I don’t know what we’re going to do. He’s hurting and the cause of his pain remains a mystery. He tells us it’s one thing but then tells us it’s something else. He’s depressed and I don’t think he knows what’s going on. We’re getting him all the help we can but tonight was really a bad one and it broke me.

I just listened to him scream at me. There was no point in trying to reason with him because we was beyond reason. Honestly, when I was a kid, I would never have gotten away with even 10% of the things he screamed at me.

Emotionally speaking, I got the wind knocked out of me.

My heart breaks for him but at the same time, he has to still be held accountable for the things he said. As such, he’s lost the Xbox and Playstation for the weekend. He’s lost his phone at least until he gets home from his grandparent’s house. The reason the phone returns sooner is because he’s very big into music and that really helps him. We don’t want to take that away from him, but we will for a short time in order to make a point.

I’m going to bed heartbroken, wondering what we did wrong. Where did we fail him? What more can we do to help guide him through this dark time in his life?

Lizze and I no longer get nights to ourselves. Gavin and his brothers won’t be spending the night together at their grandparents anymore. This is a necessary evil because there’s too many problems with Gavin. Without going into details, Gavin has some behavioral issues that create a great deal of animosity between him and his brothers. It’s gotten to the point where the three of them can no longer go over together.

Gavin still gets to go over but only by himself.

It sucks because that means we never really get any time to ourselves but it’s the right thing to do.

This is a difficult situation because the human part of me is pissed off at Gavin for making the choices he does but at the same time, he’s not doing most of these things on purpose. That said, there’s little doubt in my mind that the crap he pulls with his brothers is a willful act. He knows what he’s doing and he manipulates the situation to get his way. It can be challenging to recognize this but if he isn’t put back in his place, problems arise.

Gavin’s an amazing kid in many ways but he also has some problems that create problems for everyone around him. These problems are now costing us our break and that’s not a good thing.

Tonight is supposed to be a break but Gavin’s been driving us nuts and I can’t sleep because I’m too worried about Elliott. 😔 💔

The boys will be home later today and I’m going to be in a worse place than I was before they left.

That’s not how it’s supposed to work.