So, I have for the past 8 or so years put up with some major disrespect from SD (when I probably shouldn't have)... I've noticed that quite a bit of this revolved around my cooking dinner, she never says please/thank you, she has nothing nice to say about it, half of the time she tosses it out, and on top of it, she will go so far as to complement her mother's cooking at the table while she is eating to rub it in. So this year, I decided I would stop cooking for her, and DH cooks, or she cooks for herself. I haven't had to hear comments about how wonderful her mom cooks in months, and when DH cooks she no longer has the sickly sweet, you're so wonderful dad! Thank you for making XYZ, it's the best!...

Now DH is working nights every so often, and I cook for my kids, and just leave SD to fend for herself (I stock her up with meals she can fix herself, she has a lot to choose from). So all of this comes to a head last night, she wants what I made. So I told her if she was going to eat what I cooked, she needed to ask nicely, because I wasn't going to fix her something she would just toss anyway, she needs to keep her comments about her mom's cooking to herself, and she needed to say thank you. I told her she's been rude, and I'm tired of it. This was met with a shocked expression (how dare I not just cook for her!), and followed by my comment that if she couldn't bring herself to do that she needed to fix her own meal. She promptly left the kitchen and slammed her bedroom door... which I figured is just hormonal angst...

And I feel bad, I'd really like for us to all sit down and eat together, I know kids behave like turds.. quite often, but I'm tired of taking crap from her... I get that I'm automatic poo under her foot because I married her dad, and I shouldn't expect her to just be super nice, loving, and accepting... but I also don't want to open up anymore opportunities for her to treat me badly.