So this is going to be long, just getting that out there.

So my husband is deployed right now and me and his ex are doing the co-parenting thing still, just I have them every other weekend on my days off.

Today after work I picked up my younger step son who is five, and he’s just been a sweet heart all day, which was a relief because a I’ve had a really rough day and been emotional, doesn’t help that I’m pregnant. Their mom told me that older boy (who’s nine) was at his friends and I could pick him up whenever I was ready. So I did some errands, took a shower, and then about an hour later I left to pick him up. I gave him as much time at his friends house as I could since he doesn’t get to go there all of the time.

I show up and immediately he asks if he can spend the night there. I knew that he had already slept over, so I wanted to give his friends mom a break and said no,plus, I hadn’t seen him at all from the last time that I had them over, so I wanted some time with him too.

He got angry immediately, but grudgingly got into the car with me. When we got going the five year old asked if they could play games, and I said that game time was over for tonight, but they can play tomorrow, and the nine year old lost it. He started screaming and kicking my seat. I was trying to stay calm and told him that if he’s going to act this way then he was just going to go to his room and he wasn’t getting games at all while they were with me until he proved that he deserved them.

So. We get home, he’s still screaming, saying he never gets what he wants. I’m just trying to keep from causing as little of a scene as possible while we walk from the car to the door of the house. When we get inside I calmly tell him to go to his room and he of course refuses, so I’m just kinda guiding him up because I can’t carry him right now (usually when he acts like this I’ll just carry him to his room), and halfway up the stairs he grabs my hand and tries to bite me, which he’s never done before. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but when someone is already screaming and then tries to bite me, it’s kinda hard to stay calm. I did yell at him a bit, and I feel bad about that, but he did try to bite me. I got him to his room and he ran onto his bed and screamed that he hated me. It was like the icing on the cake.

I was angry and hurt, but tried to regain my composure, shut his door, and then locked myself in the bathroom and started crying.

When he finally calmed down more and I checked on him I talked to him about how he made me feel and that I understand that he’s angry, but it just hurts me when he calls me names like that. I’m still not ready to give him his games back, but we’ve made a slight improvement.

I understand that he has a lot of emotions that are probably too hard for him to process at nine with his dad being gone, but I can only take so much. I hurt too and miss my husband everyday, and it’s been even harder because he’s not going to be able to be here for the birth of our baby.

I’m not saying that he’s a bad kid, but is there anything that I can do to help his anger? Because he’s gotten worse since the months have gone on without his dad. He’s really such a sweet kid and I love him, but I can’t allow him to treat me this way as it just hurts me so much. I handled it the best I knew how, but I don’t want to have to take his things away every time just to teach him a lesson. Please, I need help and advice.

P.S. I wasn’t sure where to post this, but I’ll change it if I need to.