Results are....

[lucky]

negative.  Apparently osd lied to pbfh OR pbfh lied to me.  Oss called pbfh and asked her who told her he was using and she told him dh's brother only.  Then she told him that getting a UA was all my idea and she didn't have any part in it.  (It is her weekend and she'd told me that if dh didn't get a UA done before then, she was taking oss in to get one.)

I called a "mini-family meeting" with dh and oss and told oss what his mother told me in the phone call with her when she told me that oss was using.  He's 15 and I'm tired of pbfh playing him like that -- he deserved to know the truth about this at least since it was him that could have gotten in trouble.

Anyway, things got better, in a sense.  In that little meeting, oss admitted to playing dh -- at the time oss was saying that, dh decided to leave the room and I blew up at him.  Oss began crying and dh didn't dare leave after that.  We all had a little discussion and it came out that oss feels that when he tries to talk to dh about his feelings, he is ignored by dh and that dh walking out while oss was saying that stuff about playing dh was an example.  (My opinion of dh is that he doesn't want to see his first born son as having problems.)

I asked him if it had gotten worse since I had stopped disciplining him and was making dh do all oss's discipline and oss said yes.  When I asked why, he said that he has to do more to get dh's attention now.  Up till I quit disciplining oss, dh used to tell me that I was too hard on oss.  

I'm thinking that oss wants the attention from me, BUT what he REALLY REALLY REALLY wants is for DAD to LISTEN to him.  Since I quit disciplining, I've found that I have to distance myself in every other way as well from him.  So he has no one and since pbfh believes osd about bad things regarding oss......

Pbfh was surprised the UA came back negative.  I wasn't -- I wouldn't have been surprised either way, BUT I have now INSISTED that me, dh and oss have a family counseling session with just us three to get us on track because it is ONLY a family issue, not a drug issue too.

[tulip]

I guess it's good to find out he isn't on drugs, although that would have explained some things about his behavior. I hope your family has a good counselor. It sounds like you have already made some progress, but teenagers are so hard to read. They often aren't honest about their feelings. I still think there is no way you should put up him being physically or verbally abusive to your other children, but if you can find some other way to express his obviously hurt feelings, that's a good thing. He's lucky to have someone like you who is willing to work so hard for a family that is so hard to work with.

[lucky]

Yes, that is good news.  But it does make things more difficult to figure out too.

His violence has been brought up with the family counselor and we're re-working our rules with her.  We will be changing some of them to "house rules" rather than targeting specific behaviors.  

I really like this counselor -- she works with foster families and is a foster parent as well so she has a lot of experience with problem families.  First hand experience at parenting troubled kids too and THAT, I think, is a huge bonus for us.

Thank you for the compliment.  I almost bailed back in August, you know, but dh and I privately "renewed" our vows to each other and agreed to work on things rather than give up.  I just have to get through one day at a time, which is difficult because I like to plan ahead and given the behaviors (dh's included) that is very difficult because I have NO idea if any given day will be good, bad or VERY BAD.  And we don't go anywhere or do anything on VERY BAD days.

[tulip]

Someday the kids will be grown and have their own lives. Then you will be left with the man that you fell in love with and married. That thought helps me through some of the "very bad" days. If I had known it would be this hard, I might not have gotten myself into this, but I did, and I know I made the right decision.