It’s Just a Beer
My oldest son drank one of the three beers I had in the fridge. I confronted him, he admitted that he did it, and then he told me that I was over-reacting.
I was not yelling, I was not screaming; I was calm, but upset. I feel that I had every right to be upset. It wasn’t two weeks ago that we had the talk about him being in control of him self, but if he violated the household rules, then there would be consequences. I had planned for the consequence of his action to be the (re)loss of his laptop and NOT getting his cell phone back for another week. He changed that.
Our initial talk occurred on the couch. This is when he told me I was “acting crazy” and running around the house, “over-reacting” because of a beer. I (mistakenly?) asked his brother if he thought I was “acting crazy” but my older son yells, “NO! Don’t you bring him into this!” I sent my oldest son to his room.
I followed him there. I tried to talk to him, but he kept giving me attitude and saying that “it was just a beer!” and “why are you getting so crazy over a BEER?”
Now, mind you, I KNOW when I’m “acting crazy.” It happens with my husband, and I contribute to situations getting out of control. I was definately controlling my SELF. No yelling, no screaming – tears, yes because I am frustrated. Out of control? Definately not.
I told my son that if he was going to disrespect my wishes, then he could find somewhere else to stay for a few days. “Go ask your grandfather if you can stay with him.”
I’m not certain that the amount of disrespect I was getting from this child is coming through. Eye rolling, yelling, defining my actions and words as wrong and disrespectful…in short, by defining my actions he was attempting to make me feel guilty, back down, and accept that he could and would drink and do anything he wanted to and if I so much as got upset about it, then I was acting out of control.
I left the room and came out here. He followed me and started yelling, “Where the fuck am I supposed to go? It’s a Sunday night and we live all the way out here!”
I told him to stop talking to me in that way. He said, “You’re kicking me out of the fucking house! I’ll talk to you any way I fuckin’ want to!”
I waited to cool down. After picking up some stuff around the house and putting it away, I had calmed down enough to go talk to him. When I walked into his room, he was sitting on the floor meditating. I sat down quietly beside him and didn’t say a word. After a few minutes, he got up without saying a word.
I said, “Sit down,” and he did. I told him that I had laid out the rules two weeks ago and since that time, he’s been pushing. I had bought him a pack of cigarettes yesterday and I regret that decision – I shouldn’t have done it and I won’t do it again. The more concessions I make for him, the more he takes. I told him that one minute I’m his best friend in the whole world and the next I’m some idiot that doesn’t comprehend anything. (Yes, I know that is normal.)
But the one thing I couldn’t allow was blatant disrespect of me and the rules of the house because he thought he was grown.
He said, “I don’t think that I’m grown!”
I continued, “You are trying to bully me – ”
He cut me off with tears and some comment, but I continued with “Stop it – I’m tired of falling for tears when things aren’t going your way. You can follow my rules or you can leave.”
Miracles of miracles, he quit crying right, got up and walked out of the room yelling about how he wasn’t controlling anything. That this was MY way of controlling the situation – of controlling HIM. He left the house in his jeans.
I went to the attic and got the boy scout tent and tarp, then to his room to get the sleeping bag and a change of clothes. I put everything in one of those huge “sport size” ziploc bags so they wouldn’t get wet and put them outside the back door. I locked the doors and closed the curtains. I’m not playing this game. I meant what I said – he can follow the rules or he can get out.
I was hoping that he would have a night in the tent (or up at his grandfather’s place), learn to take me seriously, and “come home.” It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
I locked the side door, but it’s tricky…if you don’t do it right, you can push open the locked door. I obviously was not thinking about that when I locked the door, because my oldest walked right in about 15 minutes later. I told him that his stuff was out the back door and that he couldn’t stay here if he wasn’t going to follow the rules.
So now, he’s using my phone to call someone to pick him up. He told his brother that “If I leave, I’m not coming back.” Asked me where his bag was, I told him in the ziploc bag out the back door, he sighed, took it, and continues to walk around the house collecting the laundry I washed for him to put into bags his father and I provided to him.
So here we are.
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