I know I know, several of my very welcome comments on my last post told me not to and to leave DH, BM and SD to it. But unfortunately I am a person who can never let it lie. I have had the benefit of a tremendously loving confiding family upbringing and I really struggle to just brush things under the carpet and pretend I have no involvement in what is happening. Plus at the end of the day I feel I’m an adult and she’s a child, and I have a role in how this child turns out,. Ultimately the important thing is that whatever is causing her to act out is addressed.

Prior to this noble resolve I barely spoke to SD for 4 days, partly because without being able to talk about the Actual Issue I found I couldn’t talk to SD about anything at all, I just couldn’t bring myself to make small talk. I was also very upset about her behaviour, and wanted her to know that. As time went on I began to feel that my silence had gone on too long, this was not a grown up way to deal with things. I was going to have to say something, but what.

Last night I went to stay with a friend, we went out for dinner and quite a few drinks, I had a bit of space to regroup. When I got back this afternoon I distracted myself by replying to my StepTalk comments, spent an hour agonising about what to say, and went to her room.

So how did it go and what did I say? As always not quite as planned. I got across some of what I wanted to say, then I got frustrated and said some things which could have been better put, then we had to finish because DH was shouting that dinner was ready. I started off by saying she had probably noticed that I had been a bit quiet. She looked relieved I had decided to say something and said yes. I said the reason I was so quiet was because I was so upset about her behaviour. That she had been telling so many lies that I felt like I didn’t really know her and that made me sad, and also uncomfortable being around her. I gather from many other posts on StepTalk that there are a lot of SK’s who would tell the SM they didn’t give a toss and they could sod off at this point, so I guess it‘s a measure of my relationship with SD, and her upbringing to date that she did not do so!

In summary she said she didn’t feel close to anyone, that she preferred it that way and didn’t like being close to people, and that if you get close to people they just judge you and you end up hurt. This was all said whilst staring at her lap, but in a fairly bolshy ‘this is how it is’ fashion. Note that SD does have a large circle of friends, but I think she compartmentalises things and gives no-one the full picture. I was fairly horrified by this, although it did not entirely come as news to me because part of the reason I am in such a state about SD14, despite this being my 4th teenage SK (I am in my 7th year of step-parenting and have also got SD23, SD20 and SD19 (AND SS12!)), is that she has always been the most vulnerable and private. As a younger child she was a pleaser who basically did and said what she thought she ought to in order to make people happy. I think she was pretty traumatised by her parents rows before and after DH left, and all the turmoil amongst her older sisters, and didn’t want to upset anyone. I believe that ‘keep it all hidden’ instinct has morphed now she is a teenager into keeping everything secret so she can do what she wants without confrontation. Noter the BM and DH do have a fairly amicable relationship now, although the BM is a bit unstable and definitely drinks too much.

Anyway, I did not handle this section of the conversation well, I got distracted by the surliness of her manner rather than focussing on the meaning of what she had said and I kind of berated her about having such a negative view when she had so many people who care about her and then with some justification she told me ‘see, I just told you something and you judged me!’. God to have an ear mike and a child psychologist to tell me what to say to that! She said she couldn’t explain why she’d behaved as she did, she’d already been grilled by 3 people and just didn’t have anything else to say. I got cross, I told her I felt she was fundamentally dishonest and that her manner made me very worried she was going to sit out her grounding and then go right back and carry on the same behaviour with new tactics to avoid getting caught.

She told me I had told her (in a previous conversation 9 months ago) that she could trust me and talk to me about things, and then she got into trouble and I didn’t talk to her for 4 days. She got a bit teary at this point. I pointed out that in that conversation I had also warned her that if she isolated herself with secrets and lies and didn’t let people in on what was really going on in her life she would end up very isolated and lonely, and she had gone ahead and done that regardless of what I had said. I told her she wanted me to be all normal and friendly and chatty but that that’s very difficult when there’s so much going on unsaid and how could we have a meaningful relationship if she would not tell me anything about what was really going on in her life. Then it was time for dinner!

So, after dinner I put BD3 and BS18months to bed and go back to the kitchen to tell DH that I talked with her, it had not gone well, I did not think I would be doing it again. I was feeling I had just got back from banging my face into a stone wall. THEN he tells me he has just got off the phone to SD19, who is in tears because BM is blaming her for SD14 going off the rails, because SD19 pushed a lot of boundaries when she was younger and has always been a tolerant confidante for SD14. (Although SD14 told DH last week that she is not really even that close to SD19 and doesn’t tell her lots of stuff).

If you’re still reading this highly convoluted post thank you for your patience, I know I go on at length but this is how I vent! Anyhow, SD19 tells DH that SD14 won’t even talk to her and has told her that she knows she has really upset me but the only person she really wants to talk to is me! Well this knocks me for 6. Then I’m thinking ‘hmm, is she just saying that to shut SD19 up so she’ll back off’, or, have I really messed up the conversation and if I had handled it differently she might have actually confided something. I tell DH I am now REALLY confused because she has shown no inclination to confide in me at all. I have a big glass of water and pace the living room. I decide to go back in and storm the battlefield despite my wounds from the first encounter. SD14 is lying on the bed reading a book (all internet access has been revoked and her phone removed, she’s having to fall back on ancient and traditional forms of entertainment). I announce that I am very much like the Terminator, I never give up. This almost gets a smile and she sits up. My priority for this conversation is that I correct any impression she may have got that I am going to withdraw my affection if she gets into trouble, and reopen the lines of communication in case she does actually want to tell me WHY she is acting out.

So I sit on the bed, I tell her that I may not have talked to her for a while, but that that didn’t mean she couldn’t trust me or I didn’t care, on the contrary my level of upset over her behaviour was because I love her very much (voice breaks a bit here) and sometimes it’s really hard to be a Stepmum and know the right thing to do. We hug, she sheds a few tears, I tell her that it’s really important to me that she has a happy life and that if there is something that is bothering her that has caused her to be so closed off that I just hope that one day she feels able to tell someone, and it doesn’t have to be me. Then I leave.

So there you are. I have told DH I have decided we all have our own role in managing SD’s behaviour, his and BM’s is to take a firm line and be consistent, mine is to support that and be a caring alternative that she might confide in. I spent the rest of the evening in a state of EXHAUSTION and had to have a cup of tea and try to switch off my brain off by browsing Topshop online for clothes that I cannot afford to buy. Thanks for reading!