I have a son in 10th grade who is NEVER motivated. He always gets 1 or 2 F’s. We’re trying to stress the importance of getting his diploma. Before we were stressing the importance of college and the good grades, but now we’re stressing the importance of a diploma. He’s a GREAT son and we have NEVER have problems with him, however he’s always had a lack of enthusiasm. He’s just like his dad with a real laid back type of personality. He has a caring heart and everything. He’s never gotten into drugs or alcohol. He’s an all-in-all great 16 year old. Nothing really bothers him or phases him and that kinds of worries me. Any good suggestions or books I can read how to help him get excited about something? Thanks.
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My brother is an alcoholic. My father is a classic enabler. My father has rediscovered his Catholic faith…my father believes he cannot do anything to change his son. My father is 72, brother is 41. My brother “works” for my father..lives on his property…my father pays him, his legal bills, etc. If my father can see something from the bible that would inspire him to believe that he can still help….it might work.
he has made it clear that just because he is going to see the beautiful face of our child (who is due in 2 weeks) that it is not going to change his views on alcohol. we don’t even sleep in the same room anymore because I lay awake every night crying about his attitude and the person he becomes when he is drinking…he says that if i can’t shut up and let him get some sleep before work, then to sleep in the living room, which is what I have started doing without him even saying anything anymore. I convince myself before I allow him to drink that it is going to be different on this particular night, but it never is. So I am aware that I am enabling him. However, I don’t work, so it’s not really my place to say what he can spend his money on. He supports me financially, because I have not been able to work throughout my entire pregnancy due to medical problems (extreme dehydration among other things). What can i do to get him to realize what he is doing is wrong? I can’t take the stress, it makes my blood pressure sky-rocket. and yes, i have tried talking to him, but he admits he is selfish but still doesn’t quit. He is always using the child against me saying “I paid for everything for him and all you have done is complain throughout this whole pregnancy, I’m the only one who has had to sacrifice anything” yet he claims that our child is his life. He just doesn’t act like this child is his life. I can’t exactly leave him, i am new to this area, i don’t know anyone yet except my doctor, and all my family lives a few hundred miles away at least. I can’t financially support myself and a baby right now until i can get my job back after i have the baby. please help?
i’m sorry know i am in the pregnancy section and this isn’t really a pregnancy question, but I am in this section a lot and i feel most comfortable with asking in this section.
wow…the mess i got myself into? my boyfriend and i were together for 2 years before we even started trying to have a baby. we both wanted this child. idiot
and just to be clear, the alcoholism didn’t start until i finally did get pregnant.
April- thank you for not attacking me. for the record, yes, I have a bachelor’s degree and My previous job is still secured for when I am able to return to the workplace. Your line > “The best thing to do is plan. Do not plan on him supporting you.” makes a lot of sense. I need to make a plan
It’s complicated so please bear with me. My wife agrees her dad is an alcoholic. She knows he was absent in her life growing up, and caused a lot of hurt and pain for her because she knew the drinking always came first – not her.
He pretty much always has a beer in hand, never completely trashed (around us at least). Her dads girlfriend recently made a comment about making this year more about family.
This concerned me, I found myself thinking some pretty negative thoughts about how they want to leech into our lives and onto our hard work (we’ve got our lives together) and that I would just not rather have them in our life. I don’t like the fact that I think this, because I’m usually a pretty caring person, and I find myself second guessing my “hard line in the sand” because I know its her DAD and after all he is part of the family.
Up until now, our relationship has been getting a little closer than it was (her and her dad didn’t speak or even send cards for many years). This is clearly because we had a son, and I think he realizes he messed up with her and wants to makeup for it. So he has been buying our grandson gifts, and took us out to dinner a few times, had Easter at their house (which I was out of town for).To me, I would kind of like to limit it to that, and even that is pushing it. I don’t want to be unreasonable here, and I know I need to take my wifes wants/ needs into this as well but now we are running into a situation where she arranged for them to babysit for us and the whole thing is making me REALLY uncomfortable – like my wife is allowing a serpent to sneak up on our child! I know thats a horrible image, but when she told me that is seriously what I thought. His girlfriend musta been surprised my wife allowed it too, because my wife told me she made the comment “dont worry, I REALLY AM A GOOD GRANDMOTHER”. I guess my view is if you need to say something like that, then you probably aren’t! (though perhaps she is just saying that she isn’t the perpetrator of the bad behavior and trying to distancing herself from him).
My wife’s dad also recently lost his wife (to alcoholism), which may have played a part in his change, but maybe I’m just cold person but I don’t think so. I should mention that my wife seems to fool herself into believing the problems between her and her dad were caused by his wife (the one who died). So I can see how she might want to try again with him with her not there, but I think we both know deep down that, while his late wife may have been very mean to her (my wife) as a child, HER DAD was the one who made the choice to not put a priority on his daughter (my wife).
I am torn, because it would be nice if they wanted to be in our life, but I do not want them in our life on THEIR terms of current lifestyle. And I DON’T want for my son to be negatively impacted by this – in any way shape or form AT ALL. My wife and I also agree that these is little to zero chance that her dad will change. I wish my wife were stronger, But I KNOW that she will not confront him about his drinking problem, for whatever reason she is scared. I think its because she knows that if forced to pick between us (HER) and the bottle, he will choose the bottle – and that would open up deep wounds from childhood for her.
So she seems content to receive them with open arms, thinking any positive change they make is good. I agree, but where we differ is that I feel like we need to set some kind of boundaries and limit our relationship with them until they change. And even if they do change, I’ve been around alcohol long enough that I know once someone is an alcoholic they can easily fall back especially when they’ve been into that lifestyle for 40+ years.
PLEASE HELP!!
What should we do? Do I need to be the ****** in this situation? Part of me says “MAN UP” and protect your son and I know that I will do that if I need to, as of now I’ve let her take charge of matters concerning her family and so have been the a nice guy around her dad and his girlfriend. However, if I do exchange words with him, I know it will probably get heated and I will wind up issuing him an ultimatum and then my wife will be mad at ME!
If it were up to me, I’d say “drop em”. Don’t need that in my life. But then again, would I be like that to my dad or mom? Probably not. So I need to be careful, I wish my wife would get the strength to see this situation for what it is, but in the meantime – what boundaries can and should be set without totally driving them out of our life? This is hard.
>>You wrote to much so I refuse to answer…..
Well PISS OFF then mate. It’s my family we’re talking about here and this could make or break it if I allow him to go with grandpa who drives drunk and kills my boy. Sorry to inconvenience you with a few paragraphs.
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You have all sorts of issues and anger here which are unrelated to these people’s abilities to grandparent/influence on your son, who will not be harmed by Grandpa being a bit beer-y. Don’t let them drive, and find something else to worry about.
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K, I can see how you would think this regarding my response to Jacks lazy, unthoughtful, non-answer. Maybe I overreacted to him, but consider that alcohol has been a problem for our family, we have put years of work into figuring out how to live with it, after having it nearly destroy our relationship (before our son). My appeal to yahoo answers may have been random, but at least I put some thought into explaining the situation so people could get as good a read on the situation as possible. Yes, Jacks answer bothered me, but please don’t mistake that for “anger unrelated to these people”.
The way I see it, they made decisions in life. They CHOSE to put themselves first and made a priority out of having fun. Even when it hurt other people. I’m sorry, but thats not the kind of behavior that one should expect out of family. To me, family means you can COUNT on them. That wouldn’t apply here, and about drinking and driving, you try taking away a drunks keys. Some will let you, some won’t.
My wifes mothers boyfriend has been there from the beginning, and is 1000X better grandpa, not to mention two great grandpas on my side (my dad and step dad). I should make it clear that if my dad or stepdad with the alcohol problem, I would step in in a heartbeat and tell them they can be a part of our family on our terms. Why is it wrong to want to protect your family from a hazard?
He has lost 2 jobs, he has seperated from his family, he needs help and will not listen to me…HELP!
he is ruining his life. He got caught selling illegal drugs and was sentenced to 10 yrs., but he only had to serve served 1 yr in prison and probation.Hes been out for less than a yr, and he is still on probation. He started drinking about 6 months ago again, and now he is hanging around with the bad guys again. I have talked to him several times, and all he can say is I know dad, I will try to stop. He got caught once by his probation officer, and he let him off the hook, but now is back to doing drugs also. Plz advise. I am so worried about him. The next time he is caught he will have to serve the rest of his 10 yrs..
My son is 26 yrs old. His mother and I are divorced have been since 1989.
My son does not live with me. He lives with a girl that still does drugs. He was living with mother for a while, but returned to the gf’s house.
