Don't likemy SD
Been married just 5 months, but together over 2 years, husband has two children aged 3 (SD) and 6 (SS) which we have 100% of the time, as disney mum is useless. SS also has global development delay.
Everything has been difficult for the last 5 months, but I just can't stand my SD. She is obviously going through a phase, but she is driving me CRAZY! We are telling her off from the moment she wakes everyone up to the minute she finally falls asleep. She wakes us up frequently throughout the night. She stirs and causes trouble all day long. She relishes the time out mat and either stares you down or blatantly ignores anything we say. She constantly throws tantrums, stamping her feet, screaming, growling like an animal. She breaks stuff and is extremely vindictive - even hurting our family animals in her anger.
Every single little activity becomes drawn out and a bigger than ben hur issue. Its hard to tell whether she maybe has ADHD or something and should be medicated.
Every day ends in exhaustion and I know its wrong but I just cant stand to be around her.
Hurting animals is disturbing
Hurting animals is disturbing (the most). Has she been evaluated? Is she in therapy? If not, her father needs to have that done ASAP.
Something is wrong
With that kid. You have to do something NOW. It's only going to get worst if you let it go. She needs help and medication
"Telling her off from the moment......."
Stop that.
Remove her from the presence of anyone else. Put her in an isolated place where she can sit and contemplate her naval and she has zero access to influence over anyone else.
You and daddy are playing her game by her rules. Change the game. You make the rules.
Swat to the ass, march her to her isolation space by a twisted ear, and leave her there. PERIOD! DOT!
She acts up, she is isolated. She chooses to act up, she chooses isolation. Get her in therapy but do not tolerate her shit behavioral choices. If it is this bad at 6yo, project to the future if you and daddy do not immediatley take a zero tolerance stance on this shit.
IMHO of course.
EDIT: Tone down my recommendation. I just realized that SD is 3yo. Get her therapy, extend the Time Out duration to as long as it takes to give everyone else a break, and make the location isolated.
Take care of you.
DH and you have your hands
DH and you have your hands full with a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Since SS6 has global development delay, you are already familiar with the early intervention system. If you have not had SD3 evaluated yet, do so now. Ask for some suggestions on how to deal with her behavior so that you are not "telling her off constantly". There are ways to redirect and reinforce behavior that work better than 'telling off".
She's not vindictive- she's
She's not vindictive- she's three.
Three is a hard age and she's
Three is a hard age and she's probably overwhelmed with emotions and feelings she can't process. The skids would no doubt feel rejected by their mother and are internalising those feelings and then there is a "new mother" on the scene which would add to their confusion. I'd say she's just acting out and perhaps also has something else going on like ADHD etc.
I do truly understand how you feel, I've never liked my SD either. She was a difficult child from the get go (age 2 when we met) and we knew early on she had something going on like ADD and possibly something else. BM put up roadblock after roadblock for getting her tested so we didn't get professional confirmation of ADD until SD was in high school and then weren't able to do any further assessments to find out what else is going on as BM undermined the process at every turn and SD decided there was nothing wrong with her. SD is 17 now and I still don't like her and never will. I semi-disengaged about 2 years ago to protect my sanity.
You are in a better situation as you and DH have full control of the skids so you need to get her assessed immediately and into ongoing therapy. You also need to get yourself into therapy. Step-parenting is the hardest thing in the world and you have taken on your skids full-time. I don't know if I would have survived if I'd had my skids full-time so give yourself some credit - it's a huge thing you have taken on and you need to be kind to you and make sure you look after yourself!
Best of luck!
These are both your step kids?
Why are you herding these particular cats? Is your spouse actually that great in bed, or actually that super a provider, maybe such a great sales person to draw you into this drama and keep you in? Is he that promising as someone for you to spend your precious and limited reproductive capacity on--someone you would love to have kids with? Darlin', this is a mess. WHY ARE YOU TAKING THIS ON?
Here's my guess: You're cheap help and a handy bed warmer. Get away from this horrible situation before you're well and truly stuck.
I know what it is!
If you have ever watched national geographic, the new lions or other animals will try to run off or even murder the babies of other fathers. Sadly, we are animals too and we dislike or have conditional love for our skids because they're not ours. It's very hard to love someone that is almost like a stranger in your home. You didn't see them at birth, you didn't see them grow for 9 months, you didn't pick them. Therefore you cannot love them and never will. So just think about nat geo the next time, you wonder why you don't like your skid.
Also the ADD
We went through this as well. Medicating my ss was the best thing that happened to him and us. He never had real friends and was called annoying all the time. Atleast we have peace from 7am to about 7pm now. Even when the doctor ran the test, he could tell he had ADHD. I fought my wife on it for 4 years but she got real quiet when he wasn't getting on her nerves as much anymore. Make it happen!