A or B?

Michael is going to be spending a week with his mom, after Christmas. Which is causing some problems. Anytime he has to spend time with his mother he gets really irritable for a week or two beforehand. Just this morning he told me in detail how I was the source of all evil in the world, swore at me twice, and slammed three doors. And that was just his first half hour out of bed.

When he comes back here, it'll be the same thing for another couple of weeks, while he decompresses from being around her.

All of which makes me feel torn. I hate that he's so unhappy and angry with his mom. I worry about him having visitation with her when it upsets him this much.

On the other hand, all this drama makes me glad he'll be gone for a week. No swearing or slamming doors!

I just don't know how to approach his relationship with his mother. This Christmas she has sent him (so far) three big cardboard boxes full of presents. When he gets them he tears through them, claiming what he likes, disdainfully tossing aside what he doesn't care for.

He'd rather be flayed alive than thank her for anything. He refuses to talk to her on the phone, and if he does only gets mean and nasty to her. He makes demands on her constantly; when he does talk to her it's to order her to send him money, collectibles, and clothing we won't buy him.

If she does what he wants, he is marginally polite to her, sometimes. If she doesn't pony up, though, she gets hung up on until she complies.

I hate the way he treats her and I think it's really bad for him to have this "gimme, gimme" attitude. I'm inclined to see Michael's behavior as a mixture of self-pity and manipulation. I think he's being a brat with her, because he can get away with it. He'd do the same to me if I let him get away with it. (He's tried, and I didn't.) Michael's idea of the perfect world would involve the rest of us running around as servants to him, while he gets to do whatever he wants. (In other words, how dare I ask him to take out the garbage, and why haven't I bought more junk food, because we're out!)

He does have good reason to be angry with her, though. (Long and complicated.) And the husband is worried something more is wrong than we know about. He thinks Michael's anger is excessive. "This is his mother!" the husband will say. "Kids shouldn't be that angry with their mothers!" And what do I know, that I can contradict him? I haven't known Michael all his life. The husband has. If he feels something else is wrong, I'm reluctant to dismiss those feelings.

If the husband is right, it would be a really bad thing to insist he be polite and courteous to his mother, and a much better idea to make sure he was never alone with her again. But if I'm right, and Michael is just being a jerk, then he's getting away with it. If it's just manipulation, not justifiable rage, then he's learning, basically, to be an abuser. Which scares the living daylights out of me.

The husband and I have kicked this around many times, and we still can't agree on what to do.

This is the sort of thing that makes step-parenting so hard.