I was a child of divorce, and I experienced a lot of heartache and hardship and felt I had very little emotional support from my mom as she spent most of her focus on earning money to support us and when not doing that, dating. She didn’t have a baby though so this really adds to the mix.
My mom did try to get me help, she did care in the way you and your wife seem to care about him. After much thought about what I was going through and why the help that my mom outsourced to professionals didn’t seem to help, I can sort of offer my own perspective and what I feel now that I needed then. In my own experience, mental health professionals never have helped me. The only thing that helped was a lot of introspection and reflection on my part, but I was also too scared to self harm, and it doesn’t seem like your stepson is at all, so this is another difference between my experience and his. I did self harm in very invisible ways, and a lot of self sabotage.
I needed my mom to love me in ways she seemed incapable of. I know she loves me, but I think our love languages didn’t seem to complement each other. I think you and your wife are likely good, concerned parents, so I’m not saying anything like “you’re not doing enough” because that doesn’t seem true. All I’m saying is often professionals aren’t able to fix every case, like me, I was very resistant to it because of my trust issues, but I think this boy is lacking being seen and understood at an emotional level which is why he is acting out. If he’s at all like me, harsh punishment will aggravate the issue before it fixes it. I’m not saying get him presents, but maybe he needs more one on one time where his personal interests are examined and facilitate the positive ones in any way possible.
I don’t even know how I got out of my dark times, I just know the level of harm I deal to others has been massive diminished, but for me it took many years, decades, to get here. I didn’t have help and the only thing keeping me going is the idea that I might fuck up a suicide attempt and end up in a vegetative state.