MyLotter's my Husband wants You to Know

Yes I agree if he is living in our house we have the right to interfere in his life especially in the areas where he needs help and is the reason why he is living at home. I feel it is our duty so I don't know why hubby and I are having such conflict. We both want to help our son we just both have different ways of dealing with things. Your right I have to remember it is for his own good that we set boundaries. Thank you for commenting.

Sleeping in one day a week is not unreasonable, if he is responsible the rest of the time. I enjoy it when I can sleep in.

Will I sure do agree with you my husband and I are doing him no favors for allowing him to live as he does in our house. So far we wake him up every day at nine but I dont' feel we should be doing that. I think he should have to do it on his own. I did allow him to sleep until lunch time today being Saturday. Do you think letting him sleep in one day a week is unreasonable?

The sleeping in is just one part of a whole picture. If he has no money how is he living? I suspect he does nothing around the house and you cook his meals and do his laundry. Maybe you have some maternal needs to look after someone, I don't know. If he was ambitious at all he would not be sleeping in until noon. He would be out with his girlfriend on the weekend and working during the week. I heard no mention of a girlfriend. 25 year old men should be out on their own, learning responsibility, being self sufficient. He should be mature enough now to want to start his own family, buying a house, investing for retirement, not wasting his youth in bed. Is this what you want from him the rest of his life? Sleeping in, why does he have to sleep in at all if he does nothing to make him tired.

As a female also, I really can understand your concern and not liking your son sleeping all day. For as many years as I can remember the house/home is a female's domain meaning we cook, clean, etc. and it's been our responsibility. Your son sleeping all day gets in your way of taking care of the house and also keeping the noise to a minimum. It's more like he's taking over your territory. Please keep in mind this is strictly my opinion and how I view the life of a female in her role as the housewife/mother. I do hope you can get this issue solved and everyone will be happy. Please don't blame yourself.

Yes I totally agree with you that the restrictions should be minimal. Our problem is putting any restrictions on our son at all. I am trying to get a few and that is where the conflict is comming with hubby and I. Our Son is a good Son he seems to be much like his Dad in that he just goes with the flow. My problem is I just don't want him sleeping all day and staying up all night even if he doesn't have a job to go to. I really just can't stand it. My son thinks what is the big deal and my husband doesn't like it but thinks it will fix itself when he gets a job. I say what if he doesn't get a job for 3 months your going to let him waste his life away like this. Your so right we have to have a happy medium. You know I am the only one with the problem in this house. If I didn't have this need to set up some boundaries there would be no tension in this house at all.

Carol you really have good insight. I wasn't thinking of all the things you mentioned because I am so concentrating on the iritable things like sleeping in. But now that you mention it yes those things are brewing underneath as well. I want to vacum but feel I can't go down stairs to the tv room where is room is but I can't. So ya all those things. The GOOD NEWS is our son as a job and I am believing things will be much better. He is really a nice guy but like so many young people today find it hard to be motivated. Hard to be motivated when your sleeping though I know.

Our son as held a few jobs. A couple of the jobs were seasonal work and I am not sure why the others ended. I can tell you one of the biggest problems today is that kids are allowed to get credit cards and maybe are not mature enough to handle them. Will then again just about every adult has a hard enough time keeping a credit card in check. So when our son was between jobs it was easy to use his credit card for all his needs which enabled him to not feel the need to get work in a hurry. Many kids fall into this trap. Now he has that debt to pay. The reason he is out of work right now is because he quit a job to come to another province and work for some friends but that job didn't work out. Instead of going back home he has decided to stay with us to pay some debt and then move to the city near by. I am proud of him for being brave enough to make a change but the problem is he seems to be in no hurry to make that change sense staying with us. He does have an interview this coming week so hopefully he will get the job and hopefully things will change around here. I just don't want to see our son waste his life with sleeping and computers all night long. I actually don't care how long he is on the pc as long as he isn't sleeping all day long. He reads alot on the net and likes to write so there are a lot of us who like to do that. Maybe when he gets a job he will get balance. I hope so anyway. Thank you for commenting.

I'm sure he is a very good son and will make you and your husband proud.. He will make that transition soon; and he's so lucky to have very supportive parents like you and your husband.. Take care, aite.. and you're welcome..

Yes that is exactly what I have said to my husband. We have to nip it in the bud because when you see this is a behavior that isn't going to change it will be even harder for change to happen. There will be more conflict trying to change it later that not allowing it to happen in the first place is my opinion. I don't know why my husband and I find it so hard to set out rules and boundries right up front. I feel so bad about not letting our son know that there are these boundries and expectations that is knows nothing about. Will at least from my part there are these rules and hubby doesn't really see it that way. Will he does but he finds it hard. We are mush as parents!

No you are not mush as parents....All you can do is keep trying, and maybe the situation will work it self out, or it will get worst and your husband will have to take action down the road.

Thank you for all that you said. I hear you and believe it is exactly what we need to do for him. I can't give him the one week adjustment period sense it has already been a month. My husband got him to go with him a couple of weeks ago to pick up a couple of applications and now one of them have called and he has a job interview on Monday. I am so hoping things change because there is such a rift between my husband and I. I first wrote this discussion a week ago I think it was as I was needing to hear that I am on the right track or either that my husband is right and we need to leave him alone. Once I told my husband about the discussion he felt that the conscense was only because know one knew our son was from a split family and I of course assured him he was wrong and that is why I wrote this follow up discussion tonight. I see everyone still feels as strongly as they did with the first discussion that we need to set boundries for our son. Which we are tying. Here is the difference between my husband and I. I want to say to our son. Okay here are they rules of staying at home. You need to be up no later then 9am whether you are working or not. If you stay up late at night you still have to be up by 9 no matter what. You had a job doing yard work at one time so we will trade your yard work for room and board as long as you are paying off your debt and putting money asside to get your own place and I don't want to have to tell you to go do the yard work. These are not optional they are mandatory; Deal. My husbands way is to leave it all alone and to just trust his son will help out and not sleep his life away. So at my nagging he goes down every day to wake our son up because he can't bare to tell his son that this is not a choice it is a rule of the house to be up at a decent hour. He just can't do it. I have asked him and asked him and he says he will and tells me he did. But after a few days when I don't see change I ask my husband did you tell him or not and he says yes I did. I say okay how did you tell him and what did you say. My husband says I told him he can't be sleeping in that he should be up by nine and not waste his days. I say but honey no that doesn't work you have to tell him it is a rule of the house or a condition to him living back at home and he can't do it and tells me no I am wrong, I have told him and he will do it. I say then why isn't he doing it? My husband says but he is; he did get up! I said yes because you go to his room about 3 times and tell him he has to then finally he does. Oh I am sorry I am ranting on and on about this. Oh boy I hope things change when he gets a job. I was wondering I really respect your opinion and I wonder if you wouldn't mind reading another discussion I started about when do you invite someone home. I am feeling miffed at my son about it but maybe I am wrong. I haven't said anything to him but it is bothering me when maybe it shouldn't. Only if you have time and want to of course. I would appreciate for sure.

I will definitly read your other discussion. I have been in the very same spot you are in with an adult step child. I too dont like to consider the word "step" because i see the children all as ours but at the same time being a parent to a child that is not biologically yours can bring up a whole set of specialized problems between you and your husband. The biggest things is to make sure you stay strong together if the child manages to drive a wedge inbetween you and your husband it will cause you so much stress I know because I live it everyday. Stay strong and take a break from it all maybe the two of you go out to dinner and just strengthen your marriage it helps sometimes.

We traded rent for yard work. The agreement was that we didn't have to ask him to go to the yard work. I think he has only gone to do yard work once with out being told. He may have a job next week so we will see how things go. This parenting stuff is not easy that is for sure. I appreciate your comment and wish you the best with your girls. Do you miss your privacy or glad to have your family around? Probably a little of both I imagine!

Well my son is on a temporary lay off from his temporary (evening) job. He stayed up all night, but when I told him I would need his help during the day today, he stayed up today as well.

No your not being mean I know your saying what any good person would say. Hubby just as such a sensitive spot when it comes to our kids. We are both weak when it comes to being firm on things with our kids but I am now saying. Look we can't do this. We have to be strong for him. We can't let him get away with this or we are only enabling him to be continue on this path and it is not good for him. I feel like I am failing him if we do I told my husband.

Now thats a good son. I guess that is another reason why I am frustrated. We have not asked much of anything out of our son and the couple of things we did ask he didn't do because he was tired. One was to get the garbage out while we went on holidays. My husband excepted that he was tired and didn't say to his son, that is just not an acceptable accuse. I am floored that we open our home to help him out and we ask a simple task and he doesn't do it because he is tired. It really blows me away. I find it disrespectful and my husband says oh no he is not that way he just was tired like he said. I say tired or no tired get the garbage out! Am I wrong?

Seeing that we dont know what's in line for us down the road in these uncertain times i would recommend he pay his debt's or start at least trying and yes i'd bring it up. ya know there's these kids ( i call them kids ) at my age that work at subway down the street and i tip those kids 5.00 for a 5.00 sub, any kid that can get off their arss instead of sitting in taco bell parking lot rolling a joint is o.k. in my book and deserves a break, at least their trying to make something of themselves, hey it's something to do to get pocket money while waiting for something to open up. i figure what they do with their money after they get paid is up to them but they tried.

Thank you for being so strong for your daughter. I am so glad it all worked out. I did the same for my daughter a few years ago too. She came back pregnant for a few months but is now a nurse. About the night job. To tell you the truth I am half expecting that my son didn't actually hand out all those resumes he took out with him. I think they ended up in the garbage or were still in his case when he came back home. Reason is he said he handed them all out and he also had time to hang out at a coffee shop. Something just hasn't been feeling right. I do know he filled out a few applications on line but for going out to business I have a feeling he did much less then he said. I feel bad for thinking that because I have no proof and he only actually went out twice. Actually a third time was a couple of weeks ago my husband took him out to a few business. Turns out one of them called yesterday and he has an interview for Monday. We are so happy because this is a pretty good place to work with benefits. I hope he gets the job and I really hope the job helps him motivate himself to not wanted to sleep through all his free time. If he does want to sleep when he isnt' working do you think it is okay to tell him no? Also someone suggested we sit down with him and help him write up a plan for how to pay his debts off as quickly as possible. Do you think we can be that intrusive?

I knew it was important for me to remember that only we know our son and that although situations can sound the same it is the difference in personalities that make the difference. So thank you for saying that and sharing your views.

I hear a lot of myLotter's think he is using us in a not so good way. We have a hard time as seeing our son as a user because he really is a good hearted person. However I do know that he can't be allowed to do all that he is doing and it really does look like he is using us we just have a hard time believing it. Yet yes when I stop and evaluate what I see going each day I see that it does look like he is using us. But then I look at his charector and say no he just needs to be shoved into adult hood. When he was a teenager living thousands of miles away from us his mom let him stay in is room for hours every day for a few years playing games. I think this set a pattern for him to be able to hide from his problems I guess you could say or at least it didn't teach him to be able to handle day to day life or something. I am not sure exactly. All I know is I have this wonderful young man who seems to be appethetic about life. Not sure really. I am hoping things change when he gets a job but in the meantime I have set some rules down. Up by nine no matter how late you go to bed. but then again I know I dont' have enough rules in place as we have only asked him to do a couple of jobs around the house and he has failed to do them and I feel like it is quiet rebellion. Not sure on that either. Our son does have an interview early Monday Morning with Costco. My husband took him there a couple of weeks ago to get an application to fill out. So we are hoping this is it and hoping things will change with how he does things around here. Actually today he unloaded the dishwasher without asking maybe he is thinking things through.

You are so so right. You said to encourage him to act like a man. I mention this to him today about being a man and he got quite upset about it saying I know I am not a man but actually meaning we should treat him like one. I thought man his view and ours really are different. The lack of motivation he has or doesn't have just kills me. It is amazing how motivated he gets though when he can have the use of the car to go out for a few hours. He got a job yesterday 3 pm to 9 pm at night most days and sometimes it will be about 5 to 6 hours earlier in the day say 8 to 2. So today he was intending to sleep in when hubby woke him up. He said I have a job now so I can sleep in as much as I want. We said oh no the rules still apply. So he said will if I can pick my own time when to get up then I will get up on my own without anyone asking me to. He said I would like to wake up at 10 and my husband said fine. So we will see if he does it or if he keeps pushing the envelope on that one. My husband and I find it so hard to set rules. This is excursiatingly painful on our nerves but for me I know we just have to or life will be really miserable and hubby knows it too but finds it harder then me to do. You might wonder why this is so hard for me. I don't know why this is so hard for us. I mean it is just normal to set boundaries for your kids. Inspite of ourselves our kids are really good kids. Our son hopefully will find his motivation through this good job he really is such a super guy in every other way. I am feeling quite bad about my ability to parent. I mean technically it is to late as are children are all grown up. But i have been thinking....I use to think loving your children was enough but now I realize love is not enough you need the skills to parent in order to help your children grow up. I really enjoyed reading your comment as it was very clear to the point and strong!

You are not the first to say looking for a job at 4pm won't cut it. I just talked this over again with my husband today and he thinks that is bogus. My argument is that why do you suppose no one as call him back that he handed out resumes to. If I were an employer I would through it in the garbage. My husband thinks I am off my rocker with that idea. My son told us when he first came that he would take a job anywhere to get started but he did not and says he is holding out for a better job. I thought okay fine if you don't have a job at the end of the month you will take any time or you will have to move out. Will as it turns out my husband took his son to a place last week to apply for a job. They are the only place that as called thus far for a interview which happens tomorrow morning. We are hopeful that he will get the job. I am really hoping that he does and that life gets a bit more normal here. Many have said that jobs are scarce but we have seen many help wanted signs. Including one at subway near my daughters house. My son decided not to apply. Like I said I have given him a month for a regular job to come up that he can make a fair dollar and possible climb the ladder in. Hopefully tomorrow is that job. If not Subway, McDonalds here we come.

I really like your note. Straight forward and to the point. I tend to be a night owl but my policy is no matter how late I stay up I still have to be up at a decent hour. So that is what I expect from my son. I figure when he came he said he would take any job until he found one that paid good. But immediately started staying up all night and sleeping all day and now it is a month later. He does have a job interview in the morning thanks to my husband pushing him to apply at this place and hopefully he gets the job and things get normal around here. My husband thinks we should leave him alone and do what he wants. What do you think about that?

Thank you thank you for your response. Especially about the stranger in our home. I am so heated up over it because I didn't talk to our son about it because once again my husband and I are on different wave lengths. Not that my husband was comfortable with the stranger in our house he sure was not. He just can't bring himself to talk to our son about it. I feel like if I want something said it all has to come from me. I am feeling very frustrated tonight. The stranger is becoming not such a stranger as he called my son the day before yesterday and my son went to his house and now tonight the phone woke me up at 10 pm ( know it is early but I am not feeling well) and it was this boy. I did meet the boy for about 1 min when we were introduced and he seems like a nice kid. But again a kid that isn't working for some reason. Because he seems like a nice kid I feel bad for feeling so angry about a stranger being in my home when I got home. Why am I angry if this boy seems so harmless and nice. Should I let it go? To late, I didn't let it go. My son just came into the room so I asked him if I could talk to him. So I said about this young man you brought home the other night. He seems like a nice guy and all but that doesn't change the fact he was a stranger that you knew for an hour or two. He said yah and I got to know him and I invite him home to play games. I told him you know I am mad at myself that I am so upset about this because I know you and you are a nice guy and I know you have good judgement so that is why I have not talked to you before this. I think I should let it go. But then I think but he brought a stranger into my house and that makes me mad. I said we live in a high crime area and I have grand children I care for much of the time and I am protective. I said but then again I was raised to be protective of my family even when I was young we were taught that when we are making friends we need to feel like we can trust them or that they are a good person before inviting them home. I said why couldn't you just of said to us I met a nice guy at the coffee cup tonight do you mind if I invite him home sometime. I would of said sure if your hanging out with him in a week or two and you think you would like to be friends with this person then by all means bring him home we would like to meet him. My son looked and talked to me a bit like I am being ridiculous but am I really?

Oh almost everyday we have said you need to get up and not sleep all day and also asked him why he does it. He just says he is tired. I say will of course you are when you stay up all night but he thinks it has nothing to do with it. So how can I argue with that kind of thinking. It seems in both discussions we all are of the same mind that he needs some rules. I hope my husband and I can follow this through in a team effort.

We are trying to be tough on him but it is not in our nature. We want the best for him so we know we have to set some boundaries. I am listening to all that everyone writes and this gives me the courage to follow through.

Mohan, what I like about you is that you are a man of many words. Do you co-parent or know people who do?