Unfortunately, the problem isn't the adult child living at home, but the mother who is putting her adult child ahead of her marriage. Now, I firmly believe that a birth mom needs to put her UNDERAGE child ahead of any non-birth man who may be in her life (date, fiance, husband), but once a child is old enough to make their own way--they should. Obviously, this mother hasn't learned the first rule of being a parent--that your job is to make yourself obsolete. In other words, it's a parent's job to raise their child to be confident, self-sufficient, self-supporting, independent. I honestly fear there is no answer to your problem, if the boy's mother choses to enable him to be a slug. YOU don't have the power to change things (other than removing yourself from the situation). This mother and son have such a disfunctional, odd relationship, that nothing you do is going to break through to them. Good luck, though

Come be my mom! Sometimes I ask for her advice and she is so worried she'll get it wrong, even if it's what I need to hear... she won't give it. She's gotten better over the years. I think she also thought she wasn't qualified to give it. I've gotten better tough love from GW than from her on occasion. Bless her little soul. She knows I love her and I know she loves me. :) So. Here's my suggestion. Ask them before they start or as soon as you realize they're "talking/asking advice", ask them if you're supposed to just hear them or if they want your advice. I learned to preface my conversations with my family members a long time ago and it helped cut down on friction. When I know I just want to be heard, I'll say, "Can I just vent?" or if I want advice I say, "What do you think about this?" and then end it with "It's ok if you don't agree with me. And I may or may not follow it, yours is just one opinion I am getting". It seems to free up the "listener" and help me be less frustrated because I am more certain with where I am going with what I am saying. Hope this helps you. It's good to be near your family, isn't it?

I am going through this grief right now and it is possibly the most painful heartache imaginable. My adult daughter has alienated herself from me over a difference of opinion on the subject of abortion. I was at one time very much into the prolife movement. But because I've grown and learned, I've changed positions. I support pro choice. My daughter, who has suffered multiple miscarriages, read a comment I made on a discussion about the subject and was offended. She refuses to speak to me. I am beyond heartbroken. I feel as if my daughter wants to control my thoughts. She posts things on social media that lead me to think they are deliberate attempts to twist the knife. So hurtful they are, and she never considers that worse than losing a pregnancy to miscarriage is the pain of having your own child reject you. I have also lost a pregnancy to miscarriage, so I know what that's like. I've also lost my husband, her dad, and that was at the time, the worst pain I'd ever experienced. But this! This child of mine has cost me a lot in terms of sacrifice. At a time when I could least afford it, because I was home from my job for medical reasons, my daughter needed help paying her rent. I committed to help her. She got engaged to a man and mom paid for the wedding. A few years went by and the marriage ended. She needed help again to pay her bills. By then, I was old enough to take early retirement. It was all I had to give. So I did. It cost me half of what I'd otherwise have been entitled to. And that's for the rest of my life. My daughter takes little responsibility for her own affairs. And yes, mom's fault for bailing her out over and over. Her sister got saddled with her cell phone bill. Her dog damages property because he's not properly housetrained, and that has cost her sister a lot of money. My daughter owns 3 cars, two of them are high dollar cars. Her payments for those, she doesn't skip. But it's okay to let everyone else pay for her bills. And she says I lie when I say I love her,

I wouldn't use the word "wrong", but I would call it perhaps short-sighted and lacking in awareness. You seem to have no idea HOW or WHY the problem between your children, your husband and yourself developed. Why is it that you don't have any insight into this? Have you ever tried counseling or even a good heart-to-heart with any of your kids? have you sat down and pondered what might be underlying their distance? (I'm not presuming you haven't, I am just asking.) The children you gave birth to are too important (and not just them themselves, but to YOU as their mother) to not probe this deeper. By insisting that you delve int the source of the problem, I am not necessarily assuming that your kids have a great reason for keeping their distance from you and your husband. Their reasons may range from completely valid to terribly selfish, or --if they're like most people--- some combination or somewhere in between. They would certainly not be the first children of divorce in blended families to have such mixed feelings, or to find it hard to connect with their role in the newly blended family. They also wouldn't be the first to have some unresolved anger, or an attitude about it, not necessarily because you or your husband have done anything so awful but simply because of the fact that their family is not what it once was. Often, unfortunately, this kind of deep-seated upset can manifest by the kids choosing ---consciously or unconsciously--- to keep their distance, knowing no other way to effectively deal with feelings they may not even fully recognize in themselves. You are asking for a reasonable amount of consideration from your kids, but I would ask on their behalf for a reasonable amount of consideration on your end as to what their underlying needs and feelings might be. I don't know your kids, but maybe you don't know them as well as you could, either. It's possible they truly are despicable oafs who are no longer worth your time or consideration. But wow, what a thing to say/feel about your own kids. Is that really how you want it? I doubt it, or you wouldn't be on here asking about it. I might also ask you at this point what sort of input your husband and stepchildren have on the matter of your kids. Do they encourage you to explore the issues or seek counseling or literature on the subject of blended families? Do they express any empathy for what it may feel like to have been in your kids' shoes, post-divorce? Are they welcoming when your kids are around? Basically: are they a force for trying to build bridges or do they encourage you to build walls? Again, I am not assuming they are or are not one way or the other... just that this can have a big impact on the cohesiveness of the blended family and either ease or exacerbate tensions and distance...