One flew over the cuckoo's nest

[GoldenRivet]

This is a rant post so be warned

Our eldest has rather abruptly decided to leave the nest and his final week at home has been a whirlwind which has proven a rather troublesome adjustment for my wife.

My step-son, in the last week, has experienced a rather sudden change in attitude and mood which has been of concern to us all here at the home front.

During Christmas, he adorned his girlfriend of over a year with gifts and treats one of which was engraved with his statements that he would love her forever and other such feverish slogans of a young heart. She was the love of his life, despite his hectic work schedule, he always drove the 45 minutes to the town where she is attending college and made the most of their time together over the weekends.

however, last Friday this rather suddenly changed

the boy announced that he was going to spend the evening this past Thursday with friends and left home around lunch time, I asked him when he would return and he was elusive with an answer thereby breaking his plans with me to work on the wife's jeep that afternoon. We rescheduled for friday afternoon, but he departed before lunch Friday and broke the plans again! i was unable to reach him by text but he eventually answered my call and told me that he had something come up and wouldn't be home before dark in time to assist me.

that evening we received a call from the girlfriend, with whom he had plans for the weekend. She had been expecting him for over an hour and a half and had heard nothing from him, not a text, nor a call and was concerned. our attempts to reach him went unanswered, but we could see that he was reading our texts.

he didn't bother to reply to any of us and did not return home until 6 in the morning saturday! having never arrived for his date with his girlfriend.

Saturday, he left around noon again after only a few hours sleep explaining that he was going to his friends house. he came home long enough saturday evening to change into his work uniform as he was due at work for his 6pm to 6am shift. he was home for about ten minutes, hardly a word spoken to anyone.

He came home around 1am from work that night half way through his shift claiming that he left work due to a "foodborne illness". Saturday was of course new year's eave, he was home with this alleged stomach bug all of 5 minutes before explaining that he had to go and pick up a drunk friend and take him home and would be back within a couple of hours. we found this suspicious, especially since the destination provided was 30 minutes away and he claimed to be in such a state of illness that he couldn't even trust a fart! Sorry... but with foodborne illness nobody in their right mind is going to be more than 3 feet from a toilet, let alone make an hour long round trip drive! we asked him what he ate that made him sick, and he named off the meal we had consumed four days ago! he left and didn't return until early Sunday afternoon

We asked him if he had been in touch with his girlfriend at all this weekend, he insisted that they had spoken at length about their cancelled plans and that everything was alright.

all this while she had been texting my wife; apparently he had not been in touch with his girlfriend at all according to her, it was Sunday afternoon and she had not spoken with him in three days. it was then that we started to wonder just what in the hell the boy had gotten himself into.

Through social media posts and pictures seen by a friend of the girlfriend it was uncovered that he was telling his mother and I, in fact everyone a lie about where he had been going. He claimed to have been going to a co-workers house to hang out and play pool etc. however, for the entire weekend he was actually going to a young lady's house. a young lady neither of us had heard of and didn't know. not only this, but this young lady was recently "kicked out" by her boyfriend who had left her with their 18 month old child

where is this coming from all of the sudden? we all wondered.

then, in the middle of his Sunday night shift which is supposed to run 6pm-6am - he comes busting through the front door of the house around midnight. His supervisor had apparently sent him home and advised him not to return to the job until he had heard from upper management. He stood accused of falling asleep on the job while manning a post critical to the safety of other workers

his mother was furious about this not only because of the obvious possibilities that someone could have been seriously hurt, but she had warned him that working nights and trying to hang out with these new mystery friends of his all day was going to catch up with him and that now he would very likely lose his job.

it was at this point that she confronted him about his sudden and uncharacteristic departures from home, and standing up his girlfriend and how hanging out with his new associates at odd hours - associates whom we didn't know and had never met and how it had resulted in changes to his personality and attitude. he of course blew it all off and left the house again.

My wife had requested that he plan to come home Tuesday and eat dinner with the family. Her ultimate plan was to discuss exactly what it is that the young man was going through. he agreed to the meeting for dinner, but cancelled the plans just an hour before, telling his mother to stay out of his life and informing us that he was moving out immediately

he arrived that evening and packed several bags, loaded his bed into the back of a pickup truck we'd never seen and left, advising that he would come and collect his things by the end of the day Sunday.

My wife was concerned that his behavior is like that of someone who's become addicted to drugs. being one who understands what its like to be 20 years old, i laid some truth on my wife about her son's situation and simply told her that he is addicted to a drug, one of the most powerful drugs on earth in fact.

you see, his girlfriend that he had been with for a year is a virgin, and wanted to remain chaste until marriage. he of course is not a virgin, but probably assumed she would come around sooner or later

well, i explained my hypothesis to the wife - the situation likely started out rather innocently - im sure he did depart thursday with the intention of hanging out with some friends, but met this gal during the course of hanging out innocently with his friends. this young lady, needing a father to her child, desperate for money and having no real solid place to live came onto the boy pretty heavily and he took the bait. and she gave him something that his girlfriend wasn't giving him, so he spent the weekend exhausting himself with repeated visits to the scene of the crime.

now, he is blinded by that thing that this girl sits upon and it is affecting his personal life, his family life and his work.

and i am faced with the coming weeks as my wife and 11 year old step daughter adjust to his absence.

personally, my feeling is - good riddance - its past time that he moves on (at nearly 21 years of age) and he needs to learn. He has lived his whole life being protected from failure, being propped up by others, he has never had to pay a single bill in his life and the only responsibility he has ever had until he got this job a few months ago was taking the trash out. The ultimate goal of course is to get them out on their own and knowing enough to succeed, but he could have done it differently... because what a damned mess that it will take quite some time to sift through and get to the bottom of.

[Onkel Neal]

Wow, I predict in 2 years he will find out what child support costs.

[Jimbuna]

That's a hard one John but sadly, not too uncommon these days. He'll learn through bitter experience over the coming months the error of his ways I suspect.

Hopefully the emotional damage within his family will be quickly repaired and nothing too serious of a consequence will result.

Hoping the best to you and yours my friend.

[AVGWarhawk]

He is at an age where he is allowed to make his own mistakes. I also suspect his girlfriend at college, distance and abstinence plays a part. So, for a few weeks he will be in the land of unicorns farting rainbows. Smitten by the playing house and good times at night. The fog of a new life and love will lift. Then the reality of life sets in.

[GoldenRivet]

Life goes on, he is a good kid but young and easily blinded by the power a willing young lady can hold over him. Some guys fall all over themselves to cater to the whims of a woman who will give up the goods. other guys just seem to tomcat from girl to girl without giving it much thought. My stepson is definitely the former and not the latter as this has consumed him before, almost to his detriment.

personally i think it would be a good experience for him, i was certainly out of the house living 300 miles away from my parents by age 20, no reason he cant do the same.

he will learn one way or another, and i admit, when i was 19-20 years old, i didn't fully appreciate what went into keeping the roof over my head, the lights on and the food stocked up. when i struck out and did it on my own only then did it occur to me just how costly it could be just to live day to day. and, unlike in his scenario, there wasnt a kid involved in the picture for me. he will have to do all of this while almost constantly being surrounded by a toddler needing all of the things toddlers need like supervision, adult responsibility, diaper changing probably, feeding. Dating a woman with a child is no easy task, i never did that until i met my current wife and even as a grown man closing in on my 40s i still wonder about the sanity of the decision. he will soon find himself caught up in taking the kid to grandmothers house, or taking it to daycare, and inevitably, even if the child's father is involved in the child's life on a limited basis, he is still going to have to deal with that sooner or later. all things for which anyone is ill equipped to handle.

poor guy has holed his own boat and wont realize it until he is up to his nuts in cold sea water.

[Platapus]

If you reverse the genders, this sounds like the last 10 years of my life. Since I have already paid the therapist, please allow me to share what they (yes multiple) said primarily to The Frau.

He is, and will always be a part of your wife's family and by extension yours. As such you owe him, and he is entitled to

1. Your love
2. Your acceptance
3. Your understanding and sympathy

Make sure that he understands this. He won't acknowledge it and he certainly won't show any appreciation, but it is important for him to know that. He may, rashly, immaturely, and emotionally tell you that you two need to stay out of his life. Don't believe him. He does not believe it. The last thing he wants is to sever all ties to his family.... despite what he says.

You don't owe him any money nor do you owe him solutions to his problems. You don't have to agree with his actions. You can't control him nor do you have any responsibility for what he does.

He bares all the responsibility for the consequences of his actions. But he should not bare them alone.

At first I did not believe this line of BS as I was very angry at The Frau's daughter. Angry and resentful.

The therapist told me that her daughter (in your case her son) is acting in an immature, stupid, emotional and potentially self destructive manner... .that does not mean that I (you) have to act the same way.

It ain't easy, it still ain't easy. I still have anger and resentment issues. Not going to sugarcoat it. I just keep in mind that as a parental unit, the ultimate goal is for this stupid undeserving, ungrateful, idiotic kid become a functional adult in our society.

That's why we parents, get paid the big bucks

My sympathies are with you. Good luck with this.

PS. Make sure you are taking care of your wife. She is also a victim in all of this.