I [36F] am a little over six months pregnant with my second child, and my teenage son is having a hard time coping with this change, I think. I'm not really sure how to handle this, but so far everything I've tried seems to be making things worse.I am not with his bio dad and haven't been for a long time (since around the time that my son was born) and his dad hasn't ever been in the picture that he can remember, so it has been just the two of us for a long time. I suspect that in some ways this is part of the problem.A few years ago I met my current husband; we married last summer. My son has always had a good relationship with his step-dad. They spend a lot of time together and probably have more shared interests than my son and I have. It's always been important to me that they have a good relationship because I've never wanted my son to feel left out of my life, mistreated or like anything would be more important to me than him and his well being.Now that I am pregnant it seems like our family dynamic is falling apart. He and my husband are constantly fighting. My son refuses to listen to anything my husband has to say and loves to drop the "you are not my dad" card as an excuse for not having to listen to him. He also refuses to listen to me too most of the time. He has always been a good kid who follows the rules and listens, so this isn't like him at all.We have also been having some issues with him in school. He is still getting good grades, but he has been defiant with some of his teachers and gotten in trouble because of it. He has also cut a few classes.All of this behavior started after we told him that I was pregnant, so I'm not sure how much of this is normal teenage behavior versus related to the pregnancy since he's never been this way before. It also seems to have gotten worse since I became visibly pregnant and haven't felt up to doing some things with him like we did in the past (like running together at a local park or having to postpone the yearly trip we take to the beach around the time I'm due).I was very anxious before I got pregnant about making sure he doesn't feel excluded or replaced, so I have consciously tried to find ways to reassure him that even though my focus may change for a bit my love for him will never change and to spend as much time with him one on one now while I can before the baby makes that difficult. The problem is he never wants to spend time with me anymore or talk to me. It is hard enough to even get him to be seen with me out in public since he is embarrassed by my bump.I didn't want to be pushy since he complained about not having space so I have backed off a bit in trying to do these things, but when I did he started complaining about how my husband and I didn't care about him anymore and treated him like a nobody, which I don't understand since we have always spent a lot of time and effort on making sure his needs are all met and he has a good life. Then when we tried to go back to reassuring him that he is loved he went back to complaining about being smothered.Before my husband and I ever started trying to get pregnant, we had mentioned the idea of having a baby to my son in part because he'd asked about it in the past. He seemed excited at the time about the possibility of getting a sibling since he wanted one for many years, but now that doesn't seem to be the case.I don't know what to do. What bothers me more than anything is that I feel like by having this baby I've hurt my son and damaged my relationship with him and his with his step dad. I keep hoping that maybe it will get better, but I don't know if that is reasonable.I'm just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this situation and if so how you approached it with your teenager. I don't know whether to back off and give him space or if I need to keep trying to show him that we love him and nothing will ever change that.I also don't know what to do about the defiance and problems listening.Is there anything I should be doing to prep him for the baby or to deal with the age gap? I know it seems like because of his age he should be able to handle this, but he's not and I'm looking for anything that might help us.Edit to add that we would like to have one more baby after this but now I am rethinking it because of how hard things have been this time, although my son would probably be away at college by then. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2HQ3Zum
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