partly true but why shouldn't I be able to get into my own bathroom to go to bed anyway????

Basically I have absolutely no control over him and he carries on as though I'm an idiot and he's a grown up (which in my opinion is to do with how dh treats him). I've said on here before how I feel undermined by dh and I just don't see how I can carry on here without damaging my mental health irreparably. I also really feel for dd and probably did wake her up when I went mad with him in the kitchen. What do I do????

Speak to your DH, make him see how all this affects you all

Does your DH try and get ds up in the mornings? Has he seen the difficulty himself?

over, I remember your last thread about this. I still think your real problem is not your teenager, but your husband. Night-time showers and reluctance to go to bed and trouble getting up are pretty common teenage behaviour, and you could deal with it all fine if you were backed up. And I'm afraid I think that your DS is simply mimicking the lack of respect that your DH shows you :(

I'm not saying that you would be able to sort out all of DS's bad behaviour if you were dealing with it on your own - it sounds like you've got a 'challenging teen' and you're in for a difficult few years in any case :( . But I really do believe it wouldn't be so stressful and upsetting, if you weren't being undermined all the time. My instinct is to tell you that you would be better off without a DH like this... And I also think that is confusing and damaging for a boy to see his mum treated badly and disrespectfully by his dad... But I do know that 'leaving the bastard' isn't an easy option.

It might be worth re-posting this in 'relationships' you know, to see if anyone has any suggestions for how you can get your DH to 'man up', back you up and behave decently.

If he is responsibile enough to decide his own bed time he is responsible enough to get himself up in the mornings without your help. Maybe Dh could wait to take him to school if he is late and explain to the school.
If he has a bus to catch then he gets the next one. If it is you that takes him and then you have to get to work he has to make his own way , bus , walk etc
Then he has to accept the punishments the school dish out.

Seems a bit of an over reaction to pretty standard teenage behaviour to me. Don't most teens try to stay up a bit later than is probably good for them, and also (whatever time they go to bed) struggle to get up in the morning ?

Your problem is your husband, not your son

I'd let him take the consequences of oversleeping in the morning.
If he complains, tell him that you'll get him up in the morning if he goes to bed by 10.45pm (or whatever time you think) and if he can be civil to you in the mornings.
He has just demonstrated that he needs more sleep than he's getting.
You could also point out that his DF goes to sleep at a sensible time.

tell him once that he needs to be getting up and give a ten minute re warn - then it is up to him if he doesn't get up. Let him know that this is what you intend to do in the future so he has been made fully aware. Explain that he is most welcome to set the alarm on his phone etc but you will not be keep waking him and if he over sleeps he will have to explain to school that he didn't get up when you gave him two warnings.

Thanks for the opinions, I've been out all day so not logged on (no internet on phone!). Re school: ds goes on his bike so neither of us gives him a lift and he's always getting codes for being late, but he doesn't seem to care a bit. In theory he could leave earlier and walk with a friend but again he doesn't care enough to do this.

Things went from bad to worse this evening when ds started getting at dd, who then completely lost it and they had a terrible fight, with her managing to split his lip and my struggling to keep them apart. DH just happened to be out with the dog at the time!!! She is saying that he's ruined her life and she wants to leave home as soon as she can; I've told her I'll go with her. All dh can see is what she's done to him, he seems totally blind to ds's behaviour, as always, and this is partly what makes dd so uptight. DH then says it's too late to discuss it all as it's time people were in bed (his usual way of avoiding the issues). He'd only spoken to ds and ignored dd so I made him go and talk to her, but she didn't think that he got what she was saying at all.

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare :(

I remeber the other thread too - dh is not helping.

OK tonight go to bed when you want to, maybe 9.30 with a book. Leave dh and ds to sort themselves out.

In the morning get up, get dressed and go to work. If he misses school, then so be it. Write a letter to his school telling them what you are doing and why. Some schools are supportive, other's not. A friend with mental health issues had a supportive, actually very supportive, school. If she wasn't able to get her teenager into school they would send someone round.

The book yourself and dd into a spa for a short break.

DH doesn't see ds's problems because ds is copying dd.

Thanks for your support, folks, I know other people have similar and worse issues but somehow that doesn't make it any easier. It's been a much calmer day today but mainly because dd's been out at a rehearsal most of the day so they haven't interacted. It's so sad as when they were younger they got on so well, but ds despises dd now as he thinks she's "weird" because she's not done the teenage rebellion and she despises him because of the way he treats me and acts generally. She's also frequently said that she feels invisible to dh but he doesn't "hear" that although I've told him in the past that this is how she feels. Hmmm.

i agree with whats been said, i'm hoping you've managed to sort something out as this was a month ago, your DS needs to learn himself, i've never understood the parents waking their teenagers up, i had an alarm and had to get myself up from the age of 8, he needs to learn responsibility, get him an alarm clock, if he doesn't get up, make sure the school has sanctions for lateness, as sashh has said, make sure he school are aware. but yes, i've read other posts about your DH he needs to pull his finger out, and your DD has every right to be as upset as she is, i hope everything's calming down, hands you a

Thanks for asking, jshibbyr, but tbh I don't see how things are ever going to improve, given the fact that dh is blind to the problem and ds is blind to dh's faults and completely the opposite about me .

Trouble is, ds is too clever and turns everything to his own advantage: he agreed with dh that he would use the alarm on his phone to wake himself up in the mornings, which of course means that this now stays in his room instead of having to be plugged in on the landing.

Last night when I was going to bed just after 1am I realised he was talking on the phone(!!!) even though he had to get up this am and I was furious - but he made out I was being unreasonable and he would decide when he went to bed. When I suggested that he should then also have responsibility for getting himself up he said that dad did it (implying once again that he was much better than me) and it was a parent's job to get him up anyway!

Tonight I just went upstairs a few minutes ago to find him still faffing in his bedroom and not in the shower so had a go at him - meanwhile dh is in bed reading a book and completely ignoring the fact that ds is nowhere near the shower .

We had another letter from the school attendance officer recently complaining about his punctuality - but he thought the fact that he'd only been officially late 6 times was good! I despair.....