suriving late onset dependency

My stepson is 32. I have known him since he was 8. He was a damaged little guy, having had 6 years of his father's relationship with someone who hated children to bear.
Okay so question 1) is why the father put up with the bullshit his partner created for his son. Did he not notice that children need support and a loving home? Why were his needs - in other words, his relationship with this witch- more important than those of his son's? Could it be that he was not ready to have a child at 24? That his wife had an agenda he could barely keep up with? That his genitals ruled his thinking, and therefore staying with a woman who he thought was sexy - after all he had left his marriage a year before he physically moved out, sex was a big driver in his motivations. And the photos I found of close up shots of her labia must have meant some type of obsession. And question 2) is, what was I supposed to do now?

So when I came on the scene with my boyfriend and his 8 year old, I insisted that we see him regularly, that we make a space for him, that he come on vacations with us, and we have outings that were fun and age appropriate like toboganning and swimming and camping.

I seemed to be embraced by the ex wife, who had moved onto another relationship, remarried, another kid with the new husband. It was obvious that I would have no real role as mother from her purvue, but at least her kid had a pleasant home to go to when she wasn't around.

So we went through the school levels, and I understand now that we didn't really 'get it' about school. His mother was all over it, we never went to a meet the teacher thing until he was in grade 8. I was learning on the job how to be a parent.
So my influence was minimal, my role was to support my husband in his role as a father, and to push him when I saw that he needed to connect better.
It wasn't only for his son that I did this, but for his father also. He had had a difficult relationship with his father, who had divorced his mother a few years back, to be with the woman he had been having an affair with. Like father, like son I guess.

My stepson grew older and more comfortable with our arrangements. We built him his own room in our house so he had his own space. I introduced him to my computer and the games I had managed to scramble together.
When he was 15 we went for a last camping trip up to Georgian Bay, camping on the rocks, swimming in the ice cold water. I was 4 months pregnant.

I didn't know my husband was having an affair at the time.

The girl baby was born when he had just turned 16. He was in love with her, we all were. I finally understood the bond between mother and child.
Everybody co-existed pretty well for the first 2 years. I discovered my husband's affair, we went to counselling, I went separately as did he. I wondered why he had an issue with wives and babies. He vowed never to do it again. I vowed to myself that I would try to love him again. That was very difficult.k
When my stepson turned 17 he went into a major funk. My daughter was 2, just the age he was when his father left him. It was quite obvious how dependent a 2 year old child was, to everyone. My stepson got counselling. Maybe it helped. He eventually got through high school. It took 6 years and 3 high schools.

He tried University. By this time he had a girlfriend, but she had to stay in Toronto with her immigrant parents and brother. Probably from finances, and also very probably from protection by her parents. They did not like my stepson. Wrong ethnicity, and too distracting for the ambitions for grades and career they had for his girlfriend.
So they kept up by MSN and saw each other occasionally. She would go to the town of his University where they could have sex and then she would return home before midnight of the same day. Her parents would have disowned her if they knew, and she had deep loyalty to them.

We wondered why my stepson put up with her. She was selfish, oblivious to others' needs, rude to us, and completely helpless. He must have provided the care she needed. Sounded like my husband with his first wife.

My stepson lasted 5 terms at University then took a job in the University town. He had a shared apartment with a girl he met in residence. We so hoped he would make more friends, have a life, see the big world. Instead he went to work and MSNd his girlfriend when he got home.

He moved back in with his mother and tried another term of University at another school. That didn't work out too well. Although we were helping to pay for his schooling and expenses, we were not permitted to see his marks. He never finished.

He and gf decided to go on a trip to Asia, where her relatives were. They planned for a year. He saved money, she went to school. She had her passport sent in a way that her parents couldn't find out. They were packing to go and she finally told her parents. It was a few days before they were destined to leave.

Meanwhile my husband's mother was very ill. His sister had died a year previously, from metastatized breast cancer. And his mother now had ovarian cancer.
His mother died four days before my stepson was to go to Asia. He already had plans to go through Vancouver.

He and the gf got to Vancouver eventually. She promised her mother that they would pretend they were engaged. They bought a diamond ring in Vancouver, we paid for them to stay in a hotel for the first time in their lives. He missed the memorial.

The gf needed to go back to school. She had got through the first Bachelors degree. She moved to a small town where her brother was going to school, and they got a place together. My stepson dutifully followed, got a hovel to live in, in which his bedroom had a sheet on the window, the house was kept at 18° C and he had a roomate who was an overweight student whom he never saw. He flipped burgers in a place where students ate, and slept at her place. The were still not supposed to be together. I don't think her parents knew that my stepson lived in the same town as her. By this time they were 25 years old.

He decided that he needed to get out of town. He was going to move to Vancouver and start school again. She wanted to get into medical school, and had tried for some years. Then she tried grad school but did not get accepted. When he decided to move to Vancouver she finally applied for a private college that offered 'Masters' degrees for a price. She got in immediately. They got a place together. The had officially moved in together. Her parents had to suck it up.

My stepson had to get a high school credit he had been unsuccessful at. He tried. Didn't work out. Tried again. Finally got it. He worked and did the high school credit, and shopped, and cleaned and cooked. And his gf went to school, spent her hour putting on false eyelashes and makeup every morning and dyed her hair pink, and shopped at HMV. And went to school, and made friends in similar situations to her, immigrants, studying, trying to make their parents proud. She never learned how to cook, except to make eggs.

My stepson worked for a year at a gaming software company. He was in quality assurance making sure that the sponsors' brands were located according to the contractual agreements. They promoted him. The young kids working to make the gaming code work etc had to report to him. He got into nursing school. He had previously been trying for radiology tech but couldn't get accepted. We were very happy that he went into nursing. My husband had had a stroke a few years earlier and one of his nurses was a male. I told my stepson back then that this would be a good career for him, but he apparently didn't remember I ever suggested it. His mother was thrilled. Her son, the nurse. He would be brilliant, he would change the world. She was positive that he would be good at everything because he was so amazing at everything. She knew for sure that he would make a good lover, for example.

He got through nursing. The first summer thee were no classes so he returned to the gaming company. It was a 3 year program. He got through it, won a little award at the end, and we went to the auditorium where all 300 or so grads from the technical university were graduating, and then the cafeteria where the awards were handed out to the three dozen or so kids who won them. We were all very proud. His girlfriend showed up, even his sister came from Toronto. Our daughter was on a school trip and couldn't come, which she was very disappointed about. She likes having family.

From May until November my stepson applied for many jobs, sending his resume to jobs he read about. His mother supplied him with research jobs to keep him in pocket change. my husband's father paid for his school loan, so he had no debt, unlike many classmates. He worked out at the gym, lost some weight. His focus was to be community nursing, if he was going to be guiding people about their health, he needed to prove that being overweight and out of shape was not in the picture for people, so he was going to walk the walk. His gf had got a job after graduating. She was now using the car his maternal aunt had given him, full time for her job. He used the scooter we had bought him, to get around, and transit.

He was unable to get a job. There was a downturn in the market for nurses. Many practical nurses had taken over the role that nurses had been providing, at a cheaper cost. He did not do volunteer work, and only eventually decided to apply to hospitals, he had been waiting it out to get what he thought was the right thing for him - a role in community nursing, on the ground, helping people in the field, especially kids.

His mother was working at a college in Toronto. She was heading up research in her previous field in a regulated profession. Her husband had retired from his job, earning a pension, her sister had moved east to live with them (and had divested her car to my stepson), and they had moved to a small town where their real estate dollars stretched miles farther than ever possible in Toronto.

His mother had always held him dear and had clung to him when my husband left her, bringing him to her ex mother in law's house, crying and telling her son that he was all she had, and that he must always be there for her. And he was. The ratsnest of emotion that I entered when beginning a relationship with my step son's father was a deep, deep well. I had no idea what I was getting into.

My stepson's mother was also ambitious. As a young girl when she first met my husband, she would embarrass him with her regaling of stories about herself. And when they were on their own she would collapse into nervous fits, escaping to find others, needing to be with her sister, trying to gain whatever hold on others she could so that she had somewhere to lean. Until her son was born. And he became the reliant little man who would keep her upright. And she him.

And so when he could not get a job, she would provide him with work. And when that was not enough, she found him better work opportunities. He was going to be a teacher at her school! With a 3 year degree, she could arrange that he could teach. And be mentored by the head of the medical association. And have access to all that she had access to. And finally, to get an interview as Executive Director of the association for her regulated profession. And so she helped him craft an effective presentation, letting him know the hot button issues for that profession. And rehearsing it with him until it was his own. And told him what to wear to the interview, and how to address the interviewers, and what to say and what they would listen to. And so he got a job. Her little lieutenant got the job that would help her to further her ambitions in her field. And he will start that job soon. Unusual for the position, he is 20 years younger than the average person in such a job. And with no bureaucratic experience. And no experience outside his gaming company, except renovating houses and flipping burgers. But he is smart, and she is there to help.

And so she will.

Grade 11, first week

Dear daughter
I don’t know why you are so miserable.
You have been at your new grade 11 high school for 5 days now, 2 of which were basically pressure-free, two hours per day.
You come home and go to your room, close the door, don’t have time to help, interact, or be nice. I ask you questions to find out how school’s going and you tell me I’m bugging you. You say you have less homework now, so it seems to me that should make it better.
You say you don’t like the structure of school, but you don’t have other ideas about how it could be. You say you aren’t getting to know anyone at school but when I ask if you eat lunch people you say yes. You actually don’t say a lot of things that make sense. You are just plain miserable. You seem to shun anything that could actually be fun in your life, you just don’t want to be involved in anything. You act like life is about the future, not about the present. You don’t want to talk, you watch You Tube videos almost non-stop, you talk like the future is doomed and everything is ‘bad and there’s no future and people’s kids will all be dead so I don’t know why they bother’. This is almost completely verbatim. I feel helpless to say anything because every time I try you come back with some biting remark.
Somehow you feel like high school is some albatross that is dragging you down by the neck, yet I can’t see you inspired to do anything else.
It is so worrying for me and Daddy. You don’t want to be involved with people, you don’t want to talk and you don’t want to do anything about anything.
You seem to want to watch life sail past you.
You used to like things. You weren’t CRAZY about going to swimming or diving or sailing, but you went and gained some skills, hopefully some friendships, and some different perspectives. It helped when you did things with your friends. But now you seem to do so little with friends.
I just have to wonder why you have become so deflated. I would really like you to do some therapy. You seem depressed, unmotivated, unhappy and unable to pick yourself up, look at life and realize that you are the one who is doing all of this to yourself.
It’s not really new, it’s been like this for a while. You just seemed to lose your sense of autonomy at a certain point, then decided that you were a victim to it. I just really don’t get it.
It makes me incredibly sad to see you this way.
I hope that you will get some help, because I don’t know how to help you.