Fast forward to Feb. The oldest son was arguing/fighting with gf, came over to the house for a couple of hours. I let him spend one night on the couch. Somehow in his mind that allowed him to move in with us. Even though H and I neither one said he could. BUT, and this is the BIG BUT, we each thought the other one had told him he could. My H has a HUGE HUGE soft spot for my oldest. He will be the first to admit it. We started noticing things were coming up missing out of the garage. At first it was blamed on the other son, but then things were missing out of the other kids’ rooms. I kept trying to talk to H about it, he’d tell me well we can’t put him out on the street. He wouldn’t do that etc. I was getting past my breaking point with all this drama/trauma we were going through. The final straw for me was coming home from work, no H only oldest son at home. He proceeds to tell me how he found H’s checkbook in youngest son’s room and gave it back to H, but nothing was missing and how he left in a huff and went to his uncle’s. I KNEW that the youngest didn’t do it. He is an extremely honest kid, even if it will get him trouble, he doesn’t lie or steal. I had had it. I blew up and kicked him out of the house. Then started worrying that H was going to be upset with me. Even the other 2 kids thought he was going to be mad at me. He just has a strange bond with my oldest. Turns out he wasn’t mad was glad to stop the madness.
So now you see all the drama the older 2 have caused. It’s hard enough blending a family without this crap. There are no instruction manuals on how to deal with it either. H and I have never been divided on the kids until this last go around. If we’d had better communication going on, we’d have each realized we felt the same way. I have always backed him up, even if I didn’t agree. Then we’d talk about it later without the kids around. He isn’t abusive to the kids in anyway, shape or form. He’s actually a great dad. Not just a great step-dad, but a great dad. This last go around is what was the breaking point for him moving out. Because of something the counselors has said to us he thought he’d never have a choice in this R when it came to the kids, so he was just giving up. They had told him that he had to stop putting me in the middle and making me choose between him and the kids. I don’t remember now what the context was that we were having this discussion, but it wasn’t over this type of situations, it was more along the lines of my DD’s activities or something. Anyway, he hadn’t clarified with them, I didn’t know he’d took it to hear t the way he did, and he never talked to me about it. This all came out when we started talking again a few weeks after he moved out.
