Hmmm. Good question. I have an 18-year-old SS who is still coming over for visitation since he hasn't left for college. About to drive me nuts. He's a fine kid in many ways...just thought I'd have my house back by now. He turned 18 in April...

Hmmm. Good question. I have an 18-year-old SS who is still coming over for visitation since he hasn't left for college. About to drive me nuts. He's a fine kid in many ways...just thought I'd have my house back by now. He turned 18 in April...

My stepdad kicked me out at 16 if that helps. You can do it, but I can tell you it feels absolutely terrible to be abandoned when you're young, especially after your parents divorce and both move on with their lives - naturally putting their new partners first and foremost before you. Sometimes they're not ready at 18... what happens then? Does she get to stay until she starts school? What if she picks a school nearby and wants to live at home still? I feel for people who are rushed out of their home due to a stepparent. I would have some patience with the whole situation, unless she's awful to you. She should be out by 20 but sometimes 18 is too early depending on the person/where they're at.

Still dealing with bull from SD28. SK's who are awful will remain that way, it seems.

So you want to kick out the kid, but keep the man who refuses to parent. That makes absolutely no sense.

Why not kick them both out NOW?

Yeah. They both go now or you are in for more of a crazy ride. In my case I wasn't sure if I would live long enough to see my SD turn 18. My marriage was always subordinate to the relationship between my spouse and SD, who is going to be 13 next month. So just in time for the teenage years I asked them to move out. Two more days. The problem always stems from the parent. The skids can be horrible too ( mine really wasn't). If your significant other does not put you first, then you have no status and will have absolutely no say so in the decision to kick SK out at 18. A few months ago I told my soon to be ex spouse that I wanted SD gone at 18. I was told that they would both move out. I guess that forced my hand and I thought...."what the hell....they go NOW". Probably saved myself years of aggravation and extended my life span. Good luck to you.

Let's hope the economy is strong, she gets a job or attends college far away if your relationship lasts that long. Like the others, SKs may leave but often do not. Especially if daddy's girl knows she can manipulate her father to get her way. If he does not put you first now, you will never be first.

Another thing. If the economy goes south, adult kids often try to move back in.

Good luck; hope it works out for you.

Plan on getting a vacation home for yourself, you'll need it. ss31 has moved in and out of mommy and daddy's his whole adult life after getting booted from the military. He tried living here on and off but I set my foot down hard and just about ended our marriage over it. ss26 and SDIL live with (freeload off of) her parents in their teeny house. They've hinted at how nice it would be to live here but I told DH a preemptive and absolute, "Hells No!"

When ASS (my then 16 year old SS) started making my life hell by calling CPS and making a false report, I told my DH that once that kid graduated high school, he could live with the kid or he could live with me, but not both because there was NO WAY in HELL I was going to live with a kid who called the authorities to try to get me in trouble.

It was rocky in the beginning and DH suggested we should live separately, but once I started looking at apartments, and ASS continued to be an ASS, DH came to his senses. The day that ASS graduated from high school, he moved in with a childhood friend who lived on the opposite side of the state.

He is now in college, DH sees him once in a while, texts with him on a pretty frequent basis and that child hasn't set foot in my house since June of 2016. He wasn't here for Thanksgiving, he wasn't here for Christmas.

DH is currently making plans for ASS to live with his grandparents, DH's parents, for the summer.

DH an I settled this before we even married. And kid/skid, could live at home after the age of 18/graduated from high school, IF they went to college full time and worked part time. 4-5 year degree only.

In your situation, just like mine, you know the skid will not go to college. My SS went into the military. Thank goodness!

Start talking about this now. It really should have been talked about before you married though. Good luck.

Oh and edit to add. Kid or skid can only move back in for maximum 3-6 months (I think that is what we determined) If and only if an emergency. Sudden loss of job, injury, illness, divorce ect. Talk about that now also!!

Good luck in forcing them out unless your partner is completely on side. As mentioned here, check out the adult forum as many have them still at the house well after 18. Set a game plan and stick with it if you have support.

Even if you are successful at establishing physical boundaries, your DH may go through a period of guilt and grief and blaming you because he forced his kid out.

I am going through this right now. SS26 has successfully launched and has a good job in another state. He would like to be able to crash here when he's in town, and this is the first holiday when I've insisted that he stay elsewhere. And I do mean I had to insist. I actually went so far as to allow the dogs to ruin the mattress that DH so thoughtfully stored in my way so that he could throw it on the floor for his son to sleep on, thus putting it even more in my way. I had arranged for the mattress to get really trashed, and it obviously had to go and DH did not make any moves to replace it.

DH and I have separate finances, a pre-nup, and he essentially pays rent in the house I own. I have no way of knowing whether DH helped SS26 pay for his lodging when he was here over the holiday, as he said he was going to do, even though SS26 earns about 3 times what DH earns. (The cheap little so-and-so would have allowed him to do this.) I know that they are still sharing a cell phone account, which they have done since SS26 was in high school

So DH is sulking and SS26 is being his usual charming self. (Example: DH told SS it would be more convenient for both of us if he crashed elsewhere on his holiday visit up here. SS reportedly said, "Huh. Sounds like it would be more convenient for SM." Why yes. Yes it would be more convenient for me. And that is a problem because ... ?)

Sulk, sulk, sulk. You're so mean to my kid, but I am being brave about it.

All of which is to say, it never ends.

The paradigm at our house was slightly different. I took a huge amount of abuse and disruption from my SD who was 13 when we married. After much agony and effort, I finally figured her parents were just not going to teach her to be civilized and I wasn't gonna have much impact, either.

So about 15ish I started saying the minute she turned 18 I was gonna treat her like an adult even if no one else did. That means what I would not put up with from any other adult I would not put up with from her. I was not gonna hold back any more in deference to status as a child. I started stating this vociferously. It was spelled out that meant no hostile monsters living in my own home.

That her parents would not have prepared her for adulthood by that time was no longer my problem. I tried-got shot down-done. Now I just had to protect myself.

Dh had always had the idea that his kids should move at 18 anyway which was the standard in his family of origin so I was lucky like that.

I do recommend laying the groundwork now. The last thing you need is a big showdown on her 18th birthday where your vision clashes with dh's and little princess with the big eyes is standing right there.

BTW, don't worry about my SD17. Both Dh and I fully expect her to remain ensconced at BM's for the foreseeable future. Will be interesting to see how long BM will put up with it when CS stops. Personally, I also think we won't have to say anything to SD. My guess is she'll make some dramatic announcement that now she's 18 she doesn't have to come to our horrible house any more. Cry me a river. }:)

Depends....

18 graduating from school - if you study you can stay for another 2 years - only holidays, during term you will be in the dorm, if you work... and you can't afford your own place, you can stay but you will pay rent and still obey the house rules..... if you sit at home looking pretty you will find yourself on the street within 3 months....

Good luck to you! I was just like you, counting down the days so I could have my husband and stop fighting about his girls. Is been two years almost 3. And is never going to end I have decided. Those girls are master manipulators. Buckle in, and prepare for the long haul eventually you will likely disengage like many I'm reading about on here. I did about a year ago. We seperated our bank accounts, and I no longer participate in things if they are going to be there. It's not idealike. Honestly I probably wouldn't have gotten married had I known that he would never day no to them othat stand up to them. I think the rest of my life will be a fight waiting to happen. Good luck

We did not force him out. However, we did create a burning platform under him and gave him the choice of getting his tail feathers singed or spreading his wings and flying.

It took about 4mos but he chose to fly. Of course by then his tail feathers were smoking.

We were clear. Get into college and he would be on the full meal deal mom and dad scholarship to any school he wanted to attend or ...... once he turned 18 (he graduated HS 3mos before he turned 18) he had to either be in college or trade school or have a job if he wanted to live at home. For the months after graduation and before his birthday we gave him a great summer to do what he wanted, where he wanted, and when he wanted ..... on our dime.

We told him he could live with us rent free but that we were not going to fund his sofa rodeo career after he turned 18. He wrestled our sofa for a while with no effort to get into school or work. So... we shut off the cable TV and internet and turned him into our beck and call boy/chore bitch and worked his ass off doing every conceivable unpleasant mind numbing job we could think of around our house. His daily chore list started as a reasonable list and gradually over time increased to a mind numbing and back aching amount of work. For several months he scrubbed, cleaned, vacuumed, dusted, swept, polished, washed, dried, folded, scrapped, painted, weeded, pulled, mulched, sliced, diced, chopped, cut, measured, cooked, plated, served, etc.... until he finally realized that he could actually earn money for his labors and have far more autonomy if he launched.

So after a few months of chore bitch-ing/beck-and-call-boying he enlisted in the USAF on the delayed entry program. We backed off a little bit but still kept him significantly loaded up with household duties until he reported for BMT.

He has done awesome and interestingly he keeps his apartment very clean and orderly. Where was this crap when he was young? He tells us periodically that he realized when he was our live in laborer that it was easier to get his chores done if he never let them get out of hand.

He is finishing up his first 6yr commitment in the USAF, just re-enlisted, and will be reporting to his next duty station in Europe in August. Yep, his tail feathers have recovered just fine from their scorching while he played on our very carefully constructed burning platform.