That girl depresses me
Three weekends without her or, as I've specified to my husband, without her bad behavior and life was good, cheery, intimate, optimistic, energetic, full of love and promise.
One weekend with her back and now I've got the blues, big time.
Going on 2 years now of being treated like a leper in my own home. It wears down the soul. It makes me obsessive, constantly trying to figure out how to make this work, how to find the magic formula to fix this. Imagining things I would say to her, actions I would take. Rarely being able to follow through because of all the limitations on me in regards to her.
My husband has done a wonderful job of adapting, making changes in his parenting because he respects my opinion and cares how I feel but the pace is glacial. And that girl has endless reserves of mean. There, I said it. She's mean, mean, mean, mean, mean.
She's fifteen now and as her brain grows she develops ever more subtle ways of showing contempt and hatred to get around the rules that have been imposed on her brick by brick over the last two years. These actions are plain as day to me, a woman, but often inscrutable to her father who is handicapped both by being her parent and by being a man.
How can a person have so much mean in them? I've just never met someone with her kind of personality and character. Shameless. That wonderful Spanish word, sinverguenza .
Got a spectacularly vacant and bankrupt apology from her when my sweetheart intervened. How can a person who will be turned loose on the world in 3 short years be so devoid of sensibility? Doesn't care, doesn't care, doesn't care.
SINVERVERGUENZA
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"How can a person who will be
"How can a person who will be turned loose on the world in 3 short years be so devoid of sensibility?"
Because she is a hormonal teenager.
"She's fifteen now and as her brain grows she develops ever more subtle ways of showing contempt and hatred to get around the rules that have been imposed on her brick by brick over the last two years." Maybe it's been a challenge for her to get used to all of these new rules and his new way of parenting. He just started becoming a better parent when she was 13? He picked the wrong age to make these changes but that's another topic altogether. She probably views you as the person to blame for all these changes she doesn't like. And who could blame her for not liking them? I don't think most of us would like it if someone came along when we were 13 and and our parents started making these changes to keep them around.
The best hope for her may be for her to be on her own for awhile as an adult and experience real life. Maybe then she'll have mellowed out some and realized that her dad was trying to help her, as were you.
I have known many 13 year
I have known many 13 year olds and I was once myself. Never have I seen one who hit grown up ladies or autistic children or completely sucked all the oxygen out of the room wherever she went.
I've never seen a 13 year old who disrupted her own relatives (Dad's Mom and siblings and niece/nephews) so much to the point where all the aunts and uncles intervened and the young children (9 years old) were appalled.
Yeah, I'm the wicked stepmother who finally put a stop to her beating up her little brother, an autistic child with a sweet, cuddly temperament who always smiles. Yeah, I'm that mean.
I'm the wicked mean intruder who insisted she start using utensils instead of dipping her hands in the gravy and putting it to her mouth like an oranguatan.
Yeah, I'm the lousy persnickety prude who insisted she take responsibility for her own bloody panties instead of handing them to her dad.
I'm also the rotten jealous lady who brought her presents, treats, favorite foods, playdates, arranged activities all the time for her. I should be whipped.
Yes, I'm the horrible person who arranged for her to be able to interact with cats several hours a month, her favorite thing in the whole world which she is otherwise not allowed to have.
I'm the disgusting enemy who made it possible for her to have several hours alone with her dad every weekend, which she never got to have ever never ever in life before.
Yeah, I'd resent me, too.
None of her behavior is due to being a normal hormonal teen. It's due to being an uncivilized person with a mean streak wider than the Mississippi.
By the way, she is fifteen
By the way, she is fifteen now. I don't know if I made that clear. If she's old enough to have a boyfriend of her own, which she does, she's old enough to be held accountable for how she treats people.
How very lucky for you. I
How very lucky for you. I never thought I'd hear myself say that, but this kid has pushed me to the edge of sanity. I appreciate your understanding very much.
I do appreciate this
I do appreciate this supportive comment. I am taking it back. It has been a hard road, though, as her father has been blind to her behaviors and to his rewarding of bad behavior. In many, many ways I've taught her I'm not to be messed with and that her Dad and I are united.
BUT IT IS STILL FUCKING HARD.
Having someone live in your home is at heart mean-spirited with very little conscience is just ugly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This may be the only place where people actually get it.
Disengage completely from
Disengage completely from her. She deserves NONE of your time or effort.
I have a Cousin who has raised a mini-wife and we are all paying the price for it now. She is 21 years old and still acts mean and entitled. Still expects Daddeee to bail her out when she can't pay her rent/board or bills - and he does. Needless to say, his marrige is suffering for it right now (I recommended this site to his new wife).
I'm sorry to say but at 15, she ain't gonna change if she's not taught severe consequences. Long as her Dad backs her up and enables her, she will grow up to be a mean, vindictive, selfish, nasty woman. It's truly horrible.
My DH HAD a mini-wife. We haven't seen her in almost a year now. Long as her attitude stays horrible, spiteful and mean, mean mean, she can keep the hell away from us.
Thank you so much for taking
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience, especially about your niece. I've been wondering how this will turn out. I had some dim hope that maybe I was the one in the wrong. That her parents weren't that off in their judgment. You have extinguished that hope.
I have disengaged to a certain degree. But there are things she does that I cannot tolerate in my home and I simply have to have standards.
Her Dad has stopped backing her up, but he still misses a lot cuz she knows how to fly under his radar. It's been a hard year for him, too, because he's had to change a lot of things and see things he didn't want to see. It was painful for him.
Thanks again, your post was helpful.
It's like balm to the soul to
It's like balm to the soul to get this kind of support. Only people who have lived it can really understand. Cheers me up to find this message here this morning.
I would love to hear more of this story if you get time. I have taken back much of my power. I would like to strangle the counselor I went to earlier this year who kept telling me crap like "we like to recommend the natural parent handle all the discipline" or "try to be more 'warm' with her." I told that chick in no uncertain terms that it only began to get better after I did take things into my own hands.
It just zaps the energy, the zest for life, to have such a dedicated enemy in my own home. If I let my guard down for a second - pow! she finds a way to launch a rocket at my heart.
It helps to come here where people really get it.
Mairin, I needed to hear this
Mairin, I needed to hear this story very much. Thanks so much for taking the time to post it. Now, can your aunt adopt me? At least come to dinner Friday night?
This is exactly why I chose my screen name here. It gets really, really, really hard being the chief grownup at our house. My DH, who is a good, good, good man who has tried really hard to adapt for me, gets on a roll with his daughter and allows awful behavior, ignores everyone else in the room, agrees to outrageous things, almost goes out of his way to get in a position for her to manipulate him. I need someone else at the table to have the sanity of a grownup and express the same standards I do. To have the innate understanding that SHE NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT.
It's absolutely exhausting.
And crazy making.
And depressing.
I'm not looking forward to
I'm not looking forward to SD13 turning into this little she-devil but it seems it is inevitable.
Presently, we get along great. She follows my instructions, I am not yet quite her enemy. She knows that what I say goes. However, she has the tendency to ask me for something and if I say no, she goes to her dad, who then says "Sure."
It puts us at odds. She also has this habit of EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND that she is at our house she NEEDS something. She NEEDS sneakers. She NEEDS shoes. She NEEDS cargo pants.
DH, like the idiot he is, ALWAYS buys it for her. However, she will go an entire TWO weeks without sending her dad as much as a text saying HI.
As others have said, don't let go of your power EVER. These girls need strong women in their lives to TEACH them what their failing parents refuse to teach them. Hang in there.
"These girls need strong
"These girls need strong women in their lives to TEACH them what their failing parents refuse to teach them."
Very powerful sentence right there.
Thank you for your support. For what it's worth, my stepdaughter turned on me full blast about 13 1/2. Good luck.