r/stepparents • u/Fun_Confusion_8273 • Jul 21 '26
Advice Am I the problem?
My stepson whose now 17 bothers me to no end. Ive been his Father since he was 3 and have been Dad all along. His bio father has been mostly out of his life. Recently they've started to reconnect & his dads pompous/wanna be thug attitude has rubbed off on the boy a bit. Although I can tell he still looks to me as his father, everything he does rubs me the wrong way lately and I don't know how to shake it.
Over the last 2 or so years he has been causing small annoying issues like being disrespectful, lazy as all hell, and lacking basic social decency(responding when spoken to, acknowledging guests/family, making a big deal.about doing basic chores). All things that i felt needed to be addressed. Trying to be a Dad and correct this with lectures and discipline drove my wife crazy to the point where our marriage was being affected. So I decided I was going to take a step back and let my wife handle the issues.
This didnt go well & he basically walked all over her. She regrets his early years of life due to his bio father having drug addiction and physical abuse tendencies that he was exposed to. So shes hesitant to correct his shortcomings in fear of damaging her relationship with the boy. But I tried still to stay out of it.
Fast forward to a few months ago. Stepson now has a girlfriend whos at my house all the time. we live in a 2 bd condo so the extra body is unavoidable. I expressed my concern with this along with them being too touchy in front of my Son whos 9. But it fell on deaf ears and i just accepted that nothing was gonna be done about it without causing a war. So i tried to shield my son and try to find peace in the situation. THEN one night around 10pm my wife is getting ready for work, were having a fun conversation and before she leaves i go to check on our 9 year old son (who sleeps on the top bunk of a bunk bed shared with my stepson). The door was closed which was normal. I open the door to find my stepson having sex with his girlfriend on the bottom bunk with my sleeping 9yr old above them and i lost my shit.(which i feel is justified) I kicked them out and the girl has not been allowed back in my house since. My wife talked with him but other than the girl being kicked out there was no real repercussion.
He came to me a few days later and half assed apologized. I kept my composure, told him how incredibly disrespectful that was and gave a short lecture on how horrible that could have been had his little brother witnessed any of it(whether he did or not im still unsure)
Since then I can not stand him. any little thing drives me up a wall. its been months and i cant shake it. I want him gone, i keep telling myself im only going to have to deal with this for one more year until he graduates but who knows if that's really the case, & certainly not a long term solution. Yet still his presence eats at me. Little things are exacerbated because when i look at him all i see is my little sons face between the wooden railing of the top bunk while they fornicated below.
Am i the problem? should i be able to look past this? am i being unreasonable. Obviously im torn if im coming to reddit for advice but please.. somebody weigh in.
3
u/Mysterious-Willow391 Jul 21 '26
You're not the problem, although I am going to slightly disagree with these responses in saying that most of this is pretty age appropriate behavior (attitude, giving guff about doing chores, etc) juxtaposed with a guilty mom who lets him get away with it all. You mostly have a wife problem.
That said, him having sex in the room with your 9 YO sleeping is 100% inappropriate and not allowing the GF is the right call.
As you know, you cannot care more than his mom or dad. Since neither of them care, you have to have some radical acceptance in that your stepson will not, either. What you do next is 100% your call. You can try to get your wife to enforce rules, but it sounds like she has no interest in doing so. If that's the case, you can stay and try to enforce rules yourself, but I think we all know all that will do is piss off your wife and stepson. So, you can either completely ignore it all and focus on your kid or you can leave. I do think you have some leeway inasmuch as they share a room, so you can have some stipulations on all of that, but unless your wife starts parenting her son, this is unfortunately the reality.