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sarahsweets · Sep 25, 2021 at 01:29 AM

Hey @Kelly68. I’m going to bring you a little Toughlove here and please do not think I don’t understand where you’re at. my 20-year-old daughter got pregnant on purpose with a POS a boyfriend and the two of them are playing house right now. I love my grandson but they literally don’t have a pot to piss in and are constantly without money.
However she does not live with me and I don’t want her to. your son is 21 years old and responsible for his own mental health, physical health, and relationships. He also needs a job and pay for his own place to live. So what if he hast to go to a shelter? If the landlord kicked him out then he has nowhere to go and the landlord could easily call the police. you don’t need to give him money. you don’t need to pay a lifetime for some mistakes years ago. I had a crappy childhood and I’m a great mom and awesome wife and I’ve been married for 26 years. I have three children two of them are doing great, the daughter with the baby not so much. She also has mental health issues like bipolar and possibly BPD.

He has stolen from you and others. That is a crime. I’m not trying to be a jerk but it is. I’m not trying to rationalize weed, but I am a medical marijuana patient and I promise you we does not cause the issues that your son is experiencing. Alcohol on the other hand can contribute in the ways you are explaining.
You say you want to know how you can help him? I think you need to let him make his own mistakes and fail. Think about it: how many lessons have you learned that did not involve mistakes or pain? When something is hard or painful you don’t forget it. And very often you do not make that same mistake again if it’s painful enough. The greatest lessons I’ve ever learned have been through pain, tears, and mistakes. I can look back now and see the grand picture but at the time it felt ruthless. You don’t need to feel sorry for him. He is making very bad choices and it doesn’t matter if he had a bad childhood or a mental illness. He is still responsible for his own actions. Toughlove sucks. I could go on and on with a story about my daughter running away, but the fact is being tough on her children is more like a punishment for us than it is for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kelly68

Last night my soon to be 21 yr old son told me he wants to be a father and thinks his gf might be pregnant. That she's baby crazy and looks at pictures of babies all the time and they've been 'trying'
This is scary because my son has problems with weed, alcohol, has pushed me, verbally assaulted me, and blames me and his dad for his own issues.

I've been helping him with food, shelter, getting him out of his own troubles financially as much as I can. I agreed today with him, that obivously his childhood has affected him. My marriage became very toxic when he was around 10 yrs old and he witnessed abuse. I can't change the past. I tell him advice, for a psychiatrist, had to try many times just to get him to the family doctor and I advocate for him to get a psychiatrist. It's either the weed that is causing issues, or there were issues already the made weed and alcohol and escape for him.

He lost his place to live where I rent a room, because he stole beer from another renter in this house. Change went missing. It's not a new behaviour,
he'd steal from me when he was younger. I had him in counseling back then, had support workers that tried to help. It didn't make a difference.
I've left him for days to try to get him to realize (not a seriously long time, to be kicked out of where I had a place with him last summer) to have him call continuosly driving me batty because I love him, I put up with verbal abuse and more. I'm not innocent. I've lost it on him, not totally, but was verbally offending him back. His words he calls me are so disrespectful I won't repeat them.

Just today after I did his hair, I gave him money to walk to the store for bread and cold meats. I told him he must bring the reciept and change. I thought he would. He said he "lost it' and I know he's again lying, likely trying to scrape enough money to get a little weed.

I feel sorry for him, but I want to know how I can help him. I'm suggesting gently to him, because he gets so aggravated at advice, to get counseling or therapy for addictions. He won't hear of it.

One smart thing came out of his mouth today. Having a child means he has to change his behaviour. He called it his "motivation" to change, but later said "just because I'm going to be a dad doesn't mean I have to stop smoking pot"

I've convinced my gracious landlord to let him back in at the end of the month, since he has no money for rent, he has to wait til the beginning of the next month. He treated his room like crap, trash everywhere, and stole food and beer from the other roomate like i said.

There are shelters, but he won't go. I think I have to do that though, force him.
Knowing he still will be dishonest with me and take my change acting with a straight lying face to me that he lost it, I fear he'll just end up being someone I have to watch every minute that he doesn't steal here again.

He's so immature, he's not able to be a dad. He relies on me, his mother, to figure out his life. I just pray that if this happens, he does change, but how can I convince him he needs therapy, how do I get him to realize lying and stealing will make things so bad for him.?

He was never offically diagnosed with anything, but I worry, I know he has depression, he could be bipolar. Mental illness runs in my family.

Any advice how I approach him with this? Nothing I say seems to change anything.