Seeking advice as mother for my 18 yr old son.
Idk if this is the right place to post this but I'm seeking advice for my 18 yrs old son. I had him in high-school and the first few years of his life was tough. My husband and I fought a lot as we carried a lot of trauma from our childhood into the relationship. Needless to say, we've scarred and damaged him good. We've both acknowledged and have discussed this with him. We've also apologized many times.
He has always been kind, sensitive, and silly as a child. Once he became a teenager, his mood and temperament changed. His highs and lows are extreme. His crash outs are violent such as punching a TV, walls, windows, breaking down doors, etc. At 15 yrs old, he threatened to take my life. Instead of putting him into thearpy, I took the backseat on parenting and told my husband to step up and be the parent for him. Instead, my husband decided that he too will take the backseat on parenting.
This resulted in our son linking up with the wrong crowd. His friend group has gotten in trouble with the law this time and it's pretty bad. When I explained this to my son, he appears to understand but I dont know if he truly understand the depths or severity of the consequences. Just this week, I found out that a girl at school filed a report against him and authorities are involved. It's one concerning thing after another.
My husband and I have been arguing about him since he became a teen. Our marriage is at the breaking point and we're both truly exhausted. This might be it for us. My solution to this is to pack my entire family up and leave to a different place but my husband is against this. His solution is to "give him an ultimatum or he gets out". I dont agree with this. It feels like we're giving up on him when he needs us the most.
In the past, we've continuously missed opportunities to get our son help, so today, I reached out to mental institution for an evaluation along with thearpy. We are going to sit down with him tomorrow to discuss this. My husband says if he refuses thearpy, he needs to leave as we still have young children in the home who are witnessing his emotional crash outs every hour of the week. We need to protect them as well.
I feel like he isnt beyond help because while he may be moody, when he calms down, he does attentively listen to us when we explain to him why he cant say or do certain things in his raging episodes. He acknowledges this each time and would even cry because he's apologetic. From your perspective, a parent or not, what advice can you give? We've tried understanding, empathy, patience, tough love, gentle parenting, all sorts of approaches but we're stuck and are worried we're losing him.