Failure to launch madness

5 comments

1. I can speak to this directly, because my wife’s son had a number of similar issues: He nearly failed out of high school, was nearly *kicked* out of high school for behavioral reasons, he joined the army and then chaptered out for medical reasons, he held down no job for any length of time, he bought and wrecked two different cars…I was at my wit’s end.

   He was 23 years old and living with us, failing to find work, failing to get his life together. He attacked me once in my own home, and was so out of control that we had to call the police and get him taken on a psych hold.

   I told you all of that to tell you this:

   Do not make your fiancee choose between you and her son. Because she will either choose him, and you’ll have played your hand and lost…or she will choose *you* because she feels like she had no choice, and then she will resent and eventually become bitter at you for having *made* her choose.

   She has shown you that she *is* going to continue to harbor him in her home, rather than see him homeless. Whether that’s her home with you, or her home without you, is a secondary issue; unless and until *she* decides that what is necessary is for him to be out, he *will* be in her home.

   So what’s left for you to decide is: which is more important to you, being with *her*, or living without *him* in your life?

   Because you can’t have both.

   So either hunker down and learn to tolerate him, or decide that you cannot (and leave).

   Those are your choices.

2. 1) Most 19 year olds don’t want their mom’s new boyfriend trying to be “a father figure” to them. it’s exactly 0% astounding to me that he would reject those efforts.

   2) If you and your partner are cohabitating, you NEED to be on the same page about things. Things like: kicking out a tenant, kicking out a family member, inviting someone to live with you, how to deal with family members in crisis, etc. Preferably on the same page AHEAD of time!! These things need to be discussed and agreed upon!

   3) If you don’t want to live with someone who is having a mental health crisis, you don’t have to. You can move out (or end their tenancy if it’s your house).

   4) if you don’t want this kid’s “madness” in your life, DON’T MARRY HIS MOTHER

3. To be clear:

   >he’s hit me and her in drunken fights

   >threatened to kill me

   >She’s worried about him killing himself.

   This isn’t “failure to launch”, this is a young man who is experiencing some kind of mental health crisis and, while you’re not required to tolerate his behavior because of that, you DO need to reframe how you are looking at it, because if you think this is just a 21 year old who wouldn’t let you boss him around and give you unquestioning respect simply because you’re boning his mom, then you’re viewing this ENTIRELY ass-backward and you’re NEVER going to be able to resolve it because you fundamentally don’t understand what’s happening here.

4. Dude, this isn’t drama.

   This is TRAUMA.

   He needs mental health assistance immediately. Have you tried talking to her about getting him some help? Because he needs help more than he needs anger.

5. honestly I know a few people who inherited a shitty step kid who was 100% enabled by their parent.

   it never gets better. break off this relationship. Your fiance has chosen to continue to enable him and he will likely end up getting violent