Im a 55 year old dad. I grew up with violence and my dad would often hit us when he was frustrated / we did something "wrong". I've always tried not to allow anger and violence into the household. I've never hit my now 19 year old son. I've lost my temper a few times, and always spoken to him about it afterwards.
He's always been pretty good. Maybe we just want to see him that way. His mum is disabled and suffers from chronic pain, depression and agoraphobia. She sleeps most of the time.
I guess, emotionally, he has had a lot to deal with. I was very close to him until recently and we could always talk one to one and man to man pretty ok, I thought.
He left school without wanting to further his education, so I told him he had to pay digs. He seems ok with that and pays his digs. We have to chase him but he pays. I just didn't want him becoming unemployed, even though he wanted to take "a gap year" and just basically do nothing.
Anyway, recently he has become more and more non communicative, He spends all of his time with his girlfriend (I'm cool with that, of course. That's what I would expect) but I felt sad when he bailed on a concert we had booked months previously.
Anyway, the point of this thread. He is supposed to be responsible for the recycles. He used to help with gardening and cleaning the car. He wouldn't do it consistently so I took over. Yeah I know thats probably a mistake. So the recycles are his responsibility.
We chase him every time.
Anyway, we warned him that if the recycles weren't done he would be woken up first thing in the morning and asked to do them. I told my wife this was going to cause problems with he and I (because he has been back talking and disrespecting my parental authority for a long time) but she said that was what we were going to do. She had woken him a few times and he had rushed to do it (grumpily).
So on this now fateful day I woke him to do the recycles and he started telling snapping at me about how he had to work (at 6pm that evening). I told him "Don't speak to me like that." and he F bombed me.
I was so upset I told him to get out of my sight.
My wife and I discussed this and came to the conclusion that we should tell our son that if he speaks to me like that again he will be asked to find somewhere else to live. Wow, typing that out makes me sound *** terrible! Anyway, I thought that if he stays here F bombing me and disrespecting the house and just acting like he runs the place then it's worse for him than being asked to leave.
So we told him that, calmly.
A follow up family meeting was scheduled for yesterday. He ran out of the house . I said "We arranged a family meeting!" and he just said "I'm busy, sorry." and drove off.
I felt so weak and stupid that I couldn't look at him when he eventually came home. Today he left the house without a word. We were going to speak to him about everything and tell him that we want to support him, that we dont want him to go, etc etc, but he just doesn't seem to care.
Any thoughts? I sound like a weak guy. I probably am. I just don't want to let anger and frustration determine what happens next. His mother is so upset and all over the place that it is taking an incredible amount of restraint for me to not just lose it, but I am hanging in there.