Well I'm going to do my best and explain my situation the best that I can in a relatively short manner, if possible.

My wife and I were married last year and we are coming up on our 1st year anniversary. We've been together for 4 years total and when we met her son was 16 years of age. We didn't live together until we were married. The SS is from a previous marriage and the father is a complete loser. The father has been a druggie and alcoholic his entire life and is on disability due to mental problems. He hasn’t worked for more than 6 months his entire life. He’s one of those “free-spirited” types that feel that he doesn’t need to work or provide for anyone including himself. He chooses to play his guitar and mooch off of his girlfriend as well as receiving disability.
I keep this in mind when thinking about these problems with the SS.

About 6 months after we had been dating her son starting having all sorts of problems at school, with drugs, with the police and at home. He was sent to the hospital on two separate occasions for a week or two at a time and of course it cost my wife over $30,000. Thankfully the state ended up taking care of the bill. The doctors diagnosed him with ADD with Bipolar symptoms and started his regime of every possible drug under the sun to make things better. He's finally found the drug of choice which is Aderol. Mind you he doesn't take the Aderol the way in which is prescribed (in the morning), he'll take it whenever and stay up all night long and then sleep all day, more on that later.

The problems have continued since he was 16. The SS is now 20 going on 21 in February of next year. He barely graduated high school and that was due to his mother working with his counselor. He doesn’t work and hasn’t for 6 months, he prefers to sleep and party with his friends. He ended up getting his girlfriend pregnant and now has a 5 month old baby boy. The child lives with the girlfriend and her mother. Their family is one of the most chaotic and dysfunctional families that I’ve ever heard of or seen, it’s truly unbelievable. Once in a great while she allows him to bring the grandchild over for us to see. Which quite frankly under the circumstances I could really care less and I hate myself for feeling this way.

His girlfriend is not allowed over at our house because of her behavior, she is constantly starting trouble and has caused a great deal of chaos in our lives therefore we’ve drawn the line and she doesn’t come around anymore. Her mother was a meth addict for a very long time and in the last few years gained custody of the daughter. Her father is an ex-convict who was in prison for 10 years for a murder but I don’t know the details of it. So as you can see there quite a fun bunch.

Her mother doesn’t like the SS so he’s not to be over there when the mother is at home, which quite frankly I can’t blame her. He stole all over her pain medication on two separate occasions. The last time he did it she called the police and now he’s looking at his 2nd felony as well as a burglary charge.

The SS has been in trouble with the law several times and hasn’t done anything that was required of him on his last felony charge. As a matter of fact he and his mother just got back from court today….yay! For the past 3 years it has been nothing but problem after problem after problem with him. He doesn’t work, his idea of putting in applications is 1 every 3 or 4 weeks and if they don’t call him then he’ll eventually go out and put another one in somewhere.

Now I’m fortunate in the sense that I am able to work at home and I feel that I have done everything possible to help the SS out and we get along fine. But when I see him sleep until noon only to get up and then go hang out at his girlfriend it drives me crazy. When he’s done with that he’ll go hang out with his friends and either get drunk or go find some drugs and do them. I can’t tell you how many times he’s come home while the wife and I are watching television and his wired out of his mind. He doesn’t seem to understand that he has a child now and that he needs to get it together.

See the problem is that he doesn’t care about anything, not anything he owns or anything that anyone else owns. For example, he’s owned two cars in the past two years, one of which I gave him and he’s run them both into the ground and the entire backseat is full of garbage almost to the top of the interior roof…..I’m not kidding. When his car breaks down I have to pay for it and I have to the tune of several thousands of dollars. He’s not able to control his spending and has really no concept of value or money. He spends every dollar he gets without thinking of any consequence. He’s had two checking accounts and he writes checks with ghost money in his account. We then have to pay and he has to close his checking accounts, each of which lasted 2 to 3 weeks. We pay for his cell phone and for his insurance for his car.

There is so much more to this that I could practically write a book. The problems are plentiful and there are things that I haven’t even touched on.

I honestly don’t think that he will ever be able to fend for himself. I think he will have to either live with us or someone for the rest of his life because he just can’t get his act together.

Bottom line is that the SS and his behavior has come between our marriage and has caused many problems. I’ve griped about the situation to my wife until it makes me sick, and her to I’m sure. I’m always told that “you just always have to pick at Shawn (SS)”. I’m bewildered at her statement at times, she’s doesn’t think of how much I’ve done and tried to do for him. When I tell her he needs to get out and look for a job she tells me he is……..what???? He puts in an application every 2 to 3 weeks, that’s not really looking for steady work, that’s just appeasing his mother so that she’ll keep at bay.

The whole situation has changed the way I look at my marriage and my wife and I don’t know that I can deal with this for the rest of my life. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty strong person able to deal with anything and everything but I’m starting to doubt myself. I don’t know that I can anymore. I think there’s a problem when you start thinking about leaving and being on your own and you have happy thoughts about it.

I honestly don’t know what to do, any advice, insights or similar experiences would be appreciated. Maybe the problem is with me, maybe I’m not tolerant enough or something. I don’t know, but one thing I do know is that I’m not happy like this……..

Thanks for letting me vent……maybe that’s what I needed. Well I'm tired of typing for now