Thank you to bnicebekind, outinthecld, and amberjul for your response and insights. I want to say that first of all, I am protective of my son. I also worry sometimes that my son takes advantage of things and can be a bit manipulative. The day that I wrote my original post, my husband had gotten into one of his moods and there were a bad scene. This past weekend, however, while my husband was gone, I asked my son to do something (move some wood behind the garage) and he refused to do so. I should tell you that my son was in the store with me shopping one evening and he went to look at the baseball cards while I was in the grocery dept. When I went to look for him, I was paged. Going to find him, thinking he paged me, I found that he had been stopped for shoplifting--which was pretty confusing since neither of us had left the store and he had over $30 in his pocket that I had given him earlier. Anyway, the store made me pay $200.00 to them as they can charge the parent 10x what the kid is allegedly stealing. My husband and I agreed that he had to work it off. Actually, I was quite humiliated and upset and couldn't even speak. My husband actually surprised me and was the calm one and talked to my son. Since that time, even though it was agreed that my son had to work off the $200 with chores, he refuses to do them (usually when it is just me around) and this weekend when my husband was not home, my son got very angry with me, called me names, threw my kitchen chairs around, hit things, slammed the doors, etc. My son is getting to be a good size guy and truthfully, I am not sure I could live with him alone any more. AS for protecting my son, I do. When my husband went after my son once like he was going to hit him, I stopped him and I told him that he or anyone would ever put a hand to my son. I stood my ground and looked him in his face and he knows that I am dead serious about that. Yes, I do feel that some sort of counseling is needed so we can set some guidelines as to what our rights and responsibilities are. Such as, I would never spank one of stepgrandchildren and I don't expect my husband to spank mine...he sees it differently. I have again talked with my husband and I have taken the advice of a counselor in that if my husband loves me, I should be able to get him to see my reasoning. I think he does love me because I did stand up to him and say to him that I do not want to "castrate" him in our home and make him feel like he is not the man of the house, however; I cannot raise my son in fear. I told him that I do not like his temper; I cannot deal with people with bad tempers and if he did not learn to control his temper and learn to think a bit differently, that I would have to let this relationship go. I told him that I did love being married to him and I love the large family that we have together and I love the grandkids, but if that was the way that he raised his kids (I suspect it was and I suspect that was how he was raised, also), that he needed to think differently. I also came up with some compromises for my son and our rules, which he agreed to and I did let him know firmly that we needed to work on this and that I did think counseling was needed. His daughter told me that he had tried counseling before and it failed. I have been to counseling quite a long time for the depression, etc. of my first divorce, the relationship, tragedies, etc., so I do have insight into what needs to be done. I was a very self-sufficient, independent woman, yet now at my husband's request have lowered my income and work at home. This is all right as now I am here for my son when he gets home and I am here when he goes to school, too. I wonder if my husband doesn't have a hormone or chemical or sugar imbalance that brings on his moods as he gets very upset with himself when he gets upset. I am working on the rules and have talked with my son and asked him to work with me. My son knows I love him and I will try to look after his best interests. So, I do appreciate your comments and I wanted to let you know that I will not stick my head in the sand, I am workikng to resolve the issues, I am looking into counseling, and yes, I do protect my son. But, I simply needed to know if I was being one-sided towards my son as a mom and a stepchild myself, was I being unfair to my husband? The thing is, when you talk to someone, it can get you thinking...sometimes my son is in the wrong and sometimes my husband does overreact to things and goes way out of proportion. These are the issues that need to be worked on...now, just to find the right counselor to help with that. Thanks again

That is corking and, to me, it looks stressed from high light and under watering.... First things first: I would, definitely, check the roots and see if it doesn't have invaders like mealie chomping on em. Pulling it out of the soil won't hurt this plant. The current mix looks peat based that's possibly no longer absorbent. Could be wrong on this, but, I'd repot in fresh mix, anyway. A fast draining blend with 50% pumice and or perlite to soil. Reducing the variables of what can be wrong by making sure most of its culture is right will take some of the guess work out. It looks like an echinopsis - possibly white flowers? They are forgiving and with the right culture and time it recovers well.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: once someone is a parent, their partner (or potential partner) HAS to factor in that person's parenting abilities to determine if they are a good relationship material. Partners who have vastly different parenting styles will inevitably come to logger-heads over the situation (as you have personally found out). This can occur when the child or children are young as well as when the child is an adult. Your boyfriend should be ashamed of himself for fostering such an unhealthy environment for his son. He's a weak man and a weak parent by allowing his boy to have such poor diet habits and encouraging him to be helpless. What results does he think his approach will get when the boy is age 10, 15, 19? If bio-Mom wasn't as bad, I'd suggest you drop her a note about the situation on your way out the door with your packed bags. However, since she is just as guilty, it won't help. Your options as I see them are to insist on blended family/couples counseling; if he won't go or if he refuses to follow the counselor's advice, I'm afraid all you can do is take your son and move out.

We moved our DD into her first apartment in August. She got lots of hand me downs from us. Boy was it nice to get some of that stuff out of here. Especially the couch which we were holding on to for one of our kids. My daughters tv stand is a small black end table. The table was picked up by DH from work that was going to be thrown out in 1998. We used it for a tv stand in the playroom area of our first house where my DD and DS would watch Barney. LOL. We moved it to our second house where it sat in the attic. DS took it with him to college as a table for his printer. Then it sat in our 3rd home storage area when DS was done with it. We repainted it and DD took it for her tv stand and is perfectly happy with it and doesnt want to spend the money for a nicer one. She bought the light in the corner which was not expensive and has since bought a small end table which was around $35. No way would she spend hundreds of dollars on anything.