Help to exercise my authority as a parent

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It would help to know his age.
Second, do not give anything you took back until and unless he falls in line.
Third, say nothing…zero…about the girlfriend but do not allow her in your home. Make clear your objection is the change in his behaviour and he alone stands in the way of you accepting his girlfriend. He needs to show you he can honor rules and be responsible while dating her, or it will be obvious to you that he is not mature enough to handle the relationship. Make it only about him. Her family are irrelevant…your message is “this would be fine if you decided to fly right”.

Give him room to screw up and come back to you.

“Dave, we have all been there. Who the girl is…not the issue. It’s who you are when you are with the girl.”

Consider too whether he could be using drugs. If he is, ship him to rehab ASAP.
 
You are so right when you say this is about him, not her! I have confessed my anger towards her…truly more like hatred. I do blame her, but you are correct, that I shouldn’t. Thank you for the reminder to stay on the right path!
 
This is what you should tell him. As long as he is living in your house then he will have to abide by your rules. If he wants to be an adult and go off on his own then tell him you will help him. He will have to get a job and go live elsewhere. I recommend that you offer to help him get a job so that he can earn his own money then when he is living in his own place he can make his own rules. And if you live with him you will abide by his rules.
 
I think you lost your authority when you took his phone away, cancelled his driver’s license test, and especially froze his bank account. I would give those things back. A phone is absolutely necessary for young people. He lied, yes. But that doesn’t mean you should have taken his lifeline. Give him the phone back. Among other reasons, you can send him text messages like, “We love you. Come home. Home is at this address: —”

and perhaps you can track his phone one day if he ends up missing using his GPS if you know somebody who can do this.

I think you need to isolate the problem with respect to the sexual predator. Has your son been molested by this man? Is he even afraid of this?

Is the main problem that you don’t want him to have sex with the girl? Then that’s what you need to talk about, not phones and money and school and driver’s licenses.

Also, you need to improve things to the point where you can invite the girl over. When she comes over, have a walk with her and have your husband take a walk with your son and during that walk, just listen to what they want to talk about. There is obviously something attractive about this girl. He’s not going to dump her on your account.

P.S. The reason the girl’s father isn’t too worried about all this is because he probably sees your son was raised better than he raised his daughter. He figures somebody has to take his daughter off his hands and your son is a step up.
 
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poche said:
He will have to get a job and go live elsewhere.
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Though probably not right at the moment where people are losing jobs left, right, and centre, and businesses closing down around the world…good advice post-pandemic though ;).
 
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I sympathize greatly with you. We went through a similar thing with my adopted son when he was a teen. He ran away repeatedly, lived with his GF’s family for several months at a time, and the GF kept sneaking in his window at night when he was home. I called the police to remove her a couple of times.

We now are raising the grandson who resulted from that relationship, since the girlfriend abandoned him. My son is working and has no current girlfriend. The girlfriend was very dysfunctional and turned him against women in general; she was physically violent, promiscuous, and jerked him around emotionally. I mention this only because I would have gotten a restraining order against her if I had known these things. Perhaps you might want to talk to your son about his girlfriend, and make sure she is at least not harming him in any way, aside from encouraging his rebellion.

Adolescence can be a horrific time. We somehow survived it, and things are somewhat better.
You are in my prayers.
 
Actually, places like WalMart are have hundreds of thousands of temp job openings. There are even shorter approval times, at the store here, one could apply today, get approved and be working tomorrow.
 
exiled1 said:
Does anyone here, having had times of despair with a teen, have any ideas for me?
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There’s some good advice in this thread already, but I’d like to add that I’m reading some red flags for addiction and addictive behavior. Have you explored and ruled out this possibility?
 
Our human bodies do become “addicted” to our sexual partners. There is a bonding hormone that is released. It takes approximately half of the time you spend in the relationship to be free of it, so, a 6 month relationship takes 3 months of zero contact for that to subside.

In this thread, I think we ought to remember, these are two teens “in love”. I was once a teen in love, most of us were, and as they say puppy love is very real to the puppy.
 
I’m wondering…how much does this young man see of his dad?

I remember your earlier posts, about how you finally decided to separate from your husband, once you caught him cheating on you, hiding liquor bottles, and giving your underage Kids alcohol, then letting them drive? I hope this man isn’t back in the home…if he is, I can almost guarantee that he’s influencing his son, in a negative way.

I’m sorry…but I, and most others on those threads, were horrified as to how he treated you…and the kids! If he’s seeing his dad who’s living outside the home, you should try to cut that out! If dad is back in the home, I don’t know what to say!
 
We are still separated, and in fact, the situation is just the opposite. My husband has maintained minimal contact for the 2+ years we’ve been gone: he comes to visit for a weekend every 6-8 weeks or so, and he never calls any of the kids. We found a new counselor last December who really seems to be holding my husband’s feet to the fire and I do think we night be making some baby steps now. I think he (the counselor) is the answer to a 9 month novena!
Anyway, The son in trouble now is the one who was NOT usually on the receiving end of my husband’s tirades (that son is thriving and growing into such a fine, strong man!) and it seems now that the one in trouble may be most like his dad.
 
I think it would be naive of me to say there are no drugs involved, but I haven’t seen him an an altered state at this point.
He is adhering to curfew…so that’s good news. Tonight being a Friday, I’m anxious to see if that changes anything.
My husband seems to be trying to do what the counselor advised…another plus.
We are a long, long, long way from where we should be…and much damage has been done…my prayer life has increased exponentially, though.
deep sigh
 
Well, I might as well ask the question…

Has he stopped drinking???
 
No, he has not, nor has he stopped lying about it. Our counselor helped me to have the courage to tell him I wanted credit card receipts, which he gave me. From that, with the counselor, I had hoped to force my husband to face this. Unfortunately, this has all been put on the back burner with our son. It’s a slow process with counseling just once a week. If we could afford it, I would have a session every day!
On the up side, he does seem to be learning to control his outbursts, although we are really not with him enough for the rubber to hit the road.
Not what it should be, but we are out of the line of fire.
 
I would consider this man next to no help, as far as this son, and probably any of the others, go.
Most likely, he is the gave your son his first taste of mind-altering substances…you said yourself, he gave liquor to your teenage Kids! I’ve been reading some of your other posts…I can’t see what advantage it would be, having him in your home while having trouble with your son.

And, yes, it does seem that he is using some of hid dad’s tricks to get around you…pretending to have changed, lying, etc.

I know I’m repeating myself, but…
If you reconcile with your husband while he’s drinking, don’t expect things to improve! And, by stopping drinking, I mean going to AA meetings, getting counseling, even submitting to random testing. Would he ever do that?

I’m wondering…I thought you had decided on divorce! And, it doesn’t look like he made the move to reconcile. And, remember…this troubled son, and his siblings living at home, are watching.

It seems like you know all this, but still want him back! I really don’t understand.

Well, rant over. Hope things go well with your son.
 
When I was a teenager I fell for a girl that came from a broken home too. They were good inviting people that didn’t want to see anyone sleep on the street if they could do something about it. I had a friend that was a sex offender during that time as well. He had sex with a minor at a party and not knowing her age, he found himself in jail soon after. That was my crowd, lots of what some people would consider total trash.

But, I joined the army and got away from everyone and set my own standards after that. I realized on my own that having a convicted sex offender as a friend was a bad idea so when Facebook came out I didn’t friend him. My girlfriend at that time was my wife in the army and that’s when her trashy side showed, she had sex with another soldier who had a wife and two kids and lived next door to me. We aren’t together today.

The difference I see here is that you are not standing bedsides your son and he needs that. My mom stuck with me through my decisions both bad and good and was the one who suggested I join the Army. I think you should be more focused on what your child does in the long term with their life and be more approving of them making choices. Most people make bad choices when they are young especially who they associate with.

Be there for your kid, even when it’s hard, and when they mature you will get time with the grandkids. Otherwise you are just losing that option day by day. My mom and dad were both considered crazy people and over the top with their nonsense. Truth was, my parents didn’t mind me sleeping on the streets for a while and then I asked myself when my inlaws died, “who is the real trash here?” Overbearing doesn’t make for good relationships with our youth.

I’m now retired at 36, I’m in the best position I could be in and nobody would have ever thought I would be here based on my choices of who I associated with when I was 19. I went back to church after 20 years of inactivity and now I even tell my mom stuff that she doesn’t know because I pick it up here in my free time. She spends outings with my daughter who I am not allowed to see, but the tables have turned. Now my mom is my friend who I tell my innermost dealings to and explain my struggles and my ex wife who once owned my heart against my mother is in her place as my enemy. Strangest part is, my ex blocked me on Facebook but my parents are friends with her on there and say nice things to her. I think it’s just because of grandchild access and that’s it.

In 20 years you might be looking at the same thing because it already happened once, I’m living proof and who knows maybe in gods universe it was to come onto here and tell you all about it.
 
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