Divorced parents, two homes, manipulation

Hey there

I am here because the 15 year old son of my partner, is causing some difficult situations. And I am at loss about how to handle it.
His mother and father are divorced for 13 years now, so he has two homes.

He is causing some difficulties by manipulating both homes (us). Whenever he is not getting his way in one home, he 'flees' to the other, tells a sad story and then gets his way.
Whenever he misbehaves or does something that is not ok, he purposefully causes a big fight over it, so that he can flee to the other house again, and tell the sad stories.

At first we just send him back, after talking about it with a cup of tea. But his stories about his mother have grown really horrible, and its difficult to see what is true, and what is not. Its difficult to send him back when you do not know for sure that all is ok.
I suspect that a lot of it is not true, but when you do not know for sure.. you cannot do anything else than try to protect him.

He knows this, and he uses it willingly.

The other way around he does the same. He lives with us now, but whenever he has trouble because he did something, he suddenly wants to sleep there.

The mother does not talk to us, never has, and the lack of communication comes in handy for him. He can freely choose what to tell us, and we have no way to check if it is true.

How should we handle this?
When we try to talk to him about it he ignores us or starts shouting, which is something he does to scare people away. So that they do not confront him.

I am so at loss about all of this
He is a good kid, but this is not helping him to grow into a healthy adult at all. I do not know how to change it.

Another aspect of the situation is that I am chronically ill, I have POTS. I have a 'serious' lack of energy. He is aware of it, and also uses that. He knows that when I am tired, he can get away with more.
Physically I am sometimes unable to address that.

I know I make him sound like a horrible kid now, but truly he is not. In nature he is really friendly and the enthusiastic type that makes people laugh a lot. But the divorce/two homes situation has given him too much power, I guess he is used to it now.
If communication with his mother was possible that would help a lot, but its not, so thats a road that is not open to us.

Hello JuniperJuna: I'm sorry you have not received any replies to this post. I don't know as I have much of anything useful to suggest here. But I noticed that no one had replied to your post. So I thought I would.

From what you wrote, it sounds like there is no simple solution to this problem. It seems to me this is a situation best addressed with the help of a skilled family therapist. Ideally you, your partner, & his son would participate. But if that is not possible, it may still be of benefit if you go alone.

The only other thing that occurs to me is to establish a schedule whereby your partner's son stays in each home for specific periods of time... weekly, monthly, etc. And he must stay at the home he's scheduled to be at.

As far as the problems he brings up, perhaps he should see a counselor or therapist of his own with whom he can work. If the therapist determines that there is reason to think there is actual abuse occurring, it would presumably be the therapist's job to report this to the appropriate authorities. I don't know how this works where you live. But where I live, therapists are considered to be "mandated reporters". They are required by law to report suspected abuse.

Of course, this could backfire. Your partner's son could well make up stories about you & your partner as well as with regard to his mother. It would be important to have things set up so that the therapist can check in with your partner & his son's mother as well. This, of course, assumes at least some minimal level of cooperation on the part of the mother, which may not be there.

Beyond this, the other thing that occurs to me is to simply tell your partner's son that he must work out the difficulties he has with his mother... with his mother. And, if his stories suggest there is abuse of some kind occurring, tell him that you will henceforth contact the appropriate authorities. So it is important that he be truthful. Then follow though as necessary. If he is telling tales, he needs to learn that there are consequences to his stories. I don't know how else you break this cycle.

Perhaps other members, here on PC, will yet reply with better suggestions. I wish you well...

Thanks! Your reply was very useful to me.

I agree, we wanted to arrange that but it turned out to be impossible. As the mother also needs to agree and sign for permission (for her son to go to therapy). I am pretty frustrated about that because she refuses to give him permission, also to go to therapy alone. I think its insane that a 15 year old cannot get help if he wants to, because his mothers says no.

I agree to that also, that is a very good idea I think. We thought about it and tried to talk to him about it 2,5 weeks ago. He did not want a schedule, he wanted to freely choose when to go to mom and when to go to dad. I can see why, its much easier to get your way then. But we did not accept that, we asked him to think about a schedule, and tell us what days he wants to be with us and with her.
He did not think about it when we asked him 1,5 week later, so we asked him again to think about it. 2 days later we asked again and, again, he did not answer our question.
So,.. we made a schedule. Two weeks of 'building', and after that a normal schedule again.
At first he got angry about it and really difficult, but later on he agreed to it and asked his mother if it was ok to do it this way.
She did not reply for two days, but now she did (just got a message), no idea what her reply is but we will see..

Yes that is a very good idea. We thought so too, it would be good if he has a place where we can talk about everything he wants. And also a place where he can go when he feels his mother is crossing the line/going too far. That would create some 'safety' for him because a therapist would indeed be expected to report it when things are not healthy anymore.
But.. we encountered the same problem here as above. Both the father and mother have to sign for permission, and when we asked her she just ignored us. It has been 8 weeks now and still no signature.
He does get some school counseling now.. they decided not to wait for the signature so that is great. But they really can only help him partly, when its concerning school.

Yes, true, but I am not truly worried about that. They are very welcome to investigate everything they need, come to our home, talk to us etc. We do not mind at all. She does though, which sort of indicates (I feel) that she is at the least hiding 'something'. But not sure what.

This is a very good idea and we decided to do this. As soon as he is in contact with his mother again, we will discuss this with him.
It will be difficult to find a therapist that can work with him without her signature, but we can at least send him to our GP. She cannot 'do' anything, but she is, like a therapist, someone that 'has' to report if its needed.
And she is a friendly, calm and warm personality.
I do think his mother crosses the line sometimes gets way to angry, and does things that are truly not helpful with a teenager. But I do not believe the enormity that he would like us to believe. It would be 'really' good for him if he starts to realize and feel that he is responsible for his stories.

Your reply was way more helpful then you give yourself credit for. Its really good to read another person perspective and thoughts. It helps me to see that our own thoughts where maybe not that odd.

We had a bit of a struggle with him yesterday evening, he is quite difficult at the moment. He came home way too late and just walked in as if nothing had happened (we had been really worried).
So we talked to him about it and he just behaved as if we where annoying and played games on his phone. Then he said a rude type of sorry, just to be done with it and became really angry when he did not get away with that.
This is just normal teen behavior, I know that but sometimes these type of situations do give me insight about how he might be behaving there with his mother. I think he is far worse there.
So partly I do understand her frustrations. Her actions are not the best, but I do get that she is really tired of it.