Dear "TheLaw" Community,
I am writing because I really do not know where to turn. I need to know if there is anything I can do to help protect my family (wife and 11 year old daughter) from an abuser. My situation is very different than the norm because the abuser is my wife's 15 year old son (I'll refer to him as "Jay") from a previous marriage. In short, we raised him together from the time he was 3 until 13. Right around age 10, he began to change. It started off with little things like compulsive lying, disrespect and then moved on to trying to forge my signature and setting small fires, which we were unaware of, until his room almost went up. I had him charged with misdemeanor arson and he did serve some probation time and was admitted to a local youth hospital. He was diagnosed with a mood disorder and was required to see a therapist. We were able to take him to therapy at least once a month, it's all our insurance would cover, but nothing seemed to help. He continued getting into trouble (both at school and home) and had become more aggressive towards his mom. After weeks of enduring a downward spiral in his behavior and him trying to physically assault me, we had a group discussion with the therapist and "Jay" that our only choice would be to send him down to his biological father in florida if we did not see any improvement in behavior. We were at our wits end. Therapy wasn't working, medication wasn't working and "Jay" kept becoming more aggressive and disrespectful.
Shortly after that conversation with his therapist he went into school and was overheard saying he had a gun. This came one day after the local high school had a gun threat. We were able to locate his father, who agreed to try and straighten him out, so we sent him down to see if it was a change of environment he needed. In all honestly the stress almost killed my wife (his mom). Right before all of this happened she had been diagnosed with a failing aortic valve, which had been stable with only minor degeneration. With all the stress he caused, her valve started failing rapidly, and a few months after sending "Jay" to Florida she had to have the surgery to replace her valve.
Things were at least tolerable for his father and step mother for almost a year and he started the same types of behaviors with them. He has only gotten worse with his aggression towards women and started living away from the home with "friends of friends", strangers really. He is currently in a runaway shelter, but he will be getting out soon and is supposed to return back to his father's house. They have made comments to us on the phone about just "sending him back up here on a bus". My wife, even though her surgery was successful still has very severe reactions to stress: crippling chest pains / headaches, and has been placed on anti-anxiety medication, which doesn't seem to help that much. I can not allow him to hurt our family anymore, but is there anything I can do???
Thank you for any advice or suggestions you may have.
Hoping to find help,
SuperD
I am writing because I really do not know where to turn. I need to know if there is anything I can do to help protect my family (wife and 11 year old daughter) from an abuser. My situation is very different than the norm because the abuser is my wife's 15 year old son (I'll refer to him as "Jay") from a previous marriage. In short, we raised him together from the time he was 3 until 13. Right around age 10, he began to change. It started off with little things like compulsive lying, disrespect and then moved on to trying to forge my signature and setting small fires, which we were unaware of, until his room almost went up. I had him charged with misdemeanor arson and he did serve some probation time and was admitted to a local youth hospital. He was diagnosed with a mood disorder and was required to see a therapist. We were able to take him to therapy at least once a month, it's all our insurance would cover, but nothing seemed to help. He continued getting into trouble (both at school and home) and had become more aggressive towards his mom. After weeks of enduring a downward spiral in his behavior and him trying to physically assault me, we had a group discussion with the therapist and "Jay" that our only choice would be to send him down to his biological father in florida if we did not see any improvement in behavior. We were at our wits end. Therapy wasn't working, medication wasn't working and "Jay" kept becoming more aggressive and disrespectful.
Shortly after that conversation with his therapist he went into school and was overheard saying he had a gun. This came one day after the local high school had a gun threat. We were able to locate his father, who agreed to try and straighten him out, so we sent him down to see if it was a change of environment he needed. In all honestly the stress almost killed my wife (his mom). Right before all of this happened she had been diagnosed with a failing aortic valve, which had been stable with only minor degeneration. With all the stress he caused, her valve started failing rapidly, and a few months after sending "Jay" to Florida she had to have the surgery to replace her valve.
Things were at least tolerable for his father and step mother for almost a year and he started the same types of behaviors with them. He has only gotten worse with his aggression towards women and started living away from the home with "friends of friends", strangers really. He is currently in a runaway shelter, but he will be getting out soon and is supposed to return back to his father's house. They have made comments to us on the phone about just "sending him back up here on a bus". My wife, even though her surgery was successful still has very severe reactions to stress: crippling chest pains / headaches, and has been placed on anti-anxiety medication, which doesn't seem to help that much. I can not allow him to hurt our family anymore, but is there anything I can do???
Thank you for any advice or suggestions you may have.
Hoping to find help,
SuperD
