Teenage son moved in. Disrespect to SM
My 16yr olds mother and I separated in 98. She re-married in 2001. I would see my son fairly often due to me moving to be close after they moved. After years of me being made the "bad guy" the X left her husband in 2010 for another man and gave my sons bedroom to the new BF's son. My boy was dumped off with me. I was happy to have my boy, but he is messed up. (drug, expusion from school, depression) My GF (whom I have lived with for 5yrs, is a social worker, and very nice to him. He is very disrespectful. His mother has since ended her relationship with that man, and wants my son to move back. Any disapline is met with "I'll move to my Mom's". I have him finishing H.S. though an on-line (expensive) school, cover his court problems, and take him to conseling. Moving with his Mother will be counter productive. She acts like she just turned 21. My GF, as a stepmom has done everything for the boy and gets 0 respect. Any help on this would be great.
Thank you!
BTW I'm a newbie
Wow! Sounds like a really
Wow! Sounds like a really tough situation. My DH sort of went thru similar with his son. Even though he lived with us, once he reached a certain age he would threaten with going to his Mom's, whenever something happened at home that he didn't like. Which was often! According to therapist this is very common with kids of divorced parents. They'll always want to go to the parent offering the best deal. Whoever is the more lenient, will spend more on them, makes less demands, etc. In our case, my husband only decided to put his foot down with his son after years of no limit setting. Once my husband tried cracking down on him, it was off to Mom's he finally went at 15yo. I think by law, once they reach a certain age, they can chose the parent they want to live with and there isn't a lot you can do about it, unless you were able to prove beyond a doubt that she was unfit. Our family counselor said in our state it would be very difficult to do. So there wasn't a lot we could do about it. Of course at his mother's he ended up in a lot more trouble. Just what my husband feared. Fortunately, by some miracle, he snapped out of it and is now in college and doing fine. So there is always a chance that may happen with your boy, But with kids, one can never tell. Perhaps, if he insists on going to his Mom's, he'll agree to at least stay in counseling and finish the high school program. Wish you the best of luck with this. I know how frustrating it is for the bio parent and how powerless you can feel when the other bio parent undermines you.