SD15 is so nasty to me that it depressed me all week. I blogged about it here and thank you for all your kind comments and support. I realized I was getting in dangerous territory with my depressed feeings.

Last night I told DH I couldn't take it any more and had to make some changes. Beginning with I would not be home for tonight's dropoff. I usually make a family meal for Friday nights and I told him I just couldn't go through one more of those where she chatters her head off and subtly and not so subtly makes sure I'm excluded from the entire dinner conversation.

DH has worked on this particular issue but at the end of the day he's an engineer, not a professional talk show host and really it's not fair to expect him to be able to direct a quadrilateral conversation with a renegade member. I end up fuming silently at best and at worst erasing myself out of existence for the whole evening. And that's just the kickoff to the rest of the weekend.

My husband was very saddened by this whole discussion but even more so he knew it had been a bad blue week for me and was already thinking about how to fix this. I am a naturally happy person--annoyingly so as my kind (sarcasm) stepdaughter has let me know at the top her snarkiest voice--so me not being able to cheer myself up for days on end is very noticeable and alarming.

While I would still recommend taking normal parenting steps, in a female style I guess, such as removing more privileges and taking corrective actions in an ascending scale, DH feels now the only answer is to keep her away from me more and that means keeping her away from himself as well. This morning he took steps to have her mother keep her more often...a prelude to possibly having her never in our home at all for the immediate future.

I'm very sad about this development. He feels he has tried everything he's personally capable of doing and she continues to disappoint him and drive me nuts. So he's letting go of her. He's hoping she'll realize behavior really does have natural consequences and straighten up, but he's willing to risk that she won't.

As for me, I'm done insisting on this or that as it relates to her. Whatever he wants to do is fine with me, but I have to take care of myself. That girl has two parents already, the only person I'm responsible for is me and I cannot allow myself to be pushed into a clinical depression.

I did some research and found that how I was feeling was completely normal and predictable. It was NOT that I was overly sensitive or my expectations for a teen were too high.

A) "When a person is ostracized, the brain's dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, which registers physical pain, also feels this social injury...."

"Again and again research has found that strong, harmful reactions are possible even when ostracized by a stranger or for a short amount of time."

C)"People who are ostracized suffer deeply, including the obvious loss of self-esteem and depression, but also including physiological symptoms such as ulcers, suppression of the immune system, anxiety, psychosis (in prolonged isolation, such as prisoners kept in solitary confinement), and a loss of feeling valued or having any meaningful existence. But perhaps more troubling is the rage that is associated with being ostracized."

And, yes, the research specifies this is just as true when the ostracizing is committed by a family member, even a child.

For any of you who might be interested, here are links to just a couple of the articles:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110510151216.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beyond-bullying/201309/the-silence-s...

During our discussion last night, as I was telling him her complete absence was not really what I was hoping for he said, "You didn't get married to be tortured."

That is so so so so true. It really describes what I've been going through for 2 years now. I have definitely had enough and I am lucky to have a husband who really will go this far for me.

I feel bad for my husband about seeing his daughter less. I feel bad for both of us that we couldn't just go on our merry way with the happy home life we both envisioned. I even feel bad for the fifteen year old girl who is missing out on so much by her stubborn desire to be mean.

But I do feel more optimistic than I have felt all week. The only person I'm in charge of, me, is not going to have to go through the weekly assault on the psyche any more.