Struggles with a teenager and an ex-wife

Marriage, the birth of a child, or a job prepare you for many things in life. But there is nothing that prepares you for dealing with a teenager, an ex-wife, or the combination of both.

Last year, things seemed as though they were going along just fine. The ex-wife had made a rule that our son would be dropped of at the curb, that she would not allow me to enter her home and that she didn’t feel safe entering mine. I’ve never done anything to provoke this, but if that is what she wanted that was fine with me. Then my son started having some issues with his mother. She kicked him out saying that he could not come back until he started to show her respect. That he needed to go to counseling by himself and then later with her before he could come back. The next week he went to a single counseling appointment and she welcomed him back with open arms.

Later that week I had to travel for work. My son was supposed to come to my home each day and let the dog out in the morning and evening to go to the bath room and feed her. Later in the week, I noticed that he had not come back in the evening to let her out. I tried calling him, but he kept hanging up on me. Thinking there was an issue with his phone I had kept calling him back, about 4 times in total. On the last call I was sworn at and told to never call him again. I called the ex, and left a voicemail, she rarely picks up the phone when I call. The next morning while sitting at the airport to come home he finally comes over(over 24 hours now), but not to let the dog out. He starts taking things out of my home and his bedroom. Being at the airport there was nothing I could do. I later find out that he was telling his mom that I was abusing him, so she told him to come to my house and remove items before I got home. All of this was a lie, I’ve never abused my son.

A little over a week later, my son walked into my house on a Saturday. Normally he comes to my house for the week on a Sunday. He tells me that his mother has kicked him out of the house again, and that he was going to be living with me permanently. I messaged the ex to confirm and she writes back a simple “yes”. He has been at my house now for 5 months. I love my son, and would never deny him a home. We don’t always get along, but kicking a young teenager out because he is not listening to you is not the right thing to do.

Recently he went over to her house because he missed her, which is a good thing, a kid needs a mother and a father. He spent about an hour over there, later in the week he got upset that I was going to take his phone away as a punishment. So he stormed out of the house to his mothers, he later comes back saying he thinks he is going to go back to his mom’s house for a while. I mentioned he start going there overnight, then a couple of day, working up to every other week again. He says no, he wanted to go live there for like 6 months. He quickly got upset saying that I’ve always told him he was old enough to decide where he wanted to live, so why was I now saying he couldn’t just go there. I tired to explain to him that I was trying to protect him, that she quickly has kicked him out in the past, and the even just dropped him off once for months at my home during our divorce, because she couldn’t handle him. Yet she is willing to just instantly let him back into her home?

I finally told him that I understood and that if that was the decision he was making that I would not stop him. Even though it would hurt me dearly, as I’ve always accepted him, even when I didn’t agree with him. Him and I have gotten pretty good at stepping back from an argument and coming back to it later when we are calmer to discuss it. He stopped by his mothers house later in the week and tells me that he was staying at my home, that she was going to make him pay for everything at her home. He was starting to see what I was trying to protect him from. She switches her mind on things if they don’t work out for her.

My son also has been struggling in school recently. This past trimester he scrapped by with D’s in most of his classes. To him this is still a passing grade, so he was fine with it. No this Trimester it has been fully “distant learning” due to Covid-19 hitting the USA. He doesn’t study or work on his school work like he should. We have had several conversations about it and he is now working on getting things made up. He is trying to do an additional 3-4 things each day to get caught up in his classes. I hope that he is truly taking this all to heart and will get his act together. He started working 2 jobs, don’t worry it is usually only a total of 20 hours or less a week for both. He has a large debt owed to me, for car insurance the he hasn’t been paying for months (no job).

Wow sorry for such a long post, it has been quite some time since I’ve posted anything. Next post will probably be about the same length…. 🙂