I hope this hasn't been posted twice as i pressed a button and the whole thing disappeared.!
We have just had a row with our eldest son. He is divorced and has 2 boys age 15 (DGS1) and 11 (DGS2)who live with him. The younger of the 2 has cerebral palsy and epilepsy although he has not had a seizure for over 4 years and the cerebral palsy does not restrict him very much.
His partner has 3 boys age 16, 14 and 12 (from 3 different previous partners and between them they have a son age 8 with another on the way. They have separate houses but tend to move between the houses spending a few days at one and then going to the other. Neither of them work, he is supposedly her full time carer.
DGS1 and DGS2 have for many years spent 2 nights a week with us, Tuesday and Friday.We take them out, do things with them, pay for a lot of things for them e.g school uniform, school activites and take them away on holiday etc (We have also a couple of times taken all 8 of them away)
He has obviously been quizzing DGS1 about the things that we do and the way that we do them. He has recently been demanding that DGS2 is put to bed by 7.30 as he 'gets over tired when he is with us and could have a seizure' (their 8 year old goes to bed at 8.30) When GCS2 is put to bed my wife has spent time with him reading singing etc and then he goes to sleep. She also does his school reading with him and his spellings which does not get done at home. This morning DS questioned us as to whether we were doing what he said and when we told him that DGS2 had been in bed by 7.30, no stories etc but had not gone to sleep for ages a massive row ensued because we were not doing what he had told us to do. He now says that we cannot have the boys staying over.
They will be devastated as being with us is a respite from the chaos at home.
He won't talk with us, it is always demands. We just don't know what to do and I feel a complete failure. I am 72 amd my wife 76.
We are a taxi for them for hospital appointments (2 x 25 mile return jourenys last week), a pick up service sometimes if they have a lot os shopping and he has had lots of money 'lent' to him which has never been repaid. We have changed our plans, cancelled things and organised our lives around having the boys fitting in very rare outing between Tuesday and Friday, generally without a word of thanks or appreciation for what we do.
Who can we turn to for help and advice and how can we resolve this situation and have out wonderful grandsons again?
Sorry for the long post.
Bows in tiny baby girls' heads .....