DC. Don't know how you manage to cover every little angle but you do!!!
I don't think X (I haven't called him that for a while) will ever end up in jail, not unless it becomes a criminal act just being ignorant. He isn't a nasty kid in terms of fighting or stealing things and if you met him you probably wouldn't even recognise the person I describe to you. At first, that is. But what you see when you first meet him is the facade, the image he wants you to see, to gain your trust and drop your guard. Then the real him comes slithering out!!!! Its the manipulation, the ignorance, the arrogance, the way he thinks that at 16 he knows it all. The fact is I doubt very much he could make it ten yards without sponging off someone.
I know his mum is his only friend. She see's the fact that he has very few friends and worries about him, over compensates for him, makes out that things are ok when they are patently not.
Its like this business with the social services. Trust me it must have been horrendous for her to start threatening him with that. She has always swore that this would never happen, then suddenly she tells me that she has had enough and thats the way to go. The problem is she wont go through with it. Its a bluff. He doesn't know it yet but he will. I've tried to tell her not to do these things with him because it re-enforces this idea he has that if he plays at being awkard enough for long enough he'll win. And he does. Once he realises that she's only bluffing then it'll go back to the same old routine until the next threat kicks in. But the threats have to get bigger and bigger each time because you can't use the last one because she didn't follow through with it.
Everything she does is based on not seeing it through. I think thats were the clash between him and me starts. Once I've made my mind up I won't change it, like over the holiday. He bleated about that for months afterward, and never once excepted the fact that swearing at his mum was the cause of him not going, it was about me not wanting him there. I'd already booked him on the flight. It cost me the price of that ticket when I cancelled it just to prove a point to him that he wasn't going to win.
The father is a complete waste of space. He has a responsible job and is no fool, but he is a complete ******!!!! X gets allot of his traits from him, which is more the pity. This is not a sink estate family I'm talking about this is middle class England.
I don't talk about X or living together again or anything like that to my partner unless she starts the conversation. I can see the yearning in her face sometimes for me to say I'll give it another go, and its tough when you love someone as much as I love her not to say 'Go on then'. But it would be a complete diaster. I know deep within me that it just wouldn't last long before another breaking point would come. I know this because I'd be looking for it. I wish I could find compassion for him, it would be the right thing to do without doubt but then again should I waste it on him. Surely there must be more deserving causes????
To me, living with him would be like living with her ex-husband. I'm sure X has picked up the way he treats his mum from seeing his dad abuse her. The insults the constant belittling, the undermining of confidence. I can't except that. Its a measure of the lad that the only friend he has, the only one who will stand up for him is the one he chooses to treat so appallingly. He can't see further than his face. Its perplexing and saddening, especially because I have to watch it happen and can do nothing about it.
One day he'll sod off, and he won't be coming back. Period. When that will be is anyones guess but it could be a while. Its sad, but true.
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm glad people can be bothered to help. And you never know he might have a complete personnality transformation one day and the world will be saved!!!! Then again.....
Steve
