My friend's mom asks ME for advice (im 18)

[buckylover23]

I'm just going to start off saying my best friend is 17, gay, and the biggest asshole/diva I've ever met. I like his confidence but he's just so mean! In the past year he's gotten into smoking pot, it started out as once in a while, now he does it every day several times, he shoplifts too. (He lives in WA, I live in WI now). Anyway when I went to visit him last month his mom was telling me he is just getting meaner and more disobedient and kept asking me what I think she should do. I really had no idea because my family is nothing like his. He's extremely disrespectful towards her and talks to her likes she's shit (calls her fatass, idiot etc) and then makes up with her to get what he wants.

I can't imagine ever talking to my parents the way he does, but then again I've always been sensitive and didn't like disappointing my parents or being yelled at. When I tell him he's mean he just says that when I'm not around she's so mean to him and asks me "who do you think I learned how to argue like this from?" He also says screaming at each other is their way of communicating and that he likes that he was brought up like that etc. But I don't think his mom likes it, in fact a couple weeks ago she texted me asking if she thinks they should go to counseling and I said yes (I'd had that idea a long time ago). I'm not sure what the deal is with that now, I just know she'd found a therapist she liked.

I don't think he has the right to treat her like he does, even if she is sometimes "mean to him". She does everything! My parents always said as long as I was living under their roof it was their rules. She makes him dinner and brings it to him in his room and then he yells at her for forgetting the salt! And if she tries to be nice and gets him a present but he doesn't like it he'll treat her like an idiot. She gives him gas money which he just spends on pot/shrooms/ecstasy, cause he doesn't have a job right now. All he does is lie to her and manipulate. And its not just to her, its to everyone including me! And I think the change needs to start from home which is why I want advice to give to her. He needs to learn some respect, responsiblity, and empathy. His mom had him when she was only 19 and his dad left when he was young which no doubt contribute to how he is. I just think it's weird his mom is just constantly yelling at him when he doensn't do what she asks when that obviously hasn't worked. I mean, I'm only 18, not a parent, had a completely different upbringing, what could I understand about the situation? I just know the way he acts isn't right an affects more people than his mom.

[Guest SomethingOrOther]

Hi buckylover,

I think it's good that your friends mother sought help from a therapist, but I'd recommend that you try to stay out of this. You have no way of knowing who did what wrong to make the situation what it is now. It also seems like your friend isn't motivated to change anything about it.

Also, you say that your friend manipulates people and is the biggest asshole you know, so I wonder why exactly he is your friend. You have the power to decide what kind of behaviour YOU tolerate, so you don't have to accept being manipulated and you actually also don't have to accept disrespectful behaviour when it concerns other people. You can ask for that behaviour to stop, no matter "why" it occurs and you get to chose if it has concequences for you.

S.

[buckylover23]

Yeah, I definitely get what you're saying, I mean I think it's really bizarre for a 37 year old woman to be asking me for advice. Honestly, the reason I'm friends with him is because he's really my only friend. I was super shy and reserved in high school. He's the only person who ever really broke through my shell because he kept at it. I think he has improved my self esteem but I don't think I realistically could just cut off contact with him. I have problems of my own and I think I'd become very depressed/confused/lonely without the only person I have to talk to, even if I don't talk to him about my problems, at least it's talking to SOMEONE。 I don't know, hopefully I'll make some good friends in college that are a better influence on me. Cause I do do stupid things with him (drugs/shoplifting) that never even crossed my mind before I met him, but at the same time it makes me feel like a normal person and they're exciting experiences in what feels like such a dull life to me. Anyway, this has definitely gotten off topic from parenting, sometimes it just helps me to write and put in order what I think rather than just having these thoughts spinning in my head. I guess what I really want is to be happy and feel like I need him to change to make me happy, like I can't make myself happy. It's like I'm trapped and any decision I make is a losing decision for me.