So, in short, your grandson broke into your ex-husband’s house?

Why? Just to have a frozen pizza? Why not have that pizza somewhere else?

The boy, from lots of other questions, seems in desperate need of help. No, I would not disown or report him.

They were broke. And yes, he did break in and she followed.

So really, they both broke in? Was the relationship already so broken that they were afraid to call dad/grandpa and say, hey, can we go raid your fridge?
Did they break the air conditioner? Is this her biological father? Lots of questions.
I say if your ex is so offended he wants to press charges that’s his right. They broke into his house and stole his food.
My suspicion is that the relationship was already damaged before this happened.

I can’t imagine having a house within a mile of my kid – a house I never see – and not giving them the keys to it. Especially when the alternative is my child and grandchild staying with “some guy she met”.

But, it’s his right to press charges if he wants to. Are you prepared to let your grandchild live with you while his mother is fighting the legal battle?

@Judi brings up good questions and @Seek brings up good points. The answers to those issues would help in formulating an answer.

I wouldn’t ignore it. The question from me is how much do you want to be involved? Are you able to have a serious discussion with your daughter about facing the consequences of her actions, and addressing the situation?

If your grandson is 16, your daughter is old enough to face the issues directly. You cannot rescue her or the boy, but you can offer her rational guidance. She needs to do whatever she can to repair the relationship with her father.

Have they even apologized?

After the nap, they left? Did they tell the father what they did?

All good questions, from @zenvelo too. Waiting for some answers.

The relationship already was pretty bad way before they did this, yes. You can’t offer rational guidance to a woman who is terribly volatile and irrational and no; I’m not getting involved and no I will not keep him until this irons out. I’ve gone way beyond the call of duty letting him live with me through the years, playing the mother role all through several early grades, got a lot of joy out of it but she was and is such a horrible influence and role model that he may be a hopeless case. It seems like they truly hate each other. They’re both violent but he’s worse. I want to interject here that my other daughter is a precious angel. Both girls are my biological children with my ex. He was an angry person before but now with his spinal stenosis and slipped discs I wouldn’t put anything past him.
No; they did not tell my ex what they did. The neighbors called the cops and they called my ex. My ex had not been to the house in months due to his back pain. He has a pretty large farm near us; this other place is a hard two day drive.

Sounds to me like she’s already been disowned.

I am speechless. I would want to know why in the hell they didn’t call someone for help before going to those lengths.

I could care less if one of my kids broke into my house and ate food.

Where did the account of a pizza and nap come from? I don’t quite buy that is all that went on.

@Dutchess_III you wouldn’t care if your air conditioner was shoved to the floor to allow them to come in and snoop around? They’re both Major snoops, find things and call relatives to tell what all they found.
@GloPro my daughter told me they got a frozen pizza out of the freezer and baked it, had some soda and went to nap. We have no way of knowing just how long they were in there but he is out of his mind furious that he had fleas in their bed from her dog. He considers what they did, breaking and entering.
Twenty years ago she owed some guy some money. She told the guy her dad had an expensive guitar in his barn and to walk over and get it. My ex had him arrested and charged with theft. Another time, we were out of town and she had a big party without our permission . ONe of the guys diesel cars ran out of diesel so she told him he could siphon her dad’s diesel out of his new Kabota tractor. So when we got home the tractor wouldn’t start . This is her history in a nutshell; the way she rolls. So she has a reputation for being untrustworthy that he has put up with for decades until now. And she is teaching her son her tricks. I have been sending them debit cards but they’re always broke. She imagines she is the CEO of a real estate company, calls herself so on Facebook and lives beneath the poverty level while saying it’s a good business. A church gave her a car and it’s heating up.

Not if they were that desperate, no. Of course not. I just can’t imagine why they didn’t call for help first.

No, I would not report him, I would give the kid a break, perhaps even reach out and offer what help I could.

They call for help weekly. They have a friend who they treat like dirt they brought with them . He panhandles gas money and a few bucks for tacos, etc. He is hooked on alcohol and cigarettes, has no car or job and is sick. They sort of live like animals.

Well that puts things in a different light. How did they get so crappy?

@ZEPHYRA hate for you to get the idea we haven’t helped. Few have received what we’ve given them. Like houses they either abandoned or that burned. This last house, mostly cinders, is being bulldozed. Her dad owns it and he claims he has a real estate agent now . It’s on 3 gorgeous treed acres. They left it because she would not make her son go to school and CPS kept circling.

Well if all that is true ^^ I probably would call the cops.

@Dutchess_III that’s a good question. I think she was always mental = even in kindergarten. She discovered weed at fifteen and she went downhill since then. Now she smokes it with her son. They both smoke weed and take xanax and beer. Her sister was on the Student Council and Honor Roll all through high school and won’t even answer her text messages. Her son was expelled from two schools in one year so they left the state and he never did his community service work. Now he has a very hot, dangerous temper with zero respect for her.

I had a sister like that…..

They stole something. No one breaks into a house for pizza.

If they’re that hungry and have no money they would.

I agree with @cheebdragon. They did more than nap and eat pizza. Your ex just hasn’t figured out what, yet.
I would consider it breaking and entering, also. Being related changes nothing. If it were me I would call the police and file a report. However, if the son is becoming violent the risk of retaliation is there.

Unfortunately I would make sure I had my house insurance secure, video all of the belongings in the house, and call the police. It’s a tough spot to be in.

I would not enable lowlives. I would sever ties over this nap and pizza incident given the guitar and diesel examples. There is no need to coddle criminals.

If you are going to go thru the hassle of breaking into a house because you are hungry, why would you only eat the 1 pizza and nothing else? That pizza isn’t going to last very long. They would have to be complete idiots to not consider taking something else with them, that’s just a basic survival instinct.

@Aster So why do you send her debit cards? Why are you enabling her at all? Sounds to me like she needs someone to ask her a hard question: why should anyone help her out at all?

I’d cut her off until she gets clean and sober and gets some time clean, at least a full year.

I occasionally send them debit cards when he tells me he needs food. Or if it’s his birthday. Now I’m having second thoughts on it. He could be selling them.

It’s easy to say, SO hard to do, but I’d try to bow out of sending them anything. It’ll get rougher before it gets better, and they will blame you. But in the long run you aren’t doing them any favors by bailing them out.

I’ve had friends with family issues that are similar to this. Family members who are addicts, mentally ill, and the friends were faced with the question of how much to help and when to stop. Helping = enabling, but it’s a slippery slope. One friend that I have who dealt with this, when I suggested she stop enabling, she said “but I don’t want to see my brother end up homeless.” I can understand that and of course, it’s easier to offer advice than to be the enabling relative, dealing with this.

In this situation, @Aster‘s ex is the only one who really knows the whole story and knows what more he is willing to tolerate. We can speculate till the cows come home.

Did they leave the house with an opening? Or, did they put how they broke in back into place?

It doesn’t sound like he is disowning her for this one thing, it is because this is the last straw. Howeverm it is her son, the grandson, who did the bad thing, not the daughter herself, am I right? Is she punishing him somehow? Did he have to call his grandfather and apologize? If not, then if this is a series of irresponsible acts I would tell her she won’t get anything else from me until she has taken steps to straighten herself out. If it’s just a grandkid out of control I would not play too hard with my daughter.

I do not know if they put it back together or not. She apologized, he doesn’t care and says he’s in “revenge mode.” They are both out of control. Yes; it was the last straw.

I guess this doesn’t sound like a picture you really need to be involved in at all.

@Aster Did the children apologize? The ones who broke in?

This is just sad.

It is sad. I the teens just did something stupid one time I could easily ignore it, but there is an obvious pattern of behavior that needs to be dealt with.

@Aster Any chance the teens are on drugs? Can you get them sent to rehab? Only a couple of years left.

@JLeslie One 16 year-old grandson and his mother… The daughter of her ex. Not two teens or children.

@JLeslie, the mother also broke in.

Oh. I did misunderstand. I guess I could not imagine the daughter broke in. I though it was a 16 year old and his girlfriend.

It does seem like some tough love is in order. They are going down the tubes. If trying to actively help has not helped, then possibly cutting them off for a while might be in order.

I think I would try to get my 16 year old grandchild to live with me if they were not already addicted to something, and if I thought I could handle it. Away from the influence of their mother. Or, take them away for summers, or something. Try to have some influence.

He went over alone and broke in. Then she followed later. She told me today they had actually slept there for two weeks. She apologized, he refuses.
I think some would call losing your sister, your dad, your son’s cousins and uncles and your mother in a way might be called being cut off. I don’t wish to go forever not taking her hysterical calls. But when I take one she calls six more times like I can fix her life. Then two nights ago my s/o passed out in the bathroom. He’s a diabetic and says he simply forgot his insulin that day.
Both of them are druggies. Alcohol, weed, xanax. I had him in the house two years ago for six weeks. It was very odd. First, he took every Benedryl he could find so I hid those. He made some contraption with an empty toilet paper roll and a dozen fabric softener sheets. You stuff them inside then, when you blow smoke in there, you allegedly can’t smell it. He had his own room and tv. We got him an Xbox and he tried to steal his cousin’s video game. I unpacked his suitcase and he handed it to me. He would not go to the pool or even outdoors. He only ate a lot then marched to his room. He did slam his door once quite hard then came out and apologized. I had evidence he drank some vodka. He went home with a bottle of my husband’s Vicodin(my daughter informed me).
I hate to mention this; it seems inappropriate. But he got high at school , the ambulance took him to the hospital and it took five men to strap him down . Then they shot him up with some tranquilizer of some sort that knocked him out for hours. The next day he claims they gave him a shot of morphine and he was suddenly a Born Again Christian. Ten hours later he was home and as vulgar and nasty as ever. I can name three of his friends who have stayed at Juvenile Hall. So she keeps him on the run. If he goes back to his other state they might capture him for truancy. I just don’t know.
My other two grandkids by my other daughter are in church three times a week, in band at school and she bakes cookies, cakes and practices piano while he practices on his guitar and trumpet. Night and day family.

It’s the drugs. Underneath all the drugs they might have been all part of the same family, but drugs stunt the person emotionally at the age they start the drugs. For most people that is in adolescence and adolescence is the most tumultuous time, so they become permanent teenagers basically.

You will see on other Q’s I am always trying to suggest to clear the air with family and that family matters, but throw alcohol and drugs into the mix and I have a short amount of patience. I’m sure for my own child I would try for many many years to help and fix them, but eventually it gets to the point where yu realize you can’t, that they are self destructive.

I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. Addiction is just awful. It ruins everything.

Oh @Aster. My heart goes out to you. I know about the hysterical phone calls…..there are times I avoid taking my daughter’s phone calls because it’s been…let’s see, ... three days since the last crisis and it’s about time for another one. It’s like watching the clock.

Sometimes I wonder…..would she make it through if I wasn’t here? I think…maybe, yes. And maybe she needs some practice…..because I will be gone some day.

Hang in there, honey.

Whatever she said they did in that house is going to be the Mickey Mouse version, they tore that house up looking through everything I can tell you that much right now. There is nothing in that house that they haven’t sifted through like an FBI forensics team.
Your ex has EVERY right to be pissed off. That’s fucked.

.

She drove over there and he came up, looking very old and crippled with a cane, yelling at her to get off his property . Then he told his girlfriend to call the cops. So my daughter drove off. But she thought about it for awhile and decided to go back over there to clear the air or something. The cops were there and my ex switched over immediately to, “hi ! Did you get those keys?” and she said, “Hi, daddy. yes.” And the cops drove off. Maybe she wanted to be arrested. Who knows? But the cops readily saw they appeared to be on friendly terms and no violence was involved. So she called his bluff .

Wow.

Well, that sums it up. He is just as crazy as her. He should just give her the keys.

^Word.^

Shit could be worse. Hell, I don’t actually know where my dad lives at the moment. I talk to him every few months but I haven’t been invited to his house since I was 16 and I know he’s moved since then.