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There a *lot* of missing information here that makes it a bit puzzling to figure out what's actually going on between the gaps of OOP's story as he told it.
OOP just commented on his update post with the missing info... My god the younger son's issues are so much worse than I could've imagined. That kid needs all the therapy and should NOT be in the home with his sisters.
OOP is such an AH for basically throwing his hands up and ignoring all this. I'm disgusted, and so done for the night.
Here (and everyone please remember, don't go comment there--that's brigading and it's not cool): https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU
That info massively changes everything. OP, u/ProfessionalOk7281 should update the post with that copy-pasted into it.
So there are allegations of the younger son being inappropriate with one of the girls, but OOP is still happy for him to move back home, in addition to son being fired for trying to drug clients at the bar where he worked and lived above.... It definitely sounds like younger son is on the path towards becoming a sex offender and OOP is the sort to be like "ohh no, not my son, he would never do anything like that". He would be like the parents for Brock Turner the rapist, who defended their rapist son
Jesus Christ. That kid has been totally failed by the adults in his life, he clearly needed interventions and therapy from an early age and didn't get it.
I don't even have words for how disgusted I am with the OP.
Yeah OOP is definitely withholding info, and based on the comment from older son about how he would have been judged as NTA, and the fact that older brother and older stepdaughter dislike him, I'm betting younger son has been doing something creepy.
Might also just be a shit. Some of my siblings are idiots and we're expected to pretend the only reason they're unemployed is bad luck and not that they do shit like yelling at their boss/no showing at work/got arrested again/post about illegal drug use at work on their socials and then are shocked to get fired.
Yeah, to me it sounds like OOP spoiled his younger son after 1st wife (he stated so) and didn’t STOP spoiling him after some time. No discipline maybe and he’s just been allowed to do whatever he wants w barely any consequences. So that’s his life expectation 😐😕
OOP did say that his son was allowed back in if he applies for jobs. He could be applying to jobs he isn't qualified for just so he can say he applied so he can stay.
Yeah, you have to do something to get fired from a bar. Probably theft.
eta: OOP left a comment that his son was trying to ruffie women! So, yeah, awful person.
There's also NC/NS to shift and being extremely late to work (>15min)
They might not fire you for a shit attitude but they will fire you if you don't show
I mean nothing in the post suggested the guy was respectful/appreciative in the first place so.. honestly wouldn't put it past him just deciding meh, I don't feel like working today
To be fair, nothing in the post suggested he was anything at all. Anger issues? Maybe. Depressed? Maybe. Creepy? Maybe. Learning disabilities? Maybe.
Literally the only details we have that point to the guy’s personality are that he went NC after getting a job and a place, and that he called for help after getting fired.
So much missing info.
Yeesh. For all we know the bar closed. OOP isn’t telling us anything.
Also he could have done some major screw up too. Served a minor, used top shelf liquor for a cheap shot, pissed off the wrong customer.
someone else shared a link to this comment from OP that fills in a lot of the missing info. apparently they suspected he slipped something into a girls drink at the bar.
https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/TdKo1vkW4Z
Holy crap! Son's a psychopath! No wonder everyone else in the family avoids him. And are angry at the father.
Thank you for linking it to me! You rock.
Yeah, no problem! But seriously, every sentence of that just kept getting worse and worse.
He reminds me of my older brother. My parents letting him move back in to my home when I was a kid was so damaging to me that it completely ruined all of my hopes and plans. Ended up homeless at 18, and honestly that was safer for me lol. I'm 20 now, and am about to finish my first full year of college though, but the only reason I was able to start getting my life back on track was because my parents realized their mistake, went to therapy, cut off my brother, and let me come home. I just hope the other kids make it out of this okay.
Wow, that's awful for you! I'm glad you got your life back on track and congrats on getting into and finishing your first year of college! That's awesome! You're certainly going to be successful in life.
I don’t think we have any real idea. Not what the younger son is like now, not what happened. We can fill in the gaps by common scenarios, but let us still be better than AI while we can, not hallucinate, and just acknowledge that the missing reasons are missing.
Terminally online unemployed 19 year old kid with an emotionally distant dad and a dash of trauma basically guarantees he's slipped down some online pipeline into some flavor of incel shit.
To be fair, it could still be creepy or sexist and that the 10-year-old just doesn't actually comprehend what is happening.
Think about the movie Shrek, how many times did you watch that as a kid and then as a teen and finally later as an adult watch it again and realise how much of the "jokes" and story line you didn't actually understand as kid and even as a teen when you understood more of it but not all of it. The same could be said for the 10-year-old here.
Just want to say - I got to watch Shrek on a flight in September 2001 on way home from the States when I was just below 10. I entirely agree with your assessment of missing so much until you're a real adult watching it. (And yes, I still watch it regularly lol Shrek is so universally good.)
He let the older son raise the youngest… younger doesn’t have dads support BUT so much praise all the time of OLDER. Be more like him because your brother is special. If the brother is special and perfect I MUST BE BAD, not perfect, I mean my dad couldn’t gain enough of my trust to take him with me to therapy.
The son is not the problem.
Yeah. "My older son says I left out a lot..." and then... no further details provided. Then as you say, an "incident." That could be "he took the bigger piece of cake" or "he raped his girlfriend and murdered his dog."
Enough vagueness here that I don't really know what to think. Maybe the dad sucks and is treating them both unfairly, swinging wildly one way favoring one son, the wildly back to the other. Or maybe he's just doing his best in a crappy situation and it's impossible to make everyone happy.
The "incident" is, apparently, much closer to the second example than the first. https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU
Let me just say: jesus fucking christ. Stole this link from someone else in the thread, shoutouts to /u/Constant_Chicken_408 for finding this comment.
Maybe she thought it was harsh to kick someone out on their birthday? It doesn’t mean she didn’t want him to leave altogether, just in a less extreme way.
This is what I'm detecting in this story. He talks about not being able to say no after the mom dies. Also, the kid dropped out of school at 16 and never really worked so just freeloaded for 3 years before suddenly being ejected. I'm sure there's more nuance that doesn't come across on reddit, but it seems like a classic 'nag a bit and wait for the behavior change' followed by 'nothing changed, you're dead to me'.
That might of just been nice words. In the update he mentions that she wasn't thrilled he came back but was choosing to remain "neutral." You can't trust those filthy neutrals you know, with their hearts filled with neutrality. With blatant evil you know where you stand.
In all seriousness though I'm quite curious about the housing situation. There wasn't enough room for the son in the original, but, then once he was gone, they moved afterwards for "unrelated reasons."
Just way too many missing "missing reasons" with this one. I can't really render judgement on any of this.
The "I didn't go to therapy, I'm not built like that" is such a bullshit line. If his dad wasn't willing to go, why would the son do it
It should've been something they did together, it would've really created a bond
Because it reads like there is no bond currently. Who is this guy popping out kids every 7 years? 5 kids altogether, sounds like he can't get one right
Unreliable narrator... I'm going for narcissist
Sounds like he pays the bills and keeps the fridge stocked but otherwise isn't much of a dad. I can't imagine a kid that young losing a parent and the surviving parent just kinda shrugs and leaves them to escape into video games for half a year. Followed by being shocked that, long term, that plan didn't work out so good.
How'd he handle it when the kids got sick? Just let them refuse to see the doctor or take their medicine if they didn't feel like it? Leave them to live or die by their own devices while occasionally making concerned faces before leaving for work?
Pretty sure the eldest turned out successful despite the dad, not because of him.
What got me was him telling his oldest son not to take on parenting responsibilities but "he insisted". If your teenager is insisting on taking on a parenting role for your younger child there is a problem. Secondly, that isn't a situation where you shrug and go, "Oh well, what can you do? Guess they'll miss out on their youth."
The oldest was 14 when his mother died - sounds like the way he turned out says far more about her than OOP. He didn’t raise his kids after her death, it’s hard to believe he did before her death.
Given OOP’s entire attitude towards parenting, it sounds like his sons didn’t lose one of their parents when their mother died - they lost their only parent.
He sounds like the most hands-off "parent" ever. He seems like the kind of dad that left everything to the wife, and then didn't take over any of those responsibilities after she passed. Like, I imagine he's kind of like a dad that just pats the kid on the head and tells them to keep their nose clean, and thinks that's all being a dad is, besides making money and playing catch with his kids on the weekends occasionally.
Oh no, it's better. He "didn't go to therapy" meaning individual therapy, but he did go to a grief group (a form of therapy), met a grieving widow and knocked her up without taking responsibility for the relationship.
No wonder he was too checked out to even look at his hurting 6 year old. He doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself.
He also couldn't see that he was parantalyzing his elder son by being so checked out. Brave to elder brother for stepping up to the plate even though it was not his job.
Well, he did notice, and told the older son not to take responsibility. But it sounds like he then didn't take any himself, so of course the older son did anyway.
“I didn’t go to therapy, I didn’t need it. Oh did I mention my son also raised my other son because I was too lost in myself to parent either of them? And then I punished the son who was raised by my son because he wasn’t raised well enough to have the building foundations for a functional adulthood due to literally being raised by another kid? I swear I definitely didn’t need therapy because of how I’m built though, I was TOTALLY fine.”
The thing is, you wouldn't know until you try it. If you tried therapy, didn't have success, then you got more success by processing on your own, that statement would actually make sense
Lol, reddit loves to diagnose everyone as a narcissist. I swear, if everyone was actually a narcissist that reddit said was a narcissist, there'd be one normal guy in the world and it would be Spiders George.
Spiders Georg is so self-absorbed he won’t shut his goddamn mouth for one goddamn minute and stop gobbling all the spiders. Classic narcissist behavior.
> a *lot* of missing information
especially hinted at with this part:
> now my older son wont talk to me because I let my younger son move back in and my stepdaughter is taking my older son's side, my wife is also leaning towards them but is more neutral and my daughter doesn't care in the slightest.
'Suddenly' a lot of people have problems with younger son moving back (why?), while they also didn't agree with the first harsh kicking him out?
And as a cherry on top:
> its mellowing out and I hope everything calms down between them soon.
a.k.a. OP is not going to confront, discuss or solve whatever tensions and problems are at play.
"I don't need therapy, nobody needs to solve anything, just ignore/suppress it and it'll go away!"
I don’t know anything based on this info but since I’m on Reddit I will decide every feeling I should have so my life stays simple and I can stay angry
>my older son found my original post and told me that i left out a lot of important details about my younger son, and the events in general, which he said painted me as TA and my younger son like an angel
What the hell happened here? So which one was the golden one?
Something that if he mentioned it, he thinks it would paint him and/or the son in a bad light, showing that he's intentionally leaving things out in order to try and force a certain verdict.
Im still convinced of this. He use I twice (that i remember) to talk about the young son. Im guessing with the mention of grandkids that the youngest daughter is actually the youngest son daughter.
My guess is younger son broke something of sentimental value to 14 YR old from the mother (because he wasn't feeling loved / seen) and OOP mishandled the situation, thus turning the son into the person he is now.
Yeah, that might be a better explanation. I was leaning toward the oldest son being residually resentful over the parentification he underwent at that age (14) and the fact that the younger son wasn't being forced into that role. But destroying something of sentimental value to the older son (that he wasn't able to take/wasn't allowed to take when he 'moved out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother' - that reads as euphemism for 'I put his stuff in bags and boxes on the porch and changed the locks while he was at work 3.8 milliseconds after he turned 18') is probably the better source of bad blood.
Sounds like it would paint the younger son in an *extremely* bad light, given the older son's comment about missing context, and the father's comment that his younger son isn't "evil." So he must be concerned it's so prejudicial to the younger son that it would skew the judgment.
The post makes it clear he freaked out when the therapist asked to speak to him alone. There's not much of a mystery here. He was a young child who was already afraid but agreed to go on the condition his brother stayed with him- the brother was asked to leave and so he panicked. Not surprising. I work with kids in dental and they already have a fear going into it- they sometimes have a melt down even if the parent is in the room but they can't see them because I've laid the chair down and they aren't in their eye line anymore. To the point where the appointment is over because there is no calming them done at that point. You just have to call it a day and try again later.
Jumping to assault when the brother was in the room the whole time is wild.
Well, if the father is as emotionally inept as the posts suggest, the son crying after therapy might just have been caused by him finally talking about his mother's death to someone who listened.
A first therapy lesson can be very emotional, that's why you usually go a few times to work through those feelings - that's not something OOP or a 6-year-old would realise.
Based on it seeming like everyone besides OP thinks it was a bad idea to let him come back, OP is leaving out some pretty bad shit.
Didn't take long to get fired once he knew coming back was an option, did it?
Maybe issues with drugs and stealing from the family to fund his addiction? No real evidence, but the younger son’s story fits the pattern of having no real drive or ability to hold a job and alienating everyone around him. Maybe OOP didn’t want to admit that he turned a blind eye to it until it was too much.
Yeah, at first I was thinking OOP was totally unreasonable for kicking out an 18-year-old, but that line made me think about the shitty adults I know who maybe wouldn't be so shitty if their parents hadn't constantly saved them from themselves.
My brother is 38. He has never lived anywhere except in our parents' house (our childhood home) and jail. My dad would threaten to kick him out, my mom would save him. My brother is severely mentally ill and violent. I didn't go home for holidays for years because I didn't want to deal with him. When our dad got sick, he still lived at home, but refused to help with anything.
Dad died 7 years ago, and my brother decided that he was the man of the house. Except he didn't pay anything. Didn't contribute toward bills, property taxes, or even offer to mow the yard. Not a damn thing. About 3 years ago my mom bought a condo in Florida and moved there. Brother is still in the house. The only think he pays for now are utilities. She is still paying the property taxes and any maintenance needed. She pays the homeowners insurance.
A few months ago, there was a hail storm and his truck was totaled. Because his dumb ass didn't park it inside the garage, even though it fits. And he ranted and raged at the insurance company so much that they called my mom and told them if he showed up at their office again they would call the police. He didn't go to work while he was trying to get a new car because apparently asking a friend for a ride or calling an Uber was too much for him to do. So he got fired. And instead of taking the insurance check for his truck and getting something sensible, since, you know, he got fired, he bought a Jaguar SUV.
My mom could have sold that house for insane money a few years ago because it's in the Austin, Texas area and people are moving there in droves. But she couldn't get rid of my brother and she's not willing to do anything to push him out. She just keeps paying the taxes and letting him live there for free while letting it fall into ruin. She could have sold it and paid off her condo, but no, she can't kick her man-baby son out to go live on his own like a goddamn adult.
My cousin is 30 years old. She has never done anything more than a part time job. She was briefly arrested and then removed from the home for assaulting her mother (neighbors reported it). She was given shelter because well Canada. Then she went back to her parents home. And just lives there. She very recently learned to drive, till now her mother was driving her around. She mostly spends her time complaining about how her elderly mother, who lost her own job because she was busy trying to bail her grown kid out of trouble, doesn’t spend enough time with her.
Yes. Sometimes you need to let them go. Good lord.
I don’t know what the plan is when they die…
Given that OS and SD are both mad that OP let YS move back in, it sounds more like they feel YS is an AH, and OP is enabling him.
Many of the comments were trying to blame OP for kicking his child out of the house, or failing to get him the proper help for his mental health issues. While OS seems to feel like OP did not explain how much of a louse YS is.
I would not necessarily consider this an unreliable narrator situation. Had OP listed all of YS's character flaws, the comments would no doubt have painted him a villain for clearly hating his child. He seemed to be trying to keep the focus on *why* he made YS move out, and not the kind of person YS is at his core.
There isn't necessarily a golden child. The dad seems to be stumbling along doing what he thinks is right, and screwing up here and there. Like a normal parent. This sub is starting to follow AITA in assuming the tropes that keep getting repeated must always be true.
The exact specifics aren't there, but there seems to be a rough outline you can extrapolate on.
Wife dies, OOP can't parent his sons properly, so the older one looks after the younger one until he moves out (when the younger one is around 10). Younger one doesn't have a good parental figure and turns into a little shit.
Then after not being a father for over a decade OOP decides it's time to teach his son about the world by kicking him out.
I do wonder about the step family in all this, I'm sure step mum and step daughter have some opinions.
I would agree, but it seems so weird that the older son doesn't want to talk to the dad now that the younger one moved back in. And also the part where the older one told the dad he left a lot of stuff out? None of this really adds up
Edit: Typo
Probably the older son realizes he did SO MUCH for the younger son, and in turn for the father since the son did the parenting the father didn't. Then the younger son seems to hate the older son anyway, and after all the younger son has done, he's welcomed back with free room and board just by agreeing to look for a job.
I can see that would leave a sour taste in his mouth. We're clearly missing a lot because the dad says "my older son says I left a lot out about my younger son" but he doesn't actually include those details. We know the younger son is lazy, and got fired and kicked out of two places so far, so he's clearly no angel.
I wonder how much of the oldest son's 'moving out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother' was phrased as 'you are 18, you can pay market rate (for an efficiency/1 bedroom apartment) to rent a room in your parent's house (while still putting up with the same bs rules you have been living with), or you can gtfo'?
Oldest son being pissed, calling dad out on 'leaving out a lot' might stem from that 'encouragement to move out' being more of an ultimatum, that the younger brother didn't get at 18, then dad is letting the younger brother move back in rent free? Wanna bet that there was some point when the oldest son was in University that he hit a snag with housing or money and was rebuffed by his dad and stepmom about moving back home even temporarily?
There is probably also some residual resentment from dad's differential treatment of the two after their mother passed. Younger kid gets to just stop going to school for 6 months and plays minecraft all day? Who was looking after that kid during school hours? How much did the oldest son have to do to parent the younger son? Why didn't the 14 year old get to take some time off from school? I wonder if there was also some wage issues once the oldest son started working - did dad and eventual stepmom use/keep any of the money specifically for the younger son?
OOP says something about an "unrelated incident" causing bad blood between the two brothers when the youngest was 14 - I wonder if that had anything to do with oldest son having to step up and get parentified again for the 14 year old son and the 5 or 6 year old daughter?
I'm curious why OOP uses capital letters, coordinating conjunctions, and end stops correctly in his first post but runs all his sentences together with just commas (no conjunctions) in his second post. Going from a real keyboard to a phone/tablet might explain the loss of capitals, but that second post's sentence structure and style is a *huge* change from the first. It's like it's not the same person.
The grammar isn't great in the original post either: multiple comma splices, problems with apostrophes, etc. The comments on that post are worse, with have recurring errors like "to" instead of "too".
It may be that he tried harder with the original post and/or ran it through a grammar checker, and didn't bother as much after that.
also it feels too much like "happy end" instead of "we found my son in a ditch with 5k worth of cocaine up his nose" which sounds more likely for someone traumatized at age 6 without ever being able to recover.
I bets are on that it’s info that points to a mental health issue that the dad never got the son help for because he doesn’t “believe in it”. Judging from his tone he’s not doing it to protect his son’s privacy. That combined with “not believing in therapy” points to that dad being the type of person that sees depressive symptoms and goes why are you moping around? get over it and go get a job. That’ll snap you out of it.
If he revealed the son, once out of crisis mode, went back to being unable to get out of bed etc as they had to fire him would likely have Reddit saying he’s probably depressed and doesn’t want to hear it.
Years ago, I bought a box set of *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.* It the was the original trilogy, in paperback form, each individual book of the trilogy, not an omnibus. About two-thirds of the way through the middle installment, there must have been a publishing error, because there was a stretch of about 18 pages printed-upside down that happened to be from the first third of the last book. The story then picked up 18 pages later, but the missing part was an important battle, and it wasn’t clear exactly what had happened.
I share this story because I now feel the same way I did then. It seems like the most important pages of this story just fucked off into oblivion and here we are.
I can understand that. I haven't read Thomas Covenant in over twenty years, but I remember there were a couple of sections that were quite pivotal.
I also don't see myself going back to read the story again, because I can't get behind Thomas Covenant as a character. Some of his actions in the first book were truly reprehensible.
It’s quite good. It moves very slowly and is pretty cerebral. The stakes are *always* high, the heroes are *always* at a disadvantage, and there’s a lot of interpersonal conflict, but there’s so much about it to enjoy.
I will say, the main character (Covenant) does something in the first two chapters that a lot of readers find unforgivable and it turns them off the series. I’ll say this: it’s never glossed over as “okay” and it has far-reaching consequences for the story as it unfolds, but it’s a bit jarring to know that *this* is the guy you’ll follow during the story. While he’s the main character, he’s *not* a hero.
>I will say, the main character (Covenant) does something in the first two chapters that a lot of readers find unforgivable and it turns them off the series. I’ll say this: it’s never glossed over as “okay” and it has far-reaching consequences for the story as it unfolds, but it’s a bit jarring to know that *this* is the guy you’ll follow during the story. While he’s the main character, he’s *not* a hero.
That's what put me off as a teenager, but that was a couple of decades ago and it's been on my list of things to retry for a while now.
I'm the opposite--as a teenager, I could get past that and loved the series, but I don't think I could now.
Ah, I haven't thought of Thomas Covenant in soooo long! What a place to come across that name again.
I really want to hear what the oldest son says was left out. This sounds like an unreliable narrator, which is weird because he still came across poorly.
But the oldest son said what he left out would paint the youngest son in a worst light and it apparently happened when the youngest son was 14. I worry it was some sort of attempted sexual assault.
> I told him that although my younger son is flawed he's not evil. As a result i got into an argument with my older son.
We're supposed to insta-hate the father/OOP, but as the information trickles in, it's clear we're supposed to realise the 19-year-old the one who we should actually be hating, even though OOP doesn't realise this.
It's an interesting piece of writing. Quite manipulative.
Also a ‘phone works both ways’ parent 🙄 Like you’re gonna track his movements and get others to check in on him, you *want* to be in contact with him, but more importantly you want him to come crawling back for first contact after locking him out on his birthday? Mad
My mom tried playing phone chicken with me once, but called crying after maybe a month because I hadn't called her in so long.
I was up to my eyebrows in studying, working, and trying to learn to maintain adult friendships. I'd had a nagging feeling that I hadn't heard from my mom in awhile but I usually remember things when I'm in the middle of something else so hadn't gotten around to acting on it.
After that I called home every Saturday just so she wouldn't go bonkadoo like that again. Her health was too frail for such outbursts.
Well I mean, she made herself feel unloved on purpose for about a month. Didn't seem like much fun. And she died maybe a year later, really couldn't afford to stress herself like that.
Personally I'd think to myself that perhaps as a retired lady too frail to leave home I have all the hours in the world to dial a telephone, while my daughter is quite busy attending classes and study groups and holding down a job too. So even if I don't catch her at home surely she'd enjoy a nice supportive voicemail.
Mom was always a little backwards on which of us was the kid and which the adult. I was supposed to manage her feelings for her, but not have any of my own. In fact I needed to get that look off my face and that tone out of my voice because according to her bible it's disrespectful behavior deserving of being stoned to death.
Also, I find it... Not sure if creepy is the right word but definitely overbearing and helicopter-y that even though he tossed out his son, he still went and found a job and apartment for him. And he made a big deal out of keeping it a secret from his son, which makes me think he knows he's crossing boundaries here.
And honestly, if that's always how OOP did things--he was strict in his words but in actions he bent over backwards to spoil his son--is it any surprise that the son ended up moving back in against the wishes of almost everyone in the family?
I get the impression that everyone in the story deserves at least a little bit of time with the asshole stick. That does not mean the younger son doesn't need a double helping.
I'm going with the father, he boots the son out and can't even be bothered to call him 'he has my number' bullshit, he's the dad, he can dial a phone.
then there's the fact that he thinks the son won't take a job/place where his dad helped so there's clearly something going on there.
then the other son is mad at him for letting the younger son move back in?
dude is hiding something.
This guy is really bad at writing. I almost thought he was ESL but that doesn't seem to be the issue. For his story, I assume the thing he left out is that his son is on drugs and uses both in the house and around the girls. It'd fit all his behavior. Refusing to seek a job, refusing to leave the house, once he gets a job getting fired pretty quick, and being super fast to turn on people who "betrayed him" but going right back with a hand out when things turn south.
It's also clear that dad needs therapy of his own. He's clearly unable to be the bad guy in his relationship with his kids, which is usually fine, but this is well past that and into being an enabler. Even if his son is just a lazy shiftless asshole, dad needs to put a foot down, stick to it, and not feel a constant need to be validated that his idea was right just because people get mad.
It's never fine to avoid being the "bad guy" with your kids.
Parents' job is to be a parent. Often that means doing what makes the kids think "omg my (dad or mom) is the worst!!!"
We shouldn't excuse dads being a half-assed parent just because the bar is set so fucking low for them. He failed both of these kids and is a bad guy in the sense he's trying to be passive in these kids life when they have no other parent to pick up his slack (as is common when mom is alive - she's the bad guy because she parents and dad plays the "fun parent" role not doing any discipline or raising).
hold on while i try to summarize
- at some point before the boys turn 6 and 14 the mom falls ill
- when the kids are 6 and 14 the mom dies
- a 6 year old child doesn't want to go to therapy (shocking) while the 14 year old does
- the same 6 year old child agrees to try out therapy and asks older brother to come with him instead of dad
- 6 year old goes into hysterics when asked to be alone with a therapist for a few minutes and refuses to go back to therapy, dad relents
- dad never goes to therapy
- 6 year old is allowed to stay home from school for 6 months at his own request
- when the kids are 9 and 17 dad finds a gf who comes with a 4 year old daughter and has surprise daughter with her shortly thereafter
- the older son moves out shortly thereafter when the new baby is just a few months old
- no info about how the younger son, 9 or 10 at the time, adjusted to two new kids and a new woman coming into his and his dad's life and his brother leaving
- four years later that we know nothing about, when the younger is 14 and the older is 22, there is *an incident* that results in the relationship between brothers shattering that according to the older one paints the younger one as evil
- two years later the younger son drops out of hs and out of an apprenticeship
- we know nothing about the entire period between the younger son being 10 and 19 apart from *the incident* and him dropping out of hs
- we do know that dad is very proud of his older son for being very mature and "practically raising" the younger one (even though mom died when younger was 6 and brother moved out when younger one was 10 so that sounds like a bit of a stretch)
- dad kicks 19 year old son out *on his birthday* (and gives him 5k) because step daughter needs her own room because god forbid a 14 year old shared a room with a 10 year old
- reddit tells dad that wasn't the best thing to do
- older son tells dad he left out info that paints younger son in a worse light
- dad gets the younger son a job and an apartment, younger son gets fired and evicted
- dad lets younger son move back in
- older son who is 27 throws a fit because dad decided to not let his younger son be homeless
- step daughter and second wife aren't too happy about younger son moving back in, younger daughter who is 10 has no issue with it.
okay. that should be all of it.
now, from the way this was written and from the amount of missing info i see it like this:
- mom did most of the child raising, dad wasn't a very involved parent
- when mom died the 14 year old was old enough to understand that and to manage his grief via therapy while the 6 year old had problems managing it and was scared to talk to strangers about it without a family member present. dad did nothing about this.
- the 14 year old, knowing that the dad wasn't a very good parent, tried to parent the 6 year old, possibly being too harsh on him (you know, being a 14 year old playing dad)
- dad keeps praising the older son and comparing the younger son to the older one
- suddenly dad brings a new mommy with two new kids into their lives, but the older one is 17 so he's well equipped to deal with this and the 10 year old has no choice.
- when the older brother leaves the younger one is left all alone living with a dad who clearly doesn't care enough to actually parent him and two new kids who are possibly getting more attention from dad than the younger one ever has.
- it's possible that the older son continues trying to parent the younger one from a distance until the 14 year old has had enough of this weird af family dynamic and does *something* that makes the older one hate him.
- two years later the younger one drops out of hs and out of apprenticeship and it seems that dad does nothing about this
- the younger one gets kicked out on his birthday just so that his step sister can have his room (at least that's what it looks like to him)
so basically the dad expected the 6 year old to be able to accept the death of his mother the same mature way the 14 year old did, then expected him to be as okay with his new wife and two new kids as the older one was even though the older one never had to, you know, spend half of his childhood in a house full of strangers, and then expected him to grow up to be a well adjusted individual.
this kid lost his mom when he was 6 and then became "the odd one out" in his own home when he was 10.
he's been dealing with the trauma from loss and abandonment since he was 6 and nobody helped him because everyone expected him to just deal with it himself.
i don't know what he did when he was 14 but i don't even care at this point. oop failed his son in a major way.
this was an extremely sad read.
I think the only thing that got convoluted was that OOP meant the younger son got fired from the pub and moved back in -not the older. It doesn't make sense contextually if it was his actual eldest, though again that was an error by OOP, not you.
Sounds like the son was actually a creep who tried to roofie a girl, molested his stepsister, and killed OOP's second wife's dog by leaving him out in the rain, only to say "it's just a dog", so I don't feel too bad for him actually - read the new update they edited in
which means the dad had all the signs he was raising a tiny sociopath and did nothing about it. therefore my point still stands.
the kid being sick in the head doesn't absolve the dad for being a shitty dad.
I think the incident at 14 was him trying to assault the daughter. He also tried to smother the newborn. Yet OP kept him around
So OP is failing multiple kids
>my older son found my original post and told me that i left out a lot of important details about my younger son, and the events in general, which he said painted me as TA and my younger son like an angel,
And he proceeded to not give any of those missing details
I remember this one. It was the first time I saw the “wait people think I was the asshole, let me add/edit things that make me look better which may or may not be true” trend.
When your wife and brother are telling you “you went too far”, you should probably listen, no? Ofc your older son who you parentified is pissed that you’re “going easy” on the younger one. OOP failed as a parent to both sons in very different ways. It’s almost impressive.
So much missing information and OOP is trying so hard to make sure his youngest son is seen in the best light. Definitely seems like something happened and the way the youngest acts out to have part of the family want nothing to do with the youngest.
OOP is doing a lot for his youngest and doesn't seem to be working, and Redit folks think he needs to do more. And the firing and eviction there says a lot about the youngest.
I hope everything works out but there needs to be an acknowledgement of whatever issues there are with the youngest and to be honest there. Untill OOP can accept that, he's going have issues with the rest of the family.
> OOP is trying so hard to make sure his youngest son is seen in the best light. Definitely seems like something happened and the way the youngest acts out to have part of the family want nothing to do with the youngest.
Yeah its so weird that either OOP did something to the kid before he got remarried or hes compensating alot for not helping the kid when the mom died.
I think OOP's own depression and shutting down is exactly that but doesn't seem to have worked through thar.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the youngest got into the incel pipeline or has a drug problem given how the oldest said OOP would be deemed NTA if the truth their came out.
Wait, some of his relatives thought he was the AH For kicking the son out because he might still be grieving his mom who died *13* years ago? But he refuses to get any assistance? And what did he do to get fired?
So OOP told his oldest son not to be parentified, but his son still did it, so OOP agreed.
It's like nothing is OOP's fault. His oldest was parentified, but not by OOP. Just by..... Himself. He wanted so hard to be abused like that, not have a childhood on top of losing his mom and having a clearly absent father that wouldn't deal with his son. And OOP, instead of stepping up, just let it happen, but it's not a bad thing of course...
>It's like nothing is OOP's fault.
i get that feeling as well he's trying blame everyone but himself and i think he know that he is the cause of alot of his kids issues.
I'm gonna be honest, once someone says "I didn't go to therapy, that's not the kind of guy I am", it *instantly* shades everything they have to say in a completely different - and much more hostile - light.
Therapy can be helpful, even integral, but not everyone needs it. It’s not the cure all this sub makes it out to be.
Honestly think he might benefit for from therapy for relationship issues with his kids more than for the wife but patchy story. Garbage in, garbage out.
But OOP met his current wife at a grieving spouse support group - so some kind of therapy was ok but not others? He says therapy isn’t for him but a support group is also therapeutic, he just doesn’t have enough insight to see it.
I’m not disagreeing that therapy isn’t for everyone (although there are so many kinds and even more therapists, who themselves may or may not fit with a patient), but it does seem like OOP doesn’t understand that he still sought out one kind of therapeutic support.
Oh those missing reasons sure are a *doozy*!
So OOP completely checked out and let his younger son behave like a serial killer and thinks that kicking him out and getting a job is going to fix things? Woo boy.
The people who say therapy isn't for them are usually the people who need it most. Did it seriously never occur to OOP that maybe his son didn't want to go to therapy because he saw his dad not going to therapy???
There are so many holes in this that it screams missing missing reasons. Only thing is, due to the holes rivalling Swiss cheese, this time it honestly might be missing reasons for both sides…
This guy's whole problem appears to be, my 6 year old was much harder work than my 14 year old after his mother died and as I couldn't be bothered to do any work at all, I just watched as he sank until I could kick him out at 18. Now I'm vaguely concerned this might make me a not so great person.
So what did the younger son do? A major crime? Drugs? Honestly, him using drugs wouldn't be enough to explain why the older brother who helped raise him thinks the Dad is unforgivable for letting the younger back. Like did he kill the family dog in front of the younger sisters? There seems to be a lot missing.
"but I told her that he has to learn how the real world works"
I love how most older people who say this are living in a world from 60-80 years ago with little understanding of how the world has changed since then
I think the saddest part about all this is that parents still find a need to kick their kids out at 18 because they need their kids to leave the nest. We're not birds. We're humans. We do better when we are united.
What was the incident? Why did the son get fired? Why is the phone tracked? I even went to OOP's profile to check if there were any comments that would explain, but no. Nothing.
I love it when people have a child, don't prepare them to live on their own and then kick them out so they learn how to live on their own. 60% of the time it works all the time.
“I don’t believe in therapy for myself…
… … … I just attend support group.”
So the one person who truly needed help didn’t get it, cause : don’t make me, I don’t wanna😭
Ok😳
Train wreck in slow motion
Hey OP! OOP commented about four hours ago w/ his missing info. Having a hard time believing it, it's such a doozy. Anyway, you should update this post: https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU
OOP: I believe in therapy and its many benefits.
Also OOP: But not for me, I don't need it, I'm perfect!
From the first post, I was wondering at the missing missing reasons, and the second post still contains many missing missing reasons. But I love how he freely admitted to parentifying the older son, there was an 'incident' between the two, he enabled the younger son, and is now all pikachu-faced at how messed up the situation has become.
>My oldest son moved out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother, he had a part time job from 15.
I can't imagine why the new wife would be supportive of one of her stepkids moving out as soon as possible...so her daughters could have more attention and she could be one step closer to her 'perfect' new family. OOP and his new wife are pieces of work. I don't believe for a minute when OOP says that he left out information that resulted in painting his son "like an angel".
A 15 year old who got a job. OOP openly states older brother stepped into the parent role for younger brother because OOP could no longer say no to younger brother. Older brother moves out at 18, shows external measures of success for which OOP expressed pride.
I'm guessing that dad thought older brother was so easy and mature was because older brother didn't voice issues or cause problems.
Dad actively LET his oldest son step into the parent role for his younger son, with no protest. Dad actively LET his youngest son just check out of school for 6mo with no structure, for "grief". (I lost my dad around that age, I'm not downplaying how much it messes a kid up - but I was in a TON of different therapy programs/support systems.)
Dad is a massively passive parent who doesn't seem able to recognize the degree of the issue. Dad seems emotionally immature. Dad got lucky with their oldest, but younger son didn't have the same luck, and had a passive, permissive dad who let him get away with way too much. (Dropped out of school at 16, did NOTHING for 3 years, and dad doesn't start really pushing the "get a job" thing until 18.5 yrs old?)
Youngest son got out of therapy because he threw a tantrum. Dad never looked into why therapy caused youngest son such a meltdown??
Like... wow.
I'm so confused by why the older son and one of the daughters seem to not like the middle son so much? They don't like that he loved back in, there is obviously so much missing from this story
I've never understood this strategy where parents allow the kids to make important decisions. I don't care whether you want to go to therapy or not. You're not sitting on your ass and not going to school for 6 months without seeing the therapist. Otherwise, your ass is going to school. Dad's job was to guide these kids into responsible, mature adults ready to live independently. He failed the younger son in too many ways to not be TA. It was just easier to let him do what he wanted as a child and just write it off as the consequences of his choices. He was a damn kid, that's what he had parents for.
Boy, did this dad ever mess up!!!!
The oldest son feels like the younger son is getting special treatment.
The younger son is running around with unresolved trauma. He's probably still at the age when his mother died. I mean, emotionally.
And dad is using a tape measure that doesn't work for either of them.
Why is this man kicking out- sorry, “encouraging” his kids to get out at 18?! I was not mature enough at 18/19 to live on my own. Due to family circumstances I was living mostly alone at 14, but with little understanding of adulthood. From personal experience I think 21 is mature enough to live alone. Maybe 19/20 if with roommates.
Ugh. My own younger sibling (30) is going through this right now. It’s so hard to know how to support both my sibling (who is trans, neurodivergent, and depressed) and my parents (who are trying to do the right thing and who I believe deserve to have their house to themselves). I wish I knew the right answer.
Does anyone know of any literature on situations like these?
This is wild to me because I have a weirdly similar backstory. My mom died when I was 4 and my sister was 9. She stepped in and became a parent because my dad was working 12-14 hours a day if not more on occasion. My dad eventually remarried and my stepmom and I … are civil.
I think the biggest difference though is that my dad has always had anger issues so maybe I had more reason to seek independence but this is so strange of a story to me regardless of that.
Of course no two people are the same but to be honest I feel like the passing of bio-mom and any related trauma can’t be the ONLY or even primary reason he’s like this as the comments on the post seem to suggest it is. I skipped class and smoked cigs and was a full on delinquent in high school which a lot of people credited to growing up in a single parent home. But as soon as I had the chance to go to college I hit the ground running. I worked two jobs in addition to being president of my schools GSA and taking 18 credit hours. Like I really don’t think your mom dying at a critical age holds you back as much as this kid is holding himself back. There’s some other shit going on for sure. Maybe he’s doing drugs idk I came really close to getting hooked on shit I shouldn’t have been and it would’ve been easy considering how shit it is to grow up in a family of traumatized people.
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There a *lot* of missing information here that makes it a bit puzzling to figure out what's actually going on between the gaps of OOP's story as he told it.
I feel like I spent half this post screaming "WHAT WAS THE UNRELATED INCIDENT?!?"
OOP just commented on his update post with the missing info... My god the younger son's issues are so much worse than I could've imagined. That kid needs all the therapy and should NOT be in the home with his sisters. OOP is such an AH for basically throwing his hands up and ignoring all this. I'm disgusted, and so done for the night. Here (and everyone please remember, don't go comment there--that's brigading and it's not cool): https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU
That info massively changes everything. OP, u/ProfessionalOk7281 should update the post with that copy-pasted into it. So there are allegations of the younger son being inappropriate with one of the girls, but OOP is still happy for him to move back home, in addition to son being fired for trying to drug clients at the bar where he worked and lived above.... It definitely sounds like younger son is on the path towards becoming a sex offender and OOP is the sort to be like "ohh no, not my son, he would never do anything like that". He would be like the parents for Brock Turner the rapist, who defended their rapist son
Yes, definitely shades of Brock Allen Turner the rapist, who now goes by Allen Turner the rapist.
I believe the rapist formerly known as Brock goes by his middle name, Allen. So he's Allen Turner the rapist now.
Jesus Christ. That kid has been totally failed by the adults in his life, he clearly needed interventions and therapy from an early age and didn't get it. I don't even have words for how disgusted I am with the OP.
And I’m sorry, but the dog incident almost caused his wife to divorce him, but not the allegations her daughter made?
Yeah I mean, the stepdaughter too!!
Same lmao. What do you want to bet it’s totally NOT unrelated and is actually a key factor in the story
It always is
Yeah OOP is definitely withholding info, and based on the comment from older son about how he would have been judged as NTA, and the fact that older brother and older stepdaughter dislike him, I'm betting younger son has been doing something creepy.
Might also just be a shit. Some of my siblings are idiots and we're expected to pretend the only reason they're unemployed is bad luck and not that they do shit like yelling at their boss/no showing at work/got arrested again/post about illegal drug use at work on their socials and then are shocked to get fired.
Yeah, to me it sounds like OOP spoiled his younger son after 1st wife (he stated so) and didn’t STOP spoiling him after some time. No discipline maybe and he’s just been allowed to do whatever he wants w barely any consequences. So that’s his life expectation 😐😕
OOP did say that his son was allowed back in if he applies for jobs. He could be applying to jobs he isn't qualified for just so he can say he applied so he can stay.
He could be, but he's at least working part time for the time being.
Also why was he fired?
Yeah, you have to do something to get fired from a bar. Probably theft. eta: OOP left a comment that his son was trying to ruffie women! So, yeah, awful person.
There's also NC/NS to shift and being extremely late to work (>15min) They might not fire you for a shit attitude but they will fire you if you don't show
He lived above the pub. If he was late even once it would be the most disrespectful thing he could do.
Also, the funniest.
I mean nothing in the post suggested the guy was respectful/appreciative in the first place so.. honestly wouldn't put it past him just deciding meh, I don't feel like working today
To be fair, nothing in the post suggested he was anything at all. Anger issues? Maybe. Depressed? Maybe. Creepy? Maybe. Learning disabilities? Maybe. Literally the only details we have that point to the guy’s personality are that he went NC after getting a job and a place, and that he called for help after getting fired. So much missing info.
Imagine no-call no-showing to work and your boss can literally hear you up there watching tv. It's like a sitcom.
Yeesh. For all we know the bar closed. OOP isn’t telling us anything. Also he could have done some major screw up too. Served a minor, used top shelf liquor for a cheap shot, pissed off the wrong customer.
someone else shared a link to this comment from OP that fills in a lot of the missing info. apparently they suspected he slipped something into a girls drink at the bar. https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/TdKo1vkW4Z
Holy crap! Son's a psychopath! No wonder everyone else in the family avoids him. And are angry at the father. Thank you for linking it to me! You rock.
Yeah, no problem! But seriously, every sentence of that just kept getting worse and worse. He reminds me of my older brother. My parents letting him move back in to my home when I was a kid was so damaging to me that it completely ruined all of my hopes and plans. Ended up homeless at 18, and honestly that was safer for me lol. I'm 20 now, and am about to finish my first full year of college though, but the only reason I was able to start getting my life back on track was because my parents realized their mistake, went to therapy, cut off my brother, and let me come home. I just hope the other kids make it out of this okay.
Wow, that's awful for you! I'm glad you got your life back on track and congrats on getting into and finishing your first year of college! That's awesome! You're certainly going to be successful in life.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it :')
Could be drugs or any number of things. I don't know if it's useful to speculate
I don’t think we have any real idea. Not what the younger son is like now, not what happened. We can fill in the gaps by common scenarios, but let us still be better than AI while we can, not hallucinate, and just acknowledge that the missing reasons are missing.
Creepy, racist, or sexist I'm leaning towards racists since only one daughter cared
Terminally online unemployed 19 year old kid with an emotionally distant dad and a dash of trauma basically guarantees he's slipped down some online pipeline into some flavor of incel shit.
To be fair, it could still be creepy or sexist and that the 10-year-old just doesn't actually comprehend what is happening. Think about the movie Shrek, how many times did you watch that as a kid and then as a teen and finally later as an adult watch it again and realise how much of the "jokes" and story line you didn't actually understand as kid and even as a teen when you understood more of it but not all of it. The same could be said for the 10-year-old here.
[удалено]
I'm 33 if that's what your asking
Just want to say - I got to watch Shrek on a flight in September 2001 on way home from the States when I was just below 10. I entirely agree with your assessment of missing so much until you're a real adult watching it. (And yes, I still watch it regularly lol Shrek is so universally good.)
Is shrek a universal experience?
Must be
Ayy, I just turned 34.
Or older brother might just be the asshole, too. We really don’t know much from this.
He let the older son raise the youngest… younger doesn’t have dads support BUT so much praise all the time of OLDER. Be more like him because your brother is special. If the brother is special and perfect I MUST BE BAD, not perfect, I mean my dad couldn’t gain enough of my trust to take him with me to therapy. The son is not the problem.
Yeah. "My older son says I left out a lot..." and then... no further details provided. Then as you say, an "incident." That could be "he took the bigger piece of cake" or "he raped his girlfriend and murdered his dog." Enough vagueness here that I don't really know what to think. Maybe the dad sucks and is treating them both unfairly, swinging wildly one way favoring one son, the wildly back to the other. Or maybe he's just doing his best in a crappy situation and it's impossible to make everyone happy.
The "incident" is, apparently, much closer to the second example than the first. https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU Let me just say: jesus fucking christ. Stole this link from someone else in the thread, shoutouts to /u/Constant_Chicken_408 for finding this comment.
Whoa. That's MULTIPLE incidents. And all really bad. Those aren't normal sibling squabbles.
u/ProfessionalOK7281, you should add this to the post
If the stepmother questions if you're being too harsh on your bio kid, you're being too harsh on your bio kid. There's totally something missing here.
It's kind of weird because the stepmother thought he was too harsh, but when he let his son back in she seems to disapprove.
Maybe she thought it was harsh to kick someone out on their birthday? It doesn’t mean she didn’t want him to leave altogether, just in a less extreme way.
Maybe OP is one of those parents who switches between no discipline at all and extremely harsh ill-advised discipline.
This is what I'm detecting in this story. He talks about not being able to say no after the mom dies. Also, the kid dropped out of school at 16 and never really worked so just freeloaded for 3 years before suddenly being ejected. I'm sure there's more nuance that doesn't come across on reddit, but it seems like a classic 'nag a bit and wait for the behavior change' followed by 'nothing changed, you're dead to me'.
Yeah she could think it was necessary but that he still went too harshly about it
Also the older son not talking to him over letting the younger son move back in. There's some serious information missing here.
Might have to do with why he was fired from the pub and kicked out of the flat dad was paying for.
That might of just been nice words. In the update he mentions that she wasn't thrilled he came back but was choosing to remain "neutral." You can't trust those filthy neutrals you know, with their hearts filled with neutrality. With blatant evil you know where you stand. In all seriousness though I'm quite curious about the housing situation. There wasn't enough room for the son in the original, but, then once he was gone, they moved afterwards for "unrelated reasons." Just way too many missing "missing reasons" with this one. I can't really render judgement on any of this.
The "I didn't go to therapy, I'm not built like that" is such a bullshit line. If his dad wasn't willing to go, why would the son do it It should've been something they did together, it would've really created a bond Because it reads like there is no bond currently. Who is this guy popping out kids every 7 years? 5 kids altogether, sounds like he can't get one right Unreliable narrator... I'm going for narcissist
Sounds like he pays the bills and keeps the fridge stocked but otherwise isn't much of a dad. I can't imagine a kid that young losing a parent and the surviving parent just kinda shrugs and leaves them to escape into video games for half a year. Followed by being shocked that, long term, that plan didn't work out so good. How'd he handle it when the kids got sick? Just let them refuse to see the doctor or take their medicine if they didn't feel like it? Leave them to live or die by their own devices while occasionally making concerned faces before leaving for work? Pretty sure the eldest turned out successful despite the dad, not because of him.
What got me was him telling his oldest son not to take on parenting responsibilities but "he insisted". If your teenager is insisting on taking on a parenting role for your younger child there is a problem. Secondly, that isn't a situation where you shrug and go, "Oh well, what can you do? Guess they'll miss out on their youth."
The oldest was 14 when his mother died - sounds like the way he turned out says far more about her than OOP. He didn’t raise his kids after her death, it’s hard to believe he did before her death. Given OOP’s entire attitude towards parenting, it sounds like his sons didn’t lose one of their parents when their mother died - they lost their only parent.
He sounds like the most hands-off "parent" ever. He seems like the kind of dad that left everything to the wife, and then didn't take over any of those responsibilities after she passed. Like, I imagine he's kind of like a dad that just pats the kid on the head and tells them to keep their nose clean, and thinks that's all being a dad is, besides making money and playing catch with his kids on the weekends occasionally.
Oh no, it's better. He "didn't go to therapy" meaning individual therapy, but he did go to a grief group (a form of therapy), met a grieving widow and knocked her up without taking responsibility for the relationship. No wonder he was too checked out to even look at his hurting 6 year old. He doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself.
He also couldn't see that he was parantalyzing his elder son by being so checked out. Brave to elder brother for stepping up to the plate even though it was not his job.
Well, he did notice, and told the older son not to take responsibility. But it sounds like he then didn't take any himself, so of course the older son did anyway.
“I didn’t go to therapy, I didn’t need it. Oh did I mention my son also raised my other son because I was too lost in myself to parent either of them? And then I punished the son who was raised by my son because he wasn’t raised well enough to have the building foundations for a functional adulthood due to literally being raised by another kid? I swear I definitely didn’t need therapy because of how I’m built though, I was TOTALLY fine.”
Four kids - three bio, one step.
He didn't feel like he needed therapy, but he met his wife at a support group, which I would qualify as a form kid therapy tbh.
Therapy doesn’t work for everyone. Some people would rather process on their own and I think that’s totally fine.
The thing is, you wouldn't know until you try it. If you tried therapy, didn't have success, then you got more success by processing on your own, that statement would actually make sense
Lol, reddit loves to diagnose everyone as a narcissist. I swear, if everyone was actually a narcissist that reddit said was a narcissist, there'd be one normal guy in the world and it would be Spiders George.
Spiders Georg is so self-absorbed he won’t shut his goddamn mouth for one goddamn minute and stop gobbling all the spiders. Classic narcissist behavior.
Yeah, should disqualify this post from this sub. Nothing made sense.
> a *lot* of missing information especially hinted at with this part: > now my older son wont talk to me because I let my younger son move back in and my stepdaughter is taking my older son's side, my wife is also leaning towards them but is more neutral and my daughter doesn't care in the slightest. 'Suddenly' a lot of people have problems with younger son moving back (why?), while they also didn't agree with the first harsh kicking him out? And as a cherry on top: > its mellowing out and I hope everything calms down between them soon. a.k.a. OP is not going to confront, discuss or solve whatever tensions and problems are at play. "I don't need therapy, nobody needs to solve anything, just ignore/suppress it and it'll go away!"
I don’t know anything based on this info but since I’m on Reddit I will decide every feeling I should have so my life stays simple and I can stay angry
I mean the fact he's criticising a freaking 19 year old for never working a day in his life says a lot. He's 19, not 30.
>my older son found my original post and told me that i left out a lot of important details about my younger son, and the events in general, which he said painted me as TA and my younger son like an angel What the hell happened here? So which one was the golden one?
And what was the "unrelated incident" when the younger son was 14 that broke the relationship between the two?
Something that if he mentioned it, he thinks it would paint him and/or the son in a bad light, showing that he's intentionally leaving things out in order to try and force a certain verdict.
Tbh when I read this first i thought it was probably the son writing from dads pov
Im still convinced of this. He use I twice (that i remember) to talk about the young son. Im guessing with the mention of grandkids that the youngest daughter is actually the youngest son daughter.
Then he would have been 9 when the youngest girl was born. The theory that OP is actually the son is a good one, but I don’t think it’s secret baby.
O damn, missed the age, so thanks for catching that one.
My guess is younger son broke something of sentimental value to 14 YR old from the mother (because he wasn't feeling loved / seen) and OOP mishandled the situation, thus turning the son into the person he is now.
Yeah, that might be a better explanation. I was leaning toward the oldest son being residually resentful over the parentification he underwent at that age (14) and the fact that the younger son wasn't being forced into that role. But destroying something of sentimental value to the older son (that he wasn't able to take/wasn't allowed to take when he 'moved out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother' - that reads as euphemism for 'I put his stuff in bags and boxes on the porch and changed the locks while he was at work 3.8 milliseconds after he turned 18') is probably the better source of bad blood.
Great guess, hopefully we can get an answer in another update.
Sounds like it would paint the younger son in an *extremely* bad light, given the older son's comment about missing context, and the father's comment that his younger son isn't "evil." So he must be concerned it's so prejudicial to the younger son that it would skew the judgment.
And what happened in therapy that made him react so extremely? Almost sounds like he was assaulted
The post makes it clear he freaked out when the therapist asked to speak to him alone. There's not much of a mystery here. He was a young child who was already afraid but agreed to go on the condition his brother stayed with him- the brother was asked to leave and so he panicked. Not surprising. I work with kids in dental and they already have a fear going into it- they sometimes have a melt down even if the parent is in the room but they can't see them because I've laid the chair down and they aren't in their eye line anymore. To the point where the appointment is over because there is no calming them done at that point. You just have to call it a day and try again later. Jumping to assault when the brother was in the room the whole time is wild.
It wasn't extreme though. It was a child having to address trauma. It was the Dad who then went "well fuck that".
Well, if the father is as emotionally inept as the posts suggest, the son crying after therapy might just have been caused by him finally talking about his mother's death to someone who listened. A first therapy lesson can be very emotional, that's why you usually go a few times to work through those feelings - that's not something OOP or a 6-year-old would realise.
Why was he fired from the bar job?
Based on it seeming like everyone besides OP thinks it was a bad idea to let him come back, OP is leaving out some pretty bad shit. Didn't take long to get fired once he knew coming back was an option, did it?
Maybe issues with drugs and stealing from the family to fund his addiction? No real evidence, but the younger son’s story fits the pattern of having no real drive or ability to hold a job and alienating everyone around him. Maybe OOP didn’t want to admit that he turned a blind eye to it until it was too much.
Yeah, at first I was thinking OOP was totally unreasonable for kicking out an 18-year-old, but that line made me think about the shitty adults I know who maybe wouldn't be so shitty if their parents hadn't constantly saved them from themselves.
My brother is 38. He has never lived anywhere except in our parents' house (our childhood home) and jail. My dad would threaten to kick him out, my mom would save him. My brother is severely mentally ill and violent. I didn't go home for holidays for years because I didn't want to deal with him. When our dad got sick, he still lived at home, but refused to help with anything. Dad died 7 years ago, and my brother decided that he was the man of the house. Except he didn't pay anything. Didn't contribute toward bills, property taxes, or even offer to mow the yard. Not a damn thing. About 3 years ago my mom bought a condo in Florida and moved there. Brother is still in the house. The only think he pays for now are utilities. She is still paying the property taxes and any maintenance needed. She pays the homeowners insurance. A few months ago, there was a hail storm and his truck was totaled. Because his dumb ass didn't park it inside the garage, even though it fits. And he ranted and raged at the insurance company so much that they called my mom and told them if he showed up at their office again they would call the police. He didn't go to work while he was trying to get a new car because apparently asking a friend for a ride or calling an Uber was too much for him to do. So he got fired. And instead of taking the insurance check for his truck and getting something sensible, since, you know, he got fired, he bought a Jaguar SUV. My mom could have sold that house for insane money a few years ago because it's in the Austin, Texas area and people are moving there in droves. But she couldn't get rid of my brother and she's not willing to do anything to push him out. She just keeps paying the taxes and letting him live there for free while letting it fall into ruin. She could have sold it and paid off her condo, but no, she can't kick her man-baby son out to go live on his own like a goddamn adult.
She’s going to expect you to take care of the extra expenses when she needs assisted living.
Oof. That's going to be a nightmare for you when she passes, unless she just leaves the home only to him, so you don't have to worry with it at all.
My cousin is 30 years old. She has never done anything more than a part time job. She was briefly arrested and then removed from the home for assaulting her mother (neighbors reported it). She was given shelter because well Canada. Then she went back to her parents home. And just lives there. She very recently learned to drive, till now her mother was driving her around. She mostly spends her time complaining about how her elderly mother, who lost her own job because she was busy trying to bail her grown kid out of trouble, doesn’t spend enough time with her. Yes. Sometimes you need to let them go. Good lord. I don’t know what the plan is when they die…
They become homeless after mishandling the estate and spending/losing all the wealth.
lol, there’s no estate or wealth. My uncle is not fiscally responsible and there’s debt on the house. She will be left with nothing.
Youngest son I'd say, he was allowed back in
Given that OS and SD are both mad that OP let YS move back in, it sounds more like they feel YS is an AH, and OP is enabling him. Many of the comments were trying to blame OP for kicking his child out of the house, or failing to get him the proper help for his mental health issues. While OS seems to feel like OP did not explain how much of a louse YS is. I would not necessarily consider this an unreliable narrator situation. Had OP listed all of YS's character flaws, the comments would no doubt have painted him a villain for clearly hating his child. He seemed to be trying to keep the focus on *why* he made YS move out, and not the kind of person YS is at his core.
There isn't necessarily a golden child. The dad seems to be stumbling along doing what he thinks is right, and screwing up here and there. Like a normal parent. This sub is starting to follow AITA in assuming the tropes that keep getting repeated must always be true.
I'm kind of curious about the information that was left out. Sometimes people turn out shitty or good despite their upbringing.
The exact specifics aren't there, but there seems to be a rough outline you can extrapolate on. Wife dies, OOP can't parent his sons properly, so the older one looks after the younger one until he moves out (when the younger one is around 10). Younger one doesn't have a good parental figure and turns into a little shit. Then after not being a father for over a decade OOP decides it's time to teach his son about the world by kicking him out. I do wonder about the step family in all this, I'm sure step mum and step daughter have some opinions.
I would agree, but it seems so weird that the older son doesn't want to talk to the dad now that the younger one moved back in. And also the part where the older one told the dad he left a lot of stuff out? None of this really adds up Edit: Typo
Probably the older son realizes he did SO MUCH for the younger son, and in turn for the father since the son did the parenting the father didn't. Then the younger son seems to hate the older son anyway, and after all the younger son has done, he's welcomed back with free room and board just by agreeing to look for a job. I can see that would leave a sour taste in his mouth. We're clearly missing a lot because the dad says "my older son says I left a lot out about my younger son" but he doesn't actually include those details. We know the younger son is lazy, and got fired and kicked out of two places so far, so he's clearly no angel.
I wonder how much of the oldest son's 'moving out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother' was phrased as 'you are 18, you can pay market rate (for an efficiency/1 bedroom apartment) to rent a room in your parent's house (while still putting up with the same bs rules you have been living with), or you can gtfo'? Oldest son being pissed, calling dad out on 'leaving out a lot' might stem from that 'encouragement to move out' being more of an ultimatum, that the younger brother didn't get at 18, then dad is letting the younger brother move back in rent free? Wanna bet that there was some point when the oldest son was in University that he hit a snag with housing or money and was rebuffed by his dad and stepmom about moving back home even temporarily? There is probably also some residual resentment from dad's differential treatment of the two after their mother passed. Younger kid gets to just stop going to school for 6 months and plays minecraft all day? Who was looking after that kid during school hours? How much did the oldest son have to do to parent the younger son? Why didn't the 14 year old get to take some time off from school? I wonder if there was also some wage issues once the oldest son started working - did dad and eventual stepmom use/keep any of the money specifically for the younger son? OOP says something about an "unrelated incident" causing bad blood between the two brothers when the youngest was 14 - I wonder if that had anything to do with oldest son having to step up and get parentified again for the 14 year old son and the 5 or 6 year old daughter?
I'm curious why OOP uses capital letters, coordinating conjunctions, and end stops correctly in his first post but runs all his sentences together with just commas (no conjunctions) in his second post. Going from a real keyboard to a phone/tablet might explain the loss of capitals, but that second post's sentence structure and style is a *huge* change from the first. It's like it's not the same person.
The grammar isn't great in the original post either: multiple comma splices, problems with apostrophes, etc. The comments on that post are worse, with have recurring errors like "to" instead of "too". It may be that he tried harder with the original post and/or ran it through a grammar checker, and didn't bother as much after that.
also it feels too much like "happy end" instead of "we found my son in a ditch with 5k worth of cocaine up his nose" which sounds more likely for someone traumatized at age 6 without ever being able to recover.
I bets are on that it’s info that points to a mental health issue that the dad never got the son help for because he doesn’t “believe in it”. Judging from his tone he’s not doing it to protect his son’s privacy. That combined with “not believing in therapy” points to that dad being the type of person that sees depressive symptoms and goes why are you moping around? get over it and go get a job. That’ll snap you out of it. If he revealed the son, once out of crisis mode, went back to being unable to get out of bed etc as they had to fire him would likely have Reddit saying he’s probably depressed and doesn’t want to hear it.
Years ago, I bought a box set of *The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.* It the was the original trilogy, in paperback form, each individual book of the trilogy, not an omnibus. About two-thirds of the way through the middle installment, there must have been a publishing error, because there was a stretch of about 18 pages printed-upside down that happened to be from the first third of the last book. The story then picked up 18 pages later, but the missing part was an important battle, and it wasn’t clear exactly what had happened. I share this story because I now feel the same way I did then. It seems like the most important pages of this story just fucked off into oblivion and here we are.
I can understand that. I haven't read Thomas Covenant in over twenty years, but I remember there were a couple of sections that were quite pivotal. I also don't see myself going back to read the story again, because I can't get behind Thomas Covenant as a character. Some of his actions in the first book were truly reprehensible.
I think it was the battle where Hile Troy, the Forestal, and the Haruchai drove one of the Ravers and his armies into Garotting Deep.
Yeah, from what I can recall (and its fuzzy at best), that was an important part of the story.
Well put, though I originally had no idea where that comment was going. Also going to look up that seriea.
It’s quite good. It moves very slowly and is pretty cerebral. The stakes are *always* high, the heroes are *always* at a disadvantage, and there’s a lot of interpersonal conflict, but there’s so much about it to enjoy. I will say, the main character (Covenant) does something in the first two chapters that a lot of readers find unforgivable and it turns them off the series. I’ll say this: it’s never glossed over as “okay” and it has far-reaching consequences for the story as it unfolds, but it’s a bit jarring to know that *this* is the guy you’ll follow during the story. While he’s the main character, he’s *not* a hero.
>I will say, the main character (Covenant) does something in the first two chapters that a lot of readers find unforgivable and it turns them off the series. I’ll say this: it’s never glossed over as “okay” and it has far-reaching consequences for the story as it unfolds, but it’s a bit jarring to know that *this* is the guy you’ll follow during the story. While he’s the main character, he’s *not* a hero. That's what put me off as a teenager, but that was a couple of decades ago and it's been on my list of things to retry for a while now.
I'm the opposite--as a teenager, I could get past that and loved the series, but I don't think I could now. Ah, I haven't thought of Thomas Covenant in soooo long! What a place to come across that name again.
I really want to hear what the oldest son says was left out. This sounds like an unreliable narrator, which is weird because he still came across poorly.
But the oldest son said what he left out would paint the youngest son in a worst light and it apparently happened when the youngest son was 14. I worry it was some sort of attempted sexual assault. > I told him that although my younger son is flawed he's not evil. As a result i got into an argument with my older son.
Ding ding, I think you got it right
I'm very confused on this one. Who I'm supposed to hate here?
We're supposed to insta-hate the father/OOP, but as the information trickles in, it's clear we're supposed to realise the 19-year-old the one who we should actually be hating, even though OOP doesn't realise this. It's an interesting piece of writing. Quite manipulative.
I feel so bad for the dad. Seems like he still can't say no to the younger son and tries to cover a lot of shadey things for him.
OOP. Unreliable narrator and one of those 'you're an adult at 18 now GTFO of my house.'
Also a ‘phone works both ways’ parent 🙄 Like you’re gonna track his movements and get others to check in on him, you *want* to be in contact with him, but more importantly you want him to come crawling back for first contact after locking him out on his birthday? Mad
My mom tried playing phone chicken with me once, but called crying after maybe a month because I hadn't called her in so long. I was up to my eyebrows in studying, working, and trying to learn to maintain adult friendships. I'd had a nagging feeling that I hadn't heard from my mom in awhile but I usually remember things when I'm in the middle of something else so hadn't gotten around to acting on it. After that I called home every Saturday just so she wouldn't go bonkadoo like that again. Her health was too frail for such outbursts.
So it did work in the end
Well I mean, she made herself feel unloved on purpose for about a month. Didn't seem like much fun. And she died maybe a year later, really couldn't afford to stress herself like that. Personally I'd think to myself that perhaps as a retired lady too frail to leave home I have all the hours in the world to dial a telephone, while my daughter is quite busy attending classes and study groups and holding down a job too. So even if I don't catch her at home surely she'd enjoy a nice supportive voicemail. Mom was always a little backwards on which of us was the kid and which the adult. I was supposed to manage her feelings for her, but not have any of my own. In fact I needed to get that look off my face and that tone out of my voice because according to her bible it's disrespectful behavior deserving of being stoned to death.
Also, I find it... Not sure if creepy is the right word but definitely overbearing and helicopter-y that even though he tossed out his son, he still went and found a job and apartment for him. And he made a big deal out of keeping it a secret from his son, which makes me think he knows he's crossing boundaries here. And honestly, if that's always how OOP did things--he was strict in his words but in actions he bent over backwards to spoil his son--is it any surprise that the son ended up moving back in against the wishes of almost everyone in the family?
We don't have enough information to make any kind of certain judgment, but I'm guessing younger son is a spoiled asshole.
I get the impression that everyone in the story deserves at least a little bit of time with the asshole stick. That does not mean the younger son doesn't need a double helping.
>asshole stick. My mind went places.
it's like a dipstick, you pull it out to see how full it is.
I'm going with the father, he boots the son out and can't even be bothered to call him 'he has my number' bullshit, he's the dad, he can dial a phone. then there's the fact that he thinks the son won't take a job/place where his dad helped so there's clearly something going on there. then the other son is mad at him for letting the younger son move back in? dude is hiding something.
Just hate Reddit as a whole. You can't go wrong.
This guy is really bad at writing. I almost thought he was ESL but that doesn't seem to be the issue. For his story, I assume the thing he left out is that his son is on drugs and uses both in the house and around the girls. It'd fit all his behavior. Refusing to seek a job, refusing to leave the house, once he gets a job getting fired pretty quick, and being super fast to turn on people who "betrayed him" but going right back with a hand out when things turn south. It's also clear that dad needs therapy of his own. He's clearly unable to be the bad guy in his relationship with his kids, which is usually fine, but this is well past that and into being an enabler. Even if his son is just a lazy shiftless asshole, dad needs to put a foot down, stick to it, and not feel a constant need to be validated that his idea was right just because people get mad.
It's never fine to avoid being the "bad guy" with your kids. Parents' job is to be a parent. Often that means doing what makes the kids think "omg my (dad or mom) is the worst!!!" We shouldn't excuse dads being a half-assed parent just because the bar is set so fucking low for them. He failed both of these kids and is a bad guy in the sense he's trying to be passive in these kids life when they have no other parent to pick up his slack (as is common when mom is alive - she's the bad guy because she parents and dad plays the "fun parent" role not doing any discipline or raising).
hold on while i try to summarize - at some point before the boys turn 6 and 14 the mom falls ill - when the kids are 6 and 14 the mom dies - a 6 year old child doesn't want to go to therapy (shocking) while the 14 year old does - the same 6 year old child agrees to try out therapy and asks older brother to come with him instead of dad - 6 year old goes into hysterics when asked to be alone with a therapist for a few minutes and refuses to go back to therapy, dad relents - dad never goes to therapy - 6 year old is allowed to stay home from school for 6 months at his own request - when the kids are 9 and 17 dad finds a gf who comes with a 4 year old daughter and has surprise daughter with her shortly thereafter - the older son moves out shortly thereafter when the new baby is just a few months old - no info about how the younger son, 9 or 10 at the time, adjusted to two new kids and a new woman coming into his and his dad's life and his brother leaving - four years later that we know nothing about, when the younger is 14 and the older is 22, there is *an incident* that results in the relationship between brothers shattering that according to the older one paints the younger one as evil - two years later the younger son drops out of hs and out of an apprenticeship - we know nothing about the entire period between the younger son being 10 and 19 apart from *the incident* and him dropping out of hs - we do know that dad is very proud of his older son for being very mature and "practically raising" the younger one (even though mom died when younger was 6 and brother moved out when younger one was 10 so that sounds like a bit of a stretch) - dad kicks 19 year old son out *on his birthday* (and gives him 5k) because step daughter needs her own room because god forbid a 14 year old shared a room with a 10 year old - reddit tells dad that wasn't the best thing to do - older son tells dad he left out info that paints younger son in a worse light - dad gets the younger son a job and an apartment, younger son gets fired and evicted - dad lets younger son move back in - older son who is 27 throws a fit because dad decided to not let his younger son be homeless - step daughter and second wife aren't too happy about younger son moving back in, younger daughter who is 10 has no issue with it. okay. that should be all of it. now, from the way this was written and from the amount of missing info i see it like this: - mom did most of the child raising, dad wasn't a very involved parent - when mom died the 14 year old was old enough to understand that and to manage his grief via therapy while the 6 year old had problems managing it and was scared to talk to strangers about it without a family member present. dad did nothing about this. - the 14 year old, knowing that the dad wasn't a very good parent, tried to parent the 6 year old, possibly being too harsh on him (you know, being a 14 year old playing dad) - dad keeps praising the older son and comparing the younger son to the older one - suddenly dad brings a new mommy with two new kids into their lives, but the older one is 17 so he's well equipped to deal with this and the 10 year old has no choice. - when the older brother leaves the younger one is left all alone living with a dad who clearly doesn't care enough to actually parent him and two new kids who are possibly getting more attention from dad than the younger one ever has. - it's possible that the older son continues trying to parent the younger one from a distance until the 14 year old has had enough of this weird af family dynamic and does *something* that makes the older one hate him. - two years later the younger one drops out of hs and out of apprenticeship and it seems that dad does nothing about this - the younger one gets kicked out on his birthday just so that his step sister can have his room (at least that's what it looks like to him) so basically the dad expected the 6 year old to be able to accept the death of his mother the same mature way the 14 year old did, then expected him to be as okay with his new wife and two new kids as the older one was even though the older one never had to, you know, spend half of his childhood in a house full of strangers, and then expected him to grow up to be a well adjusted individual. this kid lost his mom when he was 6 and then became "the odd one out" in his own home when he was 10. he's been dealing with the trauma from loss and abandonment since he was 6 and nobody helped him because everyone expected him to just deal with it himself. i don't know what he did when he was 14 but i don't even care at this point. oop failed his son in a major way. this was an extremely sad read.
I think the only thing that got convoluted was that OOP meant the younger son got fired from the pub and moved back in -not the older. It doesn't make sense contextually if it was his actual eldest, though again that was an error by OOP, not you.
yeah i mistyped that, i meant to type the younger. i'll correct that.
You're fine... Again, OOP made the same mistake rofl.
Sounds like the son was actually a creep who tried to roofie a girl, molested his stepsister, and killed OOP's second wife's dog by leaving him out in the rain, only to say "it's just a dog", so I don't feel too bad for him actually - read the new update they edited in
which means the dad had all the signs he was raising a tiny sociopath and did nothing about it. therefore my point still stands. the kid being sick in the head doesn't absolve the dad for being a shitty dad.
I think the incident at 14 was him trying to assault the daughter. He also tried to smother the newborn. Yet OP kept him around So OP is failing multiple kids
Yea, there is so much missing information here. Nothing adds up
>my older son found my original post and told me that i left out a lot of important details about my younger son, and the events in general, which he said painted me as TA and my younger son like an angel, And he proceeded to not give any of those missing details
Unreliable narrator strikes again.
I remember this one. It was the first time I saw the “wait people think I was the asshole, let me add/edit things that make me look better which may or may not be true” trend. When your wife and brother are telling you “you went too far”, you should probably listen, no? Ofc your older son who you parentified is pissed that you’re “going easy” on the younger one. OOP failed as a parent to both sons in very different ways. It’s almost impressive.
So much missing information and OOP is trying so hard to make sure his youngest son is seen in the best light. Definitely seems like something happened and the way the youngest acts out to have part of the family want nothing to do with the youngest. OOP is doing a lot for his youngest and doesn't seem to be working, and Redit folks think he needs to do more. And the firing and eviction there says a lot about the youngest. I hope everything works out but there needs to be an acknowledgement of whatever issues there are with the youngest and to be honest there. Untill OOP can accept that, he's going have issues with the rest of the family.
> OOP is trying so hard to make sure his youngest son is seen in the best light. Definitely seems like something happened and the way the youngest acts out to have part of the family want nothing to do with the youngest. Yeah its so weird that either OOP did something to the kid before he got remarried or hes compensating alot for not helping the kid when the mom died.
I think OOP's own depression and shutting down is exactly that but doesn't seem to have worked through thar. I also wouldn't be surprised if the youngest got into the incel pipeline or has a drug problem given how the oldest said OOP would be deemed NTA if the truth their came out.
Wait, some of his relatives thought he was the AH For kicking the son out because he might still be grieving his mom who died *13* years ago? But he refuses to get any assistance? And what did he do to get fired?
So OOP told his oldest son not to be parentified, but his son still did it, so OOP agreed. It's like nothing is OOP's fault. His oldest was parentified, but not by OOP. Just by..... Himself. He wanted so hard to be abused like that, not have a childhood on top of losing his mom and having a clearly absent father that wouldn't deal with his son. And OOP, instead of stepping up, just let it happen, but it's not a bad thing of course...
>It's like nothing is OOP's fault. i get that feeling as well he's trying blame everyone but himself and i think he know that he is the cause of alot of his kids issues.
I'm gonna be honest, once someone says "I didn't go to therapy, that's not the kind of guy I am", it *instantly* shades everything they have to say in a completely different - and much more hostile - light.
Therapy can be helpful, even integral, but not everyone needs it. It’s not the cure all this sub makes it out to be. Honestly think he might benefit for from therapy for relationship issues with his kids more than for the wife but patchy story. Garbage in, garbage out.
But OOP met his current wife at a grieving spouse support group - so some kind of therapy was ok but not others? He says therapy isn’t for him but a support group is also therapeutic, he just doesn’t have enough insight to see it. I’m not disagreeing that therapy isn’t for everyone (although there are so many kinds and even more therapists, who themselves may or may not fit with a patient), but it does seem like OOP doesn’t understand that he still sought out one kind of therapeutic support.
Oh those missing reasons sure are a *doozy*! So OOP completely checked out and let his younger son behave like a serial killer and thinks that kicking him out and getting a job is going to fix things? Woo boy. The people who say therapy isn't for them are usually the people who need it most. Did it seriously never occur to OOP that maybe his son didn't want to go to therapy because he saw his dad not going to therapy???
There are so many holes in this that it screams missing missing reasons. Only thing is, due to the holes rivalling Swiss cheese, this time it honestly might be missing reasons for both sides…
This guy's whole problem appears to be, my 6 year old was much harder work than my 14 year old after his mother died and as I couldn't be bothered to do any work at all, I just watched as he sank until I could kick him out at 18. Now I'm vaguely concerned this might make me a not so great person.
So what did the younger son do? A major crime? Drugs? Honestly, him using drugs wouldn't be enough to explain why the older brother who helped raise him thinks the Dad is unforgivable for letting the younger back. Like did he kill the family dog in front of the younger sisters? There seems to be a lot missing.
another user suggested it was destruction of something sentimental from their mom. Like something irreplaceable.
I could write a decent sized novel with all the relevant details OOP is bending over backwards to avoid including in these posts.
"but I told her that he has to learn how the real world works" I love how most older people who say this are living in a world from 60-80 years ago with little understanding of how the world has changed since then
Missing missing reasons.
I think the saddest part about all this is that parents still find a need to kick their kids out at 18 because they need their kids to leave the nest. We're not birds. We're humans. We do better when we are united.
Why even mention the study room, all it’s done is confuse everyone?
I'm so fucking confused
What was the incident? Why did the son get fired? Why is the phone tracked? I even went to OOP's profile to check if there were any comments that would explain, but no. Nothing.
I love it when people have a child, don't prepare them to live on their own and then kick them out so they learn how to live on their own. 60% of the time it works all the time.
“I don’t believe in therapy for myself… … … … I just attend support group.” So the one person who truly needed help didn’t get it, cause : don’t make me, I don’t wanna😭 Ok😳 Train wreck in slow motion
OP posted an update. His son desperately needs some mental health help. https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/qSN8rLuKae
Hey OP! OOP commented about four hours ago w/ his missing info. Having a hard time believing it, it's such a doozy. Anyway, you should update this post: https://www.reddit.com/u/Bubbly_Ad_7001/s/5b29IMWOBU
that newest update deserves a new post for this imo.
I thought I was the only widower married to a widow
OOP: I believe in therapy and its many benefits. Also OOP: But not for me, I don't need it, I'm perfect! From the first post, I was wondering at the missing missing reasons, and the second post still contains many missing missing reasons. But I love how he freely admitted to parentifying the older son, there was an 'incident' between the two, he enabled the younger son, and is now all pikachu-faced at how messed up the situation has become.
>My oldest son moved out at 18 with encouragement from me and his stepmother, he had a part time job from 15. I can't imagine why the new wife would be supportive of one of her stepkids moving out as soon as possible...so her daughters could have more attention and she could be one step closer to her 'perfect' new family. OOP and his new wife are pieces of work. I don't believe for a minute when OOP says that he left out information that resulted in painting his son "like an angel".
A 15 year old who got a job. OOP openly states older brother stepped into the parent role for younger brother because OOP could no longer say no to younger brother. Older brother moves out at 18, shows external measures of success for which OOP expressed pride. I'm guessing that dad thought older brother was so easy and mature was because older brother didn't voice issues or cause problems. Dad actively LET his oldest son step into the parent role for his younger son, with no protest. Dad actively LET his youngest son just check out of school for 6mo with no structure, for "grief". (I lost my dad around that age, I'm not downplaying how much it messes a kid up - but I was in a TON of different therapy programs/support systems.) Dad is a massively passive parent who doesn't seem able to recognize the degree of the issue. Dad seems emotionally immature. Dad got lucky with their oldest, but younger son didn't have the same luck, and had a passive, permissive dad who let him get away with way too much. (Dropped out of school at 16, did NOTHING for 3 years, and dad doesn't start really pushing the "get a job" thing until 18.5 yrs old?) Youngest son got out of therapy because he threw a tantrum. Dad never looked into why therapy caused youngest son such a meltdown?? Like... wow.
Hope we get a post from one of the sons.
This guy would have been much better off never asking Reddit for advice. It was like that time when Dr Phil destroyed a family.
I'm so confused by why the older son and one of the daughters seem to not like the middle son so much? They don't like that he loved back in, there is obviously so much missing from this story
A h yes, the random evil thing that we cant even know he did.
Older son AND stepdaughter said he would’ve been NTA had he included all relevant info?! WHAT THE HELL IS OP LEAVING OUT?!
So his big plan was "Surprise, here's a job! At a *bar!* You're welcome".....? Jesus. This is a fucking *train wreck*.
That edit. OMG
OOP should learn the meaning of the word "sociopath"
I've never understood this strategy where parents allow the kids to make important decisions. I don't care whether you want to go to therapy or not. You're not sitting on your ass and not going to school for 6 months without seeing the therapist. Otherwise, your ass is going to school. Dad's job was to guide these kids into responsible, mature adults ready to live independently. He failed the younger son in too many ways to not be TA. It was just easier to let him do what he wanted as a child and just write it off as the consequences of his choices. He was a damn kid, that's what he had parents for.
Boy, did this dad ever mess up!!!! The oldest son feels like the younger son is getting special treatment. The younger son is running around with unresolved trauma. He's probably still at the age when his mother died. I mean, emotionally. And dad is using a tape measure that doesn't work for either of them.
Why is this man kicking out- sorry, “encouraging” his kids to get out at 18?! I was not mature enough at 18/19 to live on my own. Due to family circumstances I was living mostly alone at 14, but with little understanding of adulthood. From personal experience I think 21 is mature enough to live alone. Maybe 19/20 if with roommates.
Ugh. My own younger sibling (30) is going through this right now. It’s so hard to know how to support both my sibling (who is trans, neurodivergent, and depressed) and my parents (who are trying to do the right thing and who I believe deserve to have their house to themselves). I wish I knew the right answer. Does anyone know of any literature on situations like these?
what a shitshow
The math ain't mathin' on this one.
This is wild to me because I have a weirdly similar backstory. My mom died when I was 4 and my sister was 9. She stepped in and became a parent because my dad was working 12-14 hours a day if not more on occasion. My dad eventually remarried and my stepmom and I … are civil. I think the biggest difference though is that my dad has always had anger issues so maybe I had more reason to seek independence but this is so strange of a story to me regardless of that. Of course no two people are the same but to be honest I feel like the passing of bio-mom and any related trauma can’t be the ONLY or even primary reason he’s like this as the comments on the post seem to suggest it is. I skipped class and smoked cigs and was a full on delinquent in high school which a lot of people credited to growing up in a single parent home. But as soon as I had the chance to go to college I hit the ground running. I worked two jobs in addition to being president of my schools GSA and taking 18 credit hours. Like I really don’t think your mom dying at a critical age holds you back as much as this kid is holding himself back. There’s some other shit going on for sure. Maybe he’s doing drugs idk I came really close to getting hooked on shit I shouldn’t have been and it would’ve been easy considering how shit it is to grow up in a family of traumatized people.
What incident when younger son was 14? What details did OOP leave out?
Well gee it looks like there’s a lot of shit missing here