Stepdaughter troubles
I am a stepmom, have been for almost 12 years now. SD is now 15, almost 16. Her mother passed away in Sept. The road has been paved with LOTS of heartache due to Mom's inability to get over the fact that Dad found someone else. Mom left Dad, not the other way. SD has went so far as to go to foster care to get away from Mom because of the family law judge wouldn't allow her to live w/dad.
When Mom died in Sept the SD refused to live w/Dad due to 'we hated Mom'. Mom is now being touted as an angel, etc... by all. Its like the past has been erased! Courts stated Dad had legal custody as soon as Mom passed away. SD went so far as to call the law on herself to keep from coming to our home. My husband's sisters had told SD she could live with them. They even went so far as to take SD to the CPS office to try to find help to keep her from coming to our home. Because of what the law stated to us at the time---she could choose a 3rd party gaurdian and leave us out of the picture totally & also that we could allow her to go live w/aunts until she could 'find her way' back to us we allowed her to go to the aunts.
It feels as if the Mom is still alive. SD posts pictures of the ex & my husband, rude comments about her dad/me. Aunts are 'babying' SD and now hanging up on us, telling us we're wrong.
This has nearly destroyed our family more times than I could count over the years. The relationship between husband/sisters is gone. My husband and I have 4 children in our home--2 biological and 1 adopted and 1 foster to adopt. We LOVE our children. What do we do? SD is supposed to be here for CHristmas. That was one of the stipulations for letting her live w/the aunts. When she comes in for Christmas should we just not take her back? I can guarantee it will be WW3 if we don't take her back. Not only between SD vs. us but between husband & his sisters.
Are we wrong? Are we right? Please help!?!??!??
I'm in a similar situation.
I'm in a similar situation. My husband has a 15 out of wedlock daughter who is currently living with her paternal uncle and aunt. Her mom is still alive, but had her kids taken away and her parental rights terminated.
I don’t want to go into details about what happened, but her mom stood by her schizophrenic boyfriend that was abusing her kids instead of her kids. If you say anything negative about her, all hell breaks loose from SD15. She defends her mom at all costs.
It’s been nearly 10 years that my husband has had legal custody of his daughter, but she’s lived with him for less than a year of that (first because he was single and in the military then later deployed in Iraq.)
My stepdaughter lived with her grandma but last year her grandma died and she came to live with us.
She wasn’t given any options about coming us since her father already had custody and it didn’t matter what SD15 wanted. (Her half-sister was given guardianship of her half-brother so he could finish his senior year of high school).
The whole time SD15 was living with us, she turned our house into a living hell. She didn’t want to be there and didn’t want to be part of our family. She wanted to go back to her home town and stay with her half-siblings. She was pissed off that her half-sister couldn’t have guardianship of her as well.
There is absolutely nothing worse than dealing with a teenager that does not want to live in your home. You have no control over them. SD15 was intent on making everyone as miserable as she was. There was no way to get her to do anything or to punish her. She failed 9th grade and got into so much trouble there was just endless arguments.
Unless her behavior was going to change, I couldn’t stand her in my house, so her dad let her stay with her uncle as a compromise and to avoid having to lay down the law with her.
According to her aunt and uncle, she’s doing very well there and is on the honor roll.
But I wish my husband would just let her go if she’s not going to have any control over how she’s being raised.
She currently is barely speaking to him, tells him how much he hates him and to f**k off and leave her alone. She shouldn’t be allowed to disrespect her father like that, but my husband doesn’t want to rock to boat and make her uncle punish her for being disrespectful or force her uncle to make her talk to him on the phone.
Because of what happened to SD15, her dad treats her with kid gloves, won’t get tough with her. As soon as she seems upset or, even worse, starts crying, he completely caves and gives her whatever she wants. That’s no way to parent a teenager. She walks all over him.
If he wanted to, he could revoke the guardianship and tell her she’s living with us no questions asked. He’s legally her father. I’m not sure what state your in, but it’s probably the same. The problem is that she’ll turn our home into a living hell again if she’s forced to be here and her maternal relatives completely support that she have the right to make a decision where to live.
SD15 knows if she acts up here, eventually we’ll get sick of it and ship her off to a relative. That will probably include her failing 9th grade again.
I really don’t know what to do. My husband has been going to monthly therapy sessions but they haven’t been working. He’s resigned that he’s never going to have a relationship with his daughter, he just wants to make sure she’s happy and doing well.
There are 3 other kids in our home that are my concern. I do not want their lives disrupted because of my husband’s mistake.
My view is that if she wants to be part of our family, she’s more than welcome but she is expected to follow our rules and be respectful of me and her father. If she isn’t willing to do that, then it’s her fault her father cannot have a relationship with her and she can just stay with her aunt and uncle and they can deal with her.
Thank you. That makes me
Thank you. That makes me feel better to read this. I was REALLY feeling like I was the one at fault, etc. It made me question my parenting skills with the 4 that live in our home. I guess in my situation I don't think its so much my husband that won't let her go... its me. I feel like she's mine, ya know? I've even had a counselor tell me to let her go and its hard. Especially with her Mom dying. Yes, she would make all of us live in hell if she was here. We're afraid that if we try to make her come here that she will put our last foster child in danger. (she does have a tendency to say things that are not true--her & her Mom have went the child protective services route on more than five occassions.)
I've asked her what she wants for Christmas and her reply is for her dad only to take her out.
I know what you mean. I’m so
I know what you mean. I’m so tired of taking the blame for the failure of SD15‘s problems living with us. She’s seen so many therapists and it’s always the same - she always blames me and rants about her dad abandoning her.
My DH had delusions that we could all be like the Brady Bunch and I could be a substitute mom to SD15 and be the mom she never had. That was setting me up for failure.
I’ve successfully raised a very responsible, hard-working son. I was not going to bend over backwards to accommodate SD15. I was going to treat her like any other child, no matter if her grandma had died or she had a troubled childhood. She was going to get structure, rules and corrections to make up for 15 years of never having never having any of that.
Getting my husband to let go is going to take far more time. He’s truly a good father and wants to do the right thing by his daughter. Convincing him that the best thing he can do is walk away is going to take some time. But he needs to do it for the three boys. That girl is not worth sacrificing the rest of the family. She’s a lost cause and the rest of the kids do not deserve to suffer because of his stupid mistake.