Hello, I am new here and hoping to get some advice from fellow step mom's regarding my situation with my stepson. It's a long story so I will give you the short version for some background. I've been a stepmom to my 17 year old stepson since he was about 2. We had a very close relationship for many years and at age 9 he came to live with my husband and I because his mom had drug issues and a chaotic lifestyle and she agreed it was best for him to live with us. Nothing was handled in court at this time. More than a year went by and my stepson was flourishing. He was happy, we were all happy with the situation and then his mom decided she missed my stepson and he needed to come back and live with her. We tried to talk to her about how well my stepson was doing and encourage her to reconsider for his sake. Then suddenly, during a weekend stay at his mom's, she decided to keep my stepson and sent us an email saying she was enrolling him in school in her city and that my stepson was very angry with us we took her to court and after a long, emotionally draining period, the judge ruled in my husband's favor and my stepson came back to live with us. We had him in therapy, we tried to help him readjust but he refused. During the custody dispute, my stepson clearly took a side with his mom, although we told him repeatedly he did not need to take sides. He outwardly hated my husband and I and any relationship either of us had with my stepson was destroyed by his own insistence. After a year of coming back to live with us, my stepson had made so many attempts to sabatoge his situation with us, including not doing schoolwork, lying, stealing, physically harming himself and threatening us with a baseball bat (we had to call the police), we decided to let my stepson go back to live with his mom. Since that time, my stepson has been distant, making excuses to come for visits and at one point, did not come to our house for four months after the birth of my husband and I'd second child. We have a four and a two year old together. My stepson has admitted to being very jealous of our children. He seems to not want anything to do with my husband and I but doesn't want us to have moved on with our lives and had our own children. He has asked us why we didn't consult with him first before having children. He came understand why we needed to have other children.

Now my stepson is 16, he has lived with his mom for the last four years. She still struggles with drugs and all kinds of problems and he has had many ups and downs with her and they try to drag my husband into the middle of their problems, hoping he will take each other's side. Both my stepson and his mother are extremely deceptive, manipulative, using and controlling. My hisaband and I have tried to allow my stepson to come for visits on his terms because if we don't and he comes to stay against his will, he is absolutely disruptive and I am afraid for my safety and my children's safety when my stepson is angry. He is very big, bigger Han my husband and his moods very unpredictable. Lately, his visits have become less consistent. Three months had passed between his last visit and this most recent one even though my hisbans tried to arrange for him to come, he made up excuses. We don't pressure him because he is all about having control. He has no parenting at his mom's house- he runs a the show. He has made it clear that our lives will be miserable if we try to show any authority over him and because I am fearful of him, we walk on broken glass throughout his visits.

For the last several visits, when my stepson comes he seems totally fine for the first night when he gets here. By the end of the day the following day my stepson is cold, withdrawn, stone faced and won't engage. He will eat dinner without saying a word to anyone and then go straight to his room. He will keep an obvious angered face on but refuse to talk about what's bothering him. We do everything we can to be nice and pleasant to him and just ignore his attitude because he won't tell us what's bothering him but it is very awkward and invomfortable. His behavior scares me. My intuition says that he could be dangerous and tread very lightly around him. By the end of his visit when we drop him off, my stepson won't even say goodbye to us, only his siblings.

This last visit was so awkward that my husband said he is going to have to talk to him and suggest that he obviously does not enjoy his weekend visits at our house and if he won't discuss what is bothering him he doesn't have to but from now on, we should work out a different arrangement that is more comfortable for everyone like maybe day trips or something.

What would you suggest? I should mention that my husband works on saturdays so I am left alone with my children for that entire day and I am very nervous about this. There is no telling what is going to set my stepson into this strange mood but when it happens, it's very scary for me. He just walks around looking like he eants to hurt someone. I told my husband that if he ever comes for another weekend visit, my husband will need to take that workday off so he can be oreeent the entire weekend. My husband also doesn't want to leave me and the kids alone with him when he behaves like that.

What are your thoughts and suggestions? I'm desperate for advice!