Why is my son behaving this way?

[hopefulmother]

My son just turned 33 years old.  He was well behaved while we were rasing him. We had the normal situations except when he turned 18.  We lost a car because he committed a felony with some friends.  My husband and I did everything we could from preventing him to go to jail. This was very painful for us. The judge agreed that we pay $1,200 for some things that he and other friends carried in my car.  After this incident, my son seem to repent and went on to college and graduated with good grades.  He fell in love while in college. He moved to Florida to find a job, got married and took his wife with him.  He was working very hard and after a year and a half, moved to another job which offered him better pay but a year later, was laid off.  My husband decided to help our son get an auto body business because my husband had always dreamed of having a family business. Our house was remortaged and we put over $200K in the business. After 4 years of waiting to see the business grow, we notice that things are in bad shape.  We have been paying all the expenses because our son has been telling us that business is bad. We have had not even a penny of profit.  Everything we hear is: things are bad and he doesn't have money to pay the bills of the business.  He had a car and lost it.  His apartment had to be sold.  The economic situation is very, very bad.  His marriage is in trouble. Every day we hear of another financial problem or need.  My husband took out some money from his 401K and paid off all our debts plus sent him about $20K to help clean up his debts.  Our son doesn't tell us everything even though we ask.  He was supposed to get up to date with his financial problems but it doesn't like he has.  My heart has such a sinking feeling that something is awfully wrong but I don't know what it is. It hurts me to see my husband try so hard to help but we are not seeing positive results.  What could be wrong?    We don't understand our son's behavior.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

This Forum is really meant to address questions about children and teens. I can't speculate about what might be occurring with your son. Obviously something is wrong and he is not being frank with you. Is he gambling, does he have a substance abuse problem, who knows? Whatever the case, you can no longer bail him out, so to speak. He is at a crossroads and has some serious decisions to make if he is to get his life in order.

[LRM1021]

Just a note-- I'm not sure you posted this in the correct forum. This is a forum for questions on child psychology -- true children, like minor age children, not grown adults.

[IJM1974]

I think you posted in the right place.

He sounds like he's acting like a spoilt child to me.

Stop bailing him out. He may need to find out what real life is like. He will eventually anyway, once you and your husbands capital is exhausted. If you're wealthy enough to keep him in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed then you need to get used to babying him for the rest of your lives.