Well a long year has finally come to a nice conclusion. I don;t know how the heck I made it thru but I am still here and alive. My ss18 moved out last weekend! We only have a 3 bedroom home and 4 large teens boys so it was getting way too crowded. My ss18 was a very, very large and sloppy person. He never used a garbage can, he never returned dishes to the kitchen ( I only have 3 of the original plates I had when he moved in, non of the original cups/glasses, cutlery) he always took hour+ long showers, smoked pot at first until I threatened to call the cops, then started smoking those "spice" cigar things which research is showing cause psychosis and even death, stuffed leftover food and dishes into places like under bathroom sinks, into cupboards in the garage, into the unused wood stove, behind and under furniture, had a fire fetish, listened to loud music constantly and always had at least 4-20 buddies over in and around the house or in the boat. He stole from us constantly. We locked our rooms but he'd use screwdrivers, etc to break into our rooms anyways and then blamed anything we saw missing on his younger brother. Two months ago (the last straw) he stole almost 3 months worth of prescription pain meds from his Dad (our room which is always "locked"), sold them to his friends and then lied about it. His friends confessed.

That all doesn't even begin to cover the stress all of this caused on our household including his younger brother, but it gives you an idea of what we put up with.

Just today one of you mentioned how us smoms do this and how it must affect us health wise, emtionally, etc to have skids who act out like this. I sure as heck KNOW if I'd have had to go longer I would have left. I love SO with all my heart - but is love enough? Knowing he was 18 and heading out the door soon was all that kept me going. I just disengaged and turned a blind eye and hoped like crazy we'd all live to see another day with his match/lighter fetish. (once my SO went downstairs late at night and the garage was half full of smoke from ss18 lighting long stick matches and blowing them out. He had insomnia issues and would roam the house almost all night most nights and smoke and eat and leave things completely filthy. I never slept soundly)

So I just wanted to say that if you can make it until they're 18......