I’m a lesbian in a big city. My partner of five years is the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met, and we are deeply in love, and plan to spend the rest of our lives together. She has a son from an early-in-life marriage to a man. He is eighteen years old, a senior in high school, and living at home with his mother. (My partner and I do not live together.) About two years ago he got swept up in MAGA hate, toxic masculinity, and virulent homophobia. He is incredibly verbally abusive to my partner and increasingly to me. He has threatened her physically a couple of times. He has called me a pedophile and refers to me as “that piece of shit.” He has said that Trump is going to “take care of people like” me and his mother! All his friends are MAGA bros, but he is too embarrassed by his gay mother to bring them around. My sister says it’s past time for this young man [to] find his own place to live but my partner doesn’t want to throw him out because that’s what’s been done to so many queer young people and of course she loves him. She has a lot of justifications for why he turned out this way. I am hesitant to keep weighing in because he’s her kid, but it affects me and our relationship. He is the angriest and most hateful person, and he thinks I am preventing his mother from living a “normal life.” I don’t know what boundaries I should set but I’m not willing to give up this woman who I love with all my heart. I would welcome any advice you might have.
This Relationship Under Mounting Pressure
I agree with you and your sister: your girlfriend should give her adult child a reasonable amount of time to find someplace else to live — perhaps he might be happier living with his father — and then make an appointment with a locksmith to have the locks on her house changed on a set date. (If this were happening to me, that reasonable about of time would be thirty minutes, and that set date would be today’s date.)
Your girlfriend also needs to stop making false equivalencies: yes, hateful parents have thrown out kids because they disapproved of their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But your partner wouldn’t be throwing her son out (read: politely asking him to move out) because she disapproves of his political identity. The problem here isn’t this kid’s loathsome political beliefs — it’s not that he’s a MAGA bro — but his unacceptable behavior: he’s threatened his mother with violence and verbally abused his mother’s partner. Queer adult children who threaten their loving parents with violence and are towering assholes to their parents’ opposite-sex partners deserve to get tossed out on their asses too.
Worried my reaction might be too harsh — and conscious of the fact that I don’t have much expertise in this area — I shared your letter with Joanna Schroeder, the feminist writer and media critic whose work focuses on raising healthy boys. In addition to writing a newsletter (“Zooming Out”) about parenting, relationships, and family equity, Schroeder is the co-author (with Christopher Pepper) of the forthcoming book Talk To Your Boys: 27 Crucial Conversations Parents Need to Have With Boys (And How to Have Them). Instead of quoting from her long, thoughtful, and far more than-mine response, TRUMP, I’m gonna share it in its entirety.
There are two issues I see at work here, and while they may feel like one big problem, they need to be kept separate while making a plan for what to do next.
My first concern, and most pressing, is that this young man is threatening violence toward his mother. Regardless of any other concerns — his politics, his homophobia, the way he expresses his masculinity — this is a potentially dangerous situation, not just for your partner, but also for her son. At his age, assuming he is intellectually and developmentally typical, threats like this can indicate something is wrong and that it’s time to enlist the help of a licensed mental health professional. This should be the first order of business: family therapy and/or arranging for him to meet with a licensed therapist who is experienced working with adolescents.
One caveat: As tempting as it may be, this offer or nudge toward professional help should come from a place of compassion (if safe and possible) and should be pursued by his mom or both parents, without mention of his politics — focusing on the threats and other objectively unsafe behavior. As dangerous as the extreme wings of MAGA culture can be to so many of us, bringing up his politics will only push him further away and give his mom less influence in his life… and that’s the last thing we want.
It’s important to remember that rage and angry outbursts can be red flags for major depression — especially in boys and men. While I have no doubt that his mom is a fantastic parent and tried to raise him in a loving, accepting environment, it can be hard for boys and young men to escape the more oppressive aspects of masculinity that tell boys to push down their pain or externalize it into rage. He may also have something in his history that caused him to feel shame, and shame is very easily catalyzed into rage when it’s not addressed.
While it’s hard to have compassion for someone who is so cruel to you, when we’re talking about a child — and a senior in high school is still a child — I’d guess his possible mental health issues started before he discovered this radical, hate-based sect of MAGA. Based on patterns I’ve observed with boys in similar situations, I’d bet he was having a tough time and they flooded him with acceptance — which is so affirming for teenage boys who often feel awkward and unwanted — and gave him an outlet for his rage in the form of people he could blame for his uncomfortable feelings. In other words, I’d guess that these extremist opinions are a symptom of the problem rather than the origin of it, and that his community is inflaming and exacerbating the situation rather than helping him address and heal it.
That brings me to my second concern: how his politics are being discussed in their home. If the message he’s hearing from his extremist bros is, “They’ll never accept us,” and, “They don’t care about us,” and, “They want to dominate us and take away our identity,” the last thing we want to do with our kids is confirm that the extremists are correct. This happens when we refuse to accept that their opinions are different from ours, push them away from us because of their politics, or try to force them to become like us or believe what we believe through guilt, coercion or ultimatums.
For now, while your partner attempts to address the possible mental health aspects of her son’s behavior, I would suggest pushing “pause” on any discussions about Trump, MAGA, or politics in general. That doesn’t mean she cannot have boundaries for her (and your) safety. For instance, he is not allowed to threaten her, to insult her or say homophobic things that make anyone feel unsafe in her home. Beyond that, don’t engage with him on these issues. Instead, opt out of conversations like this and, should he start to escalate, remind him that everyone should feel safe in their home.
As for you, I know you love your partner, but you don’t deserve to be threatened or insulted by anybody. You get to set the terms for how you will be treated by this young man, and seeing as you don’t live with them, this can be as simple as setting a boundary and making clear that if he cannot refrain from threats, insults or degrading language, you will simply leave the house. You do not have to go back there if it feels unsafe, but you also do not get to tell your partner that her high school-aged son should be kicked out of the house.
As a mom of sons around the age of her son, I can tell you that asking a person to choose between a romantic partner and their own kid won’t end well for anyone. Instead, I’d suggest supporting your partner on her journey to help her son become stable while establishing your own boundaries around safety and comfort, and drawing lines there. That may mean only seeing your partner away from her home or while her son is out. It may also, unfortunately, mean taking space in the relationship to keep yourself safe. — Joanna Schroeder
I wanna thank Joanna Schroeder for being so generous with her time and sharing such great advice — advice I sadly suspect will be relevant to other readers — before adding two quick things.
First quick thing: if your partner’s son refuses to see a therapist and continues making threats — if those reminders that everyone should feel safe in their own home don’t have the desired effect — out on his ass he goes. (Or should go; again, this is your partner’s decision to make, not yours or mine.)
Second quick thing: I wanna emphasize one of the points Schroeder made in her response. You’re allowed to set your own boundaries. Refusing to be around this kid while your partner gets him the help he needs to address his rage issues — including the work of getting him to accept that help in the first place — may mean spending less time with your partner in the near term. But seeing as her son is old enough to feed and bathe himself (and old enough to vote, unfortunately), this “kid” doesn’t need a full-time parent anymore. So, your partner should be free to retreat to your place for days or even weeks at a time while her son is 1. still living at home and 2. still being a towering asshole.
P.S. If this kid’s father isn’t in the picture — if he can’t go live with dad — you would think this kid would be grateful to the parent who’s there for him. But angry teenagers are notorious for directing their rage at the parent whose love, support, and presence they take for granted. I’m old enough to know people who had terrible relationships with their kids when they were teenagers who now have great relationships with their adult children. It doesn’t make a stage like this any less unpleasant, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but happens regularly enough that hope for a better relationship with this kid in the future isn’t irrational. So, your partner — and you — shouldn’t give up hope or write this kid off entirely. And if and when this kid comes around emotionally and/or politically, don’t hold the angry teenager he once was against the reasonable adult he eventually became.
P.P.S. If you and your partner’s lesbianism is the reason this kid isn’t bringing his shitty MAGA friends around right now… and making himself scarce… thank God for your lesbianism. If that worked on all MAGA bros and being a lesbian was a choice, I’d choose to be a lesbian myself. Who wouldn’t want a forcefield like that?
P.P.P.S. The next four years are gonna suck. But they’ll suck worse if we let the news cycle — and the man who dominates it — drain the joy from our lives. We need to pay attention and we need to stay in the fight. Because of course we do. But we should spend as much time as we possibly can over the next four years with friends and lovers doing things that bring us joy. Anyone who tells you that making time for joy — however you define it — is a distraction or a betrayal has no idea what they’re talking about. During the darkest days of the AIDS Crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced at night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.
Follow Joanna Schroeder on Instagram and Threads @JFSchroeder1 and on Twitter @IProposeThis. Subscribe to Zooming Out on Substack. Talk To Your Boys to be published by Workman in April. For updates and presales, go to www.TalkToYourBoys.com.
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