My husband and I have been married almost 10 yrs, lived together 12 yrs. When I met him, his kids were G3 and B5. BM was pretty psycho for a few years, but has a new BF now who is 'normal' and she is much happier and easier to get along with.

Lately, it has been battle royal with SD15. We were all sitting on the couch last week watching TV, and DH told her to shut off the cell and the texting and she refused because she "had to tell everyone who's texting me that I'm shutting off my phone", with a nasty attitude. I said that was no way to speak to your father, and she told me to "F" myself and began screaming that she hated all of us, we could all go "F" ourselves and that she was going to kill herself. I calmly said that was great language skills she was using and she continued to scream as she and my DH ran upstairs to scream at each other some more. This happens more often than not. She threatens to go to her BM's house and never come back, and he gets all freaked out that "he's going to lose her forever". BM and he have agreed that running away to each other's houses will not be an option for her. She and I have not spoken since. I feel she owes both of us a sincere apology for the things she said to us, but she has never apologized in the past for anything she has done, and her father doesn't really push it or repremand her if she doesn't.

Last nite, the 3 of us were in the car on the way to SS17's basketball game, and DH ordered her to apologize to me, and was demanding that we speak to each other. She said she said hello to me when I walked in the house (which she did not), and the attitude came on again. He finally got her to state why I made her so mad - because she doesn't like 'people butting into her conversations'. I said I did not like rude, disrespectful, ungrateful behavior. He forced her to say 'sorry', but with such venom in her voice; I don't accept that.

I am very hurt that he allows her to be so disrespectful and rude, not only to me but to everyone in the house, including her brother. My patience with this behavior and DH's lack of the guts to lay down the law with her is getting thin. Even though she gets poor grades during the year, he still allows her to play sports and do whatever she wants. I tell him there should be consequences for bad behavior or grades, but he brushes it off. Am I being too hard-nosed? If I ever treated my parents like that, I would be missing a few of my teeth!