We ARE the only ones who understand. You poor woman. I feel for you. And see shades of myself in your situation. Oh, how do we stop caring about ungrateful skids? I think many smoms here have the same question. I don't have any bios either, and feel a kinship with you because of that. I have also shelled out some big bucks for my skids, like braces & dental work all around!

You say you are depressed. Is it too forward to suggest going on a mild anti-depressant? It will help you not to care so much. It will help. Or, if you're already on one, maybe ask your doc to bump up your dosage? The anti-depressants really helped me, honest.

Perhaps you might speak to your doctor about changing either the medication or the dosage. That would be a good starting point I think. Secondly, only you can stop this, we can support you, and we do. You need to remember some of the people on this site have been travelling down this road for 20 years or more, so we get it. However, we cannot do this for you.

The absolute worst thing you can do here is...........phone her, chase her, send her sweet texts. B doing that you are giving her the message that the way she treated you, and asking you to pay money rather than visit is absolutely fine in your book. You are telling her, go right ahead behave like a greedy selfish spoilt brat, tell me how I should spend my money, ignore me and basically treat me as an ATM and I'm fine with it. See, I am so happy with it, I will send you all these sweet texts and jump through hoops to gain your love and keep you in my life. You are telling her, her behaviour towards you is perfectly fine.

For her sake, you need to stop doing this. You are teaching her how to treat people. You may love her for what she is, but other people will not. She will have trouble establishing friendships in college and the real world if you keep teaching her that using people is an okay thing to do. And believe me, you are teaching her this. That is nothing short of cruel.

You are like most of the DH's a lot of us complain about on this site. They allow their daughters to treat them like crap and go crawling after them. These DH's do not spoil these young women because they love them, they spoil them beause they love themselves and want their daughters to like them better than anyone else. They supply these young women with anything and everything to make their lives easy, they refuse to teach these young women acceptable behaviour because they might not like them. No one likes these people. Is that what you want for this stepdaughter to be hated by other people. If you love her as you say you do, then teach her how to behave.

You have pretty much taken on the role of 'parent' here so be a responsible one. Do not ruin this young woman's life by making her think she can treat people like this and they will run around after her. That is not how it is in real life. In real life if you use and abuse a person, they will dump you, and they will talk about you to others and tell other people what kind of a person you are. You are setting her up for a fall and you are going to hit the dirt with her.

With I presume the best intentions in he world, you have stuffed this up. You have turned this young woman into a monster. Flashing money around the way you did is not a good idea in front of kids, whether they be bios or steps. Keep your finances to yourself. The only time kids need to know about the family finances is when you are flat broke and cannot buy the bread, then they need to be told 'wait a minute', as we are a bit short this week. Children should never know what the family finances are, especially step children.

Now, I have been pretty harsh here, but it is not a personal attack on you. I am I guess trying to give you a slap to shock you into seeing what is going on here and give you a chance to fix it. I really do understand how and why you have done what you did. For years I tried to make my SD happy, I did it out of love for my husband, but the truth is, my husband was encouraging her to be an absolute bitch, very much like your SD and I was supporting him in that. This is not in the best interests of these young women. And as I said, it is not teaching her how to get on in the real world. Look how hurt you are, and you love her. Other people will be hurt by her to if this behaviour continues, and they will hurt her right back. Is this your long term plan for her. I think not. Love is letting go. Let her go.

Please instead of focussing on her and trying to get her to be friends again (which by the way she never was in the first place, she was using you), you absolutely need to focus on you and your health. You do need to get this depression under control, that is an awful thing to have to deal with, and that should be your number one priority right now, so please think about speaking to your doctor in regards to the medication and let your doctor know how you are feeling and why. Please look after yourself, get yourself sorted out and let this young woman just get on with settling into college and hopefully learning how to treat people. Her college friends will not tolerate being used by her and that is a good lesson for her to be learning, Your husband has basically told you to let it go, so let it go.

I think you have two choices here, just pull back, stop texting, phoning, emailing, facebooking, or any other means of communication with her or instead of sweet messages do her a favour and tell her up front she is rude and ungrateful and you will not tolerate this kind of behaviour from her. You, once you have sorted out your own health issues, need to make a choice here if you truly want a change in her attitude towards you. If you continue to do what you have been doing she will continue to treat you the way she has. So either stop communication with her, or lett her have it both barrels, but for her sake, stop spoiling and chasing her because the lesson she is learning from that, is not a nice one.

I totally agree with everything EBU said. In fact, I needed to read that this week because I am having a really "down" week! I tried to explain it to my hubby this weekend. He doesn't get the "need for nurturing". I guess I am going to get a new puppy. They are loyal and love you back no matter what!

Hang in there and BE STRONG!

I was in the same boat recently. It took me many months to dig myself out of the deep depression that set in once I realized the true betrayals from SD and DH. SD had been playing me for years and once she realized DH was ripe for the picking started destroying my character bit by bit. She has no use for me after all the years I have been there for her and helped her out. The only use she has is $$ gifts or use of our vacation home. It was a terrible shock to realize where I stood, much like you. I have been up and down a lot, but more up than down lately. It has been 9 months since I disengaged. I don't call her, contact her and don't think about her much anymore. I used to think about her everyday, but eventually that starts to fade away.

For your own health and sanity, please try to stop trying! She is a leach and highly dysfunctional. She is ungrateful and rude. This is not your fault - she is an adult and makes her own choices. Save your money and make some plans for your future that do not include supporting SD in any way. This time is for you and your DH now. Let her go.

you are trying to "fix" this and have control of the situation. you can only fix yourself.

stop showing her how little you care about yourself. that's what you're doing when you continue to "court" her when she treats you badly.

you may have a better relationship in the future but right now, you need to back off and let her live her life without you. detach, detach, detach. when you think about her, change your thoughts immediately. practice and it will start to come naturally. read the boos, "co-dependant no more" and "boundaries: when to say yes, when to say no".

also, talk to your dr. about anti-anxiety medications. buspar is non-addictive. 2-3 times a day helps with the obsessive thoughts.

good luck!

You need to stop chasing her...And for gods sake stop spending a dime on her. She is not worth this grief.

We have all tried to buy these kids affections, thinking that is the only way. I did it with manicures, Abercrombie and special meals for SD16. She turned on me in a horrible way. Nasty child. She is out of my life and not coming back.

You need to see a therapist to get over this and stop running to her. Lose her number!!! Do not give any more money to her. If you need to spend money, find a charity and volunteer with that.

The above posts are SO right. EBU was worried about sounding harsh, and I feel the same way. But you have to ask what you are getting out of all of your 'sacrifice'. Is it to make a point to someone else besides SD? Even Mother Teresa wasn't a doormat.

As many of the posters have stated, 'We've been there.' One of my favorite saying used to be, "A little masochism never hurt anybody.” But one day a good friend of mine said, “Yes it does!”

I tried for over 20 years to 'make' my SD like me. One big problem for me is that I don't like to give up on something I've put so much work into. I guess this could even be a control issue – mixed with a bit of masochism but it is a bad habit. I have stayed in far too many destructive relationships for far too long.

It took twenty years to finally convince myself that I deserved as much respect as SD and to stop the abuse – and this is really what it is. Many victims of abuse have a hard time convincing themselves that they don't deserve it. What advice would you give to a friend who is in an abusive relationship? This is what you need to say to yourself.

StepAside you wonder why you have been making excuses for 30 odd years in regards to your SM and SD's. I am thinking it is our upbringing. We were trained as kids to "know our place" and it sure as hell wasn't head man on the totem pole.

I'm thinking putting up with abuse is just second nature to us. I honestly don't think coming into a step situation whether it be with a SM or SK suddenly makes us victims, I'm thinking we were primed and ready for this before they ever came along. We just never thought highly enough of ourselves. Somehow being abused whether verbally, physically, or emotionally was the norm for us and we hopped comfortably into these blended family wars feeling right at home.

Your brother is right you need to follow his lead. You know yourself disengaging from your SDs was the best thing for you and your marriage. Disengaging from your SM may not only be the best thing for you it may in the end be best for your father.

Your father is a man and a husband, he has been those things long before he became a father. In looking at him like that, he is no different from many of the husbands we talk about here. So allow him to suffer the same consequences we have after many years come to let our own husbands suffer. Disengage from SM. She will of course like SDs have no one to play with and she will turn on your father. Let him see what she is like when she starts to play games and he is the only person she can play with. Just as we withdraw from our stepkids, they turn on daddy, she will only have him to turn on. It will either wake him up, or he will accept it. Either way it is his choice. You have to make your choices. She is playing games with you because you accept it.

Ignore her, or call her out whatever YOU want. But don't keep letting her do this to you. You deserve far better than that and you know it. However, I don't believe we found ourselves in these positions because 'we deserved it, or we somehow brought it on ourselves' as I said before I think we were brought up to accept abuse and we need to work that out for ourselves. I am still struggling with pulling my husband up, and God knows after all he has done that should be second nature, it's not. I know exactly where my fear comes from in doing this, it comes from my dad. Even knowing this, it is not easy for me to do. But after the last round of trouble a couple of months ago, I have been doing it. I will no longer be the punching bag and the village idiot for my husband, his kids and his family.

I reached a place just over a year ago where I decided I would rather be alone than live with DH and the nonsense of his family. I was ready to end the marriage and I knew I would be happier if I did. DH was desperate to stay. He agreed, he could not stay and continue to blame me for his daughters antics. Things changed, a bit. But while he wasn't actually saying he blamed me for the mess of his family, sometimes he showed it. Slowly I withdrew from standing up for myself, I put up with the little things, but I didn't ignore the bigger ones, which I used to do. However, after this last incident, I am putting up with nothing, nothing at all now. It is hard for me, but I will do it this time. I fell off this wagon once, and it smacked me in the head so hard I will hang on tight this time, and I WILL NOT fall off ever again. I am as I said not anyone's doormat, I am not anyone's punching bag.

Nursejulee, a book that helped me very much is "The Christian Codependence Recovery Workbook". I actually found this more pragmatic than other books out there on codependence. I also had no idea I was codependent until I worked through this book. I thought codependents were only partners or family of substance abusers (which I was when I was young, but still didn't think I was codependent).

I'm not trying to proselytize here. If you are not a Christian you may disagree with some basic premises but may still find it helpful. If you are a Christian, I strongly recommend it. It really helped me understand why I craved for my sfamily
s acceptance. Now I'm detached and quite free.

Here's a link to the book on Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Christian-Codependence-Recovery-Workbook/dp/19...