GF Son been grounded all year, wants to get him phone and scooter parts for christmas

[Blondy]

Originally Posted by helpmediscipline

shes already reached her breaking point and its part of the reason she is desperate and htinkign getting him a phone and scooter parts will help. When I know it wont.

Trust me with a child like this she is not at her breaking point lol. However, the best thing you could do is let her implement her "current breaking point" solution and find out for herself if it works or not. It is not life or death. Personally, I would compromise and give the child one of the things and tell him he can earn the other for birthday with good behavior.

You cannot change other people....mother or child. You can change what you are doing and they may do something different but that's not guaranteed either.

One of the things you have to learn as a parent or stepparent is to choose your battles wisely both with the child and the other parent. If you want to battle it should be over going to therapy imo.

Look this child is not experiencing the same situation you experienced as a child unless you were abused before the death of your parent.

This child has been in an abusive situation with a mother who surely must have been neglectful if she was on drugs. Additionally, she allowed herself to be abused and presumably her children were witness to that and/or abused by their father. THEY NEED THERAPY from an objective/uninvolved third party.

No matter how much you know from books or fixing yourself or even if you are a therapist......you cannot treat them. Theirs a reason surgeons don't operate on their own children!!

Further, everyone is pretty spot on with what they are telling you. The fact that you are so defensive to the point of writing pages of text to explain why they are all wrong and getting hot under the collar, should be your first GIGANTIC clue that you may be wrong. If we weren't all hitting a nerve, you would just ignore us and go find another forum dealing with these issues where everyone wasn't so stupid

No matter how much you know there is always more to learn. Did you google white knight syndrome?
Try "reenactment" or "repetitive compulsion". There's a reason you keep selecting broken women with broken children to fix.

My guess is you have unresolved issues buried deep relating to the death of your own parent. You sound very controlling regardless of what you think which leads me to believe your childhood left you feeling out of control. That's an uncomfortable feeling and controlling others and your environment makes you feel better. If it didn't you wouldn't be there. You've found once again a messy situation you can try to exert control over because somewhere inside you still feel out of control. Hence others saying you have boundary issues......all this stuff goes together. Go ask whomever you got all your other Psych 101 info from.

People are not telling you all this to hurt you. Take a breath, step away and come back when you can take it in more calmly.

[Georgianbelle]

You are the boyfriend, not the parent, and not the step-parent. I know that you want to help, and your thoughts sound right to me, but you are powerless. Only his mother can make these decisions, and right now she seems to be making the wrong ones. You can refuse to help pay for his stuff, but that is really all you can do.

[armory]

Do you live with the family and sleep with mom? That could be one of your main problems. You claim he went to dad when things weren't going his way and there you are - a disciplinarian - sleeping in mom's bed. The boy could resent you a lot for that reason.

Dude, I would bolt without looking back as it ain't getting any better.

[LML]

She is his parent. You are not. Sounds to me as though this weak woman just went from letting one man run over her and control the children to letting another man run over her and control her children. Unless she grows a backbone, takes control of her own family, and gets all of them some help the kids are sunk.

[Blondy]

I hear you lol. You like to be right because you have a control issue likely related to all the things I've already pointed out to you.

I've already worked through my issues so I have no need to set strangers straight if I know they are wrong, especially if I am looking for a solution to a problem. Therapy would help you with that issue and you would likely be happier. But, that's your choice.

I did miss that you were abused and I'm sorry you went through that. However, while it allows you to relate to your gf and her son, it is not going to help you "fix" them or their situation, especially if you have not fully dealt with it yourself...not assuming, I dunno. What you write sounds like you could benefit from some therapy around the issue. Again your choice. I can only share that from my experience both being abused and successfully raising 4 stepsons it would be helpful.

As for your last girlfriend, hmmm.........you discovered she lied to you about her children and you stayed........then surprise she lied to you about cheating......no big surprise. She was a liar and I would bet their were signs before the first big lie about her kids.

So, now your new gf told you she was not a good mom(drugs....hello) and now in a major way(despite her other attributes) she is not a good mom(cant get her kids respect and maintain discipline.) No surprise.

Do you at least admit you have a pattern of being attracted to dysfunctional women who cant get their stuff together?
If you want this relationship to succeed make her getting therapy a condition for you staying. You are entitled to ask someone to change. But, if there is to be a change it should be her taking responsibility and doing it not you managing her and her kids everyday.

She has a lot of healing to do from the last relationship she was in and the damage from that. That is work that can only be done by her. If shes not going to do it, why stay?

The pattern of your relationships as described by you tilt heavily towards codependency.

I am not trying to judge you either as a person or psychologically. I'm sorry you were abused and lost your mother so young. And, I applaud you for bettering your mind. One thing I will tell you having survived trauma myself is that you can think you have it all figured out only to find out you don't. Sometimes the initial course corrections you make need more in depth work or even just fine tuning.

So again, therapy for everyone. GF and the kids no question. You to get professional help in dealing with them and maybe revist your issues. What you are doing is not working or you would not be here. Its not going to work any better if you keep doing it.

Good luck

[stan4]

He isn't your kid.

Good luck getting anyone to listen to you.

[Inkpoe]

"Doggy dog world" LOL. For someone who claimed to better his mind and all, one would have assumed you'd know the correct terminology is "Dog eat dog world".

You come off as controlling. If you can't understand that it's how you come off, then I'm not surprised you show bad judgment in regards to other things like your ex GF. It's rather unfortunate, but you really can't control everything. You're going to have to let your GF do what she wants to do with her kid(s) and accept it.

[armory]

Originally Posted by germaine2626

I was thinking about the bolded quote. My daughter used to be quite active in the Miss American beauty pageant system and I got to know many of the other women very well. Each of the women (with very few exceptions) were intelligent, beautiful, well spoken, very physical fit, friendly and nice to be around. It always surprised me to learn how many didn't have regular boyfriends. Where were all of their potential dates? Well probably some of them were dating druggies, or sex fiends or dating skanks with a couple of illegitimate kids, leaving many very nice young women to stay home alone on date nights.

You want to know why they didn't have regular boyfriends?
They might have seemed genuinely intelligent, beautiful, well spoken, friendly and nice to be around in your interactions with them but you don't know how they interacted with potential boyfriends.
How high maintenance were these young ladies?
Did they employ any/all of the qualities you bestowed upon them as leverage whenever dating?
If they were all you built them up to be there had better be an Ivy League school around the block with plenty of single rich MBA grads who will make Kimber, Tiffany and the rest happy for the rest of their lives as they are going to have some very high standards.
If these girls were into the pageant deal heavy enough to get to that level they had pretty strict demands on their time which doesn't allow much for relationships.

You obviously didn't think much of them if you thought some of them were dating druggies, or sex fiends or dating skanks with a couple of illegitimate kids, leaving many very nice young women to stay home alone on date nights.

[AnnieA]

Originally Posted by malamute

I don't think that poster was being negative -- but you really are in a kind of difficult situation. You live with a child that isn't yours to parent. That right there is very difficult. In additional because of your girlfriends drug addiction, she hurt her kids and very likely has issues -- trying to make up for all that.

It was a dysfunctional family long before you showed up -- and neither one wants your advice apparently. If you stay in this -- good luck. You're up between a rock and a hard place -- the mother is going to sabotage anything you do. The kid is not responding to groundings for getting rid of items she intends to replace. It's just a mess.

Good post and a lot of the others included some good advice. helpmediscipline, I think you are a good person trying to help someone out and you feel for the children. I think you should back off and let her know she should get counseling for her and her son and possibly for the other children. Good luck. I hope it works out for all concerned, especially the kids.

[Jaded]

Thread.../closed.