Hello r/parenting. I like to think that me and my wife are good parents (and good people in general). Everybody has their faults, and everybody can always be better, so I'm hoping to get some feedback on a situation we're dealing with. This is a novel, and I apologize for the length... if you don't have time to read it I don't blame you... but I can't really do a TL;DR.

A little background, my wife and I have been married for 3 years, together for 7. We have a 9 year old daughter (my step daughter), and 18 year old son (her step son, mine biologically), and a beautiful 9 month old baby girl. The subject of this post is our 18 year old son. We both have good jobs, own a house in the suburbs, car payments, dog... the american dream.

I'm 35 years old. Do the math... I was 16 when he was born. I ended up marrying my girlfriend, his mom, about a month before he was born and about 6 months after my 16th birthday. As everyone can expect the marriage didn't last and was a huge mistake. We split up 2 years later and our divorce finalized by time I was 20. Very messy divorce, and me being a young kid didn't have many resources to fight for my rights. I did get visitation and used every visit I could (with a few rare exceptions).

We grew up in a small town and I moved to the capital city about 2 hours away shortly after the divorce. For me personally this was the best move I ever made. I had very little opportunities in my home town, and have since made tremendous growth personally and financially since moving to the city. It was a long process and early on I was very financially strapped but I made it a point to drive my run down car the 4 hours round trip every other Friday to pick up my son, and drive 4 hours round trip Sunday to drop him off. His mom and I eventually got over our personal issues and things were relatively civil. As long as I was paying my child support, which I did faithfully, she didn't rock the boat (didn't have any reason too). My son and I had a great relationship. I taught him to ride a bike, took him the park regularly (he called it the duck park because we'd feed the ducks), all of the great father/son things. This worked well until he was 9.

A little bit about his mom. She left me for a drug using, former felon, piece of shit (I'm actually being nice here). This should give you some insight into her character as well. He eventually turned into an abusive alcoholic (abusive to her, not my son... at least not directly). They divorced last year after a long ugly marriage. They also have 2 kids, but that's beside the point. The point is to paint a picture of the life he was given at his mom's house.

So, back to when my son was 9. He started to form a habit of stealing money. I noticed it a couple of times initially, but didn't have any proof (money came up missing, figured I was losing my mind). Then I caught him red handed one time, sat him down and had a long talk. About a month later I caught him red handed again, and this time I lost my cool. I smacked him across the face. I think what made me lose it was he tried to lie to me and cover it up, even though I saw him pull it out of his pocket. His mom is a habitual liar and seeing that part of her in my son just made me see red. I regret that smack more than anything in my life to this day. It was something that happened in .5 seconds and changed our lives forever. It left a mark on the side of his face and when I dropped him off on Sunday his mom lost her shit. I actually dropped him off with his step dad, he met me at the mall parking lot, so I never actually talked to her. She took him to the hospital, cops came, felony child abuse charges filed. I don't mean to minimize what I did, but to charge me with a felony for this was beyond absurd... I'm sure his mom told an amazing story to the cops. About a month later cops show up at my job and arrest me, I spend 2 nights in jail trying to figure out bail. I hired the best lawyer I could find and he convinced the court that this was blown way out of proportion, charges reduced to a misdemenor and I was ordered to take parenting classes. I completed all of my court ordered commitments, including no contact with my son or his mom throughout my probation that lasted 3 years (plus a year to go through the court process).

After getting off probation I started to try to figure out how to see my son again. I was scared to death to just call his mom and have her call the cops and have me arrested over the no contact order. So I talked to some lawyers and none of them gave me much to hope for. Basically they all said it would be a hard battle if his mom wanted to fight. Since I hadn't seen him in 4-5 years she could easily claim abandonment and I could end up losing parental rights... and be out a mountain of legal fees in the process. This process deflated me. Depressed me. I lost hope and basically just waited for the day for him or her to call me.

Fast forward to the fall of last year. He's 17 at this point. It's been a little over 7 years since I've seen him. I get a message from him on Facebook. He told me he's wanted to get in touch with me for years but his mom wouldn't let him. I'm elated... actually feeling high from the excitement of hearing from him. Then I find out that he's been having drug problems for about 3 years and has been in and out of proctor homes, rehab, and the juvenile system. My heart sank. At the time that he reached out to me he had been out of a juvenile detention center for a month after being there for a year.

We talked over facebook for a while, eventually started talking on the phone, and then he came up to stay with us overnight. Since he had gone through the juvenile system he was custody of the state, his mom didn't have any real say as to what he could and couldn't do. In fact, he was staying with his grandparents because his mom had DCFS involved with her other two kids.

So everything was going good. I had talked with him about his drug use and the trouble he got in and gave him support and advise. Seemed like he was doing great, and I thought me being back in his life would help put him back on the right path. Well, shortly after we got back in touch he relapsed and was sent back to the juvenile facility. I went and visited him there and gave him a "stern talking to", but also made sure he knew I was there to support him. I got in touch with his case worker and we talked at length about his issues. I told him I wanted to have Tyler move in with me because I felt like I could give him some stability and structure that he had lacked for really his whole life. The case worker thought that was a good idea, but wanted to send him to a residential rehab program for boys in his situation. I wasn't thrilled about this as these programs are basically day care for troubled teens. He had been to one of these previously, and he learned some new ways to abuse drugs and cheat the system in the process... and made acquaintences with some other boys that had serious problems. I didn't fight him much on it because I was kind of new to the equation.

He stayed in the juvenile detention facility for 3 months, went to the group home (residential rehab) for 3 months, and then moved in with us in March of this year once he finished. We established some pretty clear rules, don't use any kind of drug (over the counter, street, alcohol, anything), don't break any laws, contribute around the house, take steps to get his life back in order... nothing crazy or too controlling. He was on probation for the first couple of months, which gave him extra motivation to follow the rules (one of the conditions of his probation was to follow my rules).

He relapsed 2 weeks after coming to live with us. I reluctantly let him go hang out with one the friends he met at the group home. They were supposed to just stay at his mom's house and watch movies/hang out. Turns out they met up with another friend and smoked spice. I found out after checking his Facebook account where he was talking with his friends about it. I sat him down and had a very stern talk with him. He denied it all at first and only admitted to it when I laid my cards on the table and told him I can access his Facebook. He apologized and he seemed to get it after a very long talk.

About three weeks later he seemed to be doing good and convinced me again to hang out with this same friend. I realize now that I was a little naive at this point. I let him go... they ended up going to a party and got throwing up drunk. I put my foot down and said he wasn't allowed to hang out with anybody from the group home. He complained about it but ultimately didn't have any ground to stand on. I compromised and said after a couple of weeks we'll talk about it again. I was a little easier on him this time because he actually came clean to me and basically said he made a mistake (I didn't have to do any detective work).

Fast forward a month later, I let him hang out with his friends but he had a 10:00 curfew. One thing I should note is that when I was a teenager I partied and did some drugs too (not to the same extend he has). So I know all the tricks and what to look for. I noticed a few times when he came home he was on something (couldn't nail down if it was drinking, weed, or something else)... but I knew something was up, as much as he tried to cover it up.

I contronted him and after grilling him for a couple hours got a full confesion out of him. He had been drinking and smoking weed regularly. I put my foot down and said absolutely no contact with anyone from the group home, and I took his phone away (which I had gotten for him a couple weeks earlier). He didn't take it well. Basically went down to his room after our talk and snuck out the window. His friend came and picked him up, and he ended up living with him. At this point he was off probation, so there was nothing I could get help from the state with. Plus he's 18 now... not much I could do about it.

This lasted until his friend's mom got sick of the two partying and kicked him out. He came crawling back and at first I told him tough... you can go live in the homeless shelter, I'll give you a ride. Told him if he hit rock bottom he would get his shit together and figure things out. He's actually a very smart and capable kid... in fact he's too smart, he uses it in the wrong ways... if he hit rock bottom and didn't have somebody to enable him he'd figure things out. He broke down and basically begged to let him come back. We allowed it under some conditions, basically follow all of the previous rules, no contact with his friends from the group home, no drugs, etc... and he has to make daily progress on getting his shit together (enrolled in programs to help him get into school, get his license, get a job, etc.).

At this point he asked if his friend from our home town could come live with us as well while they save up to get their own apartment. This kid is actually a really good kid. He didn't get into any trouble with him before, in fact this was the only positive influence he had in his life back in our hometown. We have the room in our house and thought it would be good for him to have a friend that will help keep him out of trouble.

Two weeks into the arrangement our son sneaks out one night to go hang out with his group home friend and gets drunk, smokes weed, and does meth (and loses my phone that he shouldn't have taken with him either, but that's beside the point). I found out a couple of days later and told him he's done. He needs to find some place else to go. The problem now is his friend has quit his job back home to come up here to live and work. He got a job before he even moved up and was working full time. Now not only are we throwing our son out but we're screwing over his friend too. After he begged and pleaded we decided to give him one more shot... a big reason why was we didn't want to screw over his friend who has been a good kid and is working hard. One of the conditions of him staying was he had to attend NA (narcotics anonymous) meetings weekly. It took him a couple weeks to find one to go to, eventhough we hounded him about it, but he eventually started going. We made it very clear that this is his final chance. Get your shit together or you can hit the streets to figure it all out.

Things had been going Ok since then, although I have my suspicions that he's close to another relapse. So on Monday of this week I get a call at work from him saying that his friend lost his job and they're going to move back to our hometown to live with his parents. I'm floored, but was busy at work and didn't have time to talk to him about it. I told him "Ok, let's talk about it when I get home tonight". He said they were packing up now and wanted to leave before I could get home. I asked him to just wait until I got home so we could talk. I get a text message about an hour later saying they were leaving. I respond and tell him that I'm irritated that he's just taking off without talking to us after everything we've done to help him. He basically said he didn't want to hear me call him an idiot for doing this and accuse him of doing drugs (which I haven't done since his last relapse).

So, as expected he called me Tuesday night and realized he had made another mistake. Wants to move back in with us. I told him we need to think about it, but as of now he's done. This was his final chance and I don't know if we can be convinced to let him come back. I'm on the fence, but my wife is pretty adament about not letting them come back (even though she was the one to convince me to let him come back after his last relapse, I was ready to drop him off at the homeless shelter).

If you've made it this far you should get an award. This is a very long drawn out story and I'm amazed you took the time to read it. So, I would love to hear any feedback. If you take any one of the incidents we dealt with over the last 6 months they're not huge, but the entire series of events combined together has me and my wife at our wits end. We don't know what to do. Should we take him and his friend in again? Should we tell them to figure things out back home, and are welcome to visit anytime? If we do bring them back in what should the terms be?