And your husband needs to learn to listen to you. Even if you were being unreasonable (and I don’t think you were) he needs to take your emotions seriously. I would punch my husband in the gut if he tried to patronise me, failed to back me up, and wouldn’t listen.
Well, I probably wouldn’t. I’d probably hit him with a frying pan or one of our staves. I would be incredibly angry.
The first thing you need to do is talk to your husband. His wife is upset. That should be very, very important- important enough to listen, important enough for him to discipline your (mutual) child.
And, um, you are giving the impression of lashing out at anyone who suggests a different perspective on the situation. They really aren’t attacking, they’re trying to help. Clarifying your position if they’ve got it wrong, that’s fine, but you come across as really angry at them.
You’re not ever going to make progress without your husband backing you up - standing beside you on how the child needs to be raised. If he can’t, or won’t, back you up, then I really see heartbreak ahead. As others have mentioned in this thread, you have to present a united front - even if you disagree in private.
Hey, if you like the way things are, by all means, continue doing what you’re doing, and you’ll continue to get what you’re getting. What I’m suggesting is that you take responsibility for your situation, and stop blaming anyone else for making you miserable.
I’m not posting these things to be mean to you, Butterfly. Your situation sounds crappy, because you’re not getting what you want, and you sound very frustrated and unhappy. Nobody else is going to change, though. The only one you can work on with any chance of success is yourself. Should your step-daughter change? Probably. Should your husband change? Probably. Are they going to? Probably not. Can you change your outlook and how you respond to things? You bet. And if you change how you deal with them, chances are they’ll have to change, because you’ll have changed your role in the house.
No, you might need counseling to learn new ways of dealing with a brat like her. Things seem to be pretty well established in your home - i.e. brat and hubby. You can’t change others, but you can change yourself, which may in turn change the way others see you. Which may lead to a happier home situation.
A counselor would be there to help you through this. He/she can give you ideas, discuss what has been done up to that point, how to look at things differently, and maybe most importantly, how to save your marriage from going down the drain.
There are two (maybe three?) sides to this issue - you, brat, and hubby. You need someone to help you understand the other two sides.
If hubby doesn’t agree to counseling, go by yourself! You need help of some sort - and obviously you’re asking for it here. If your marriage is important to you, as it sounds it is, please seek counseling. I’m sure there are counselors who specialize in this “area of difficulty”.
I don’t see you as being angry at anyone here for suggestions or comments they have made. I see you as mostly frustrated and unhappy with things at home.
Take a stand … if you don’t, you will go through this again and again.
My husband’s son knows that, if he’s in real trouble or ever needs me, I will be there. Other than that, we treat each other like adults sharing the same house. He does his stuff,I do mine.
When I ask him to do something I expect it done. It hasn’t always been this way believe me. It’s been a long, hard battle and I actually had to threaten to leave if it didn’t change. I attempted to change it a couple of times, ran in to a brick wall (exactly like yours) and simply said “if I doesn’t change, I’m leaving” Not because I wanted to threaten everyone, only because I couldn’t live like that, or rather, wouldn’t.
You need to put your foot down. I know it’s not just this incident and it’s very difficult for anyone not in that situation to understand. Howeer, you have to take a stand. Or you have to accept it. Or you have to leave. But YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHAT YOU WILL ACCEPT. Otherwise, it will always be that way. And you will be extremely unhappy.
Gah! No! How on earth did you interpret your options to be
a) Continue to get walked all over and accept it
b) Ignore it and hope it gets better?
You have at least two additional options that you haven’t yet acknowledged:
c) Take a stand and honor your own limits WHICH MEANS creating consequences for Heather’s lousy behavior.
d) Getting counseling/help for YOURSELF to help you navigate some tricky waters that so far are swamping you.
What you are doing isn’t working for anyone in the house, especially you. In order for that to change, you MUST change what you are doing.
Oh, bullshit. The fact is that you are UNWILLING and CHOOSE NOT TO stand up for yourself. Quit hanging onto the notion that this is beyond your abilities. With very few exceptions, every adult in the world is capable of standing up to a willful teenager. It ain’t easy, it ain’t pleasant, and for a long time, it’s unrewarding, but in the long run, it’s doable and pays off in a teenager that understands the limits of the household and her role in it.
For starters, acknowledge that you have options beyond “accept” or “ignore.”
I have no trouble believing that this is true. I also have no trouble believing that much of it concerns how other people are lacking compassion and not doing kindnesses to you.
It seems by your own admission, you have spent five years trying to change your step daughter - apparently by frequently reminding her of her failure to live up to your standards. To repeat nyctea scandiaca’s very cogent question - how’s that working out for you?
I am just some anonymous schmuck on a messageboard. But you have another two years during which you will be legally and morally responsible for your step daughter. If you want the next two years to be the same as the previous five, then keep doing what you are doing. If you don’t, then don’t.
It doesn’t even matter if this is completely the fault of your step daughter and your husband, or not. If things were working out the way you wanted, then more of the same would be appropriate. But you apparently don’t think they are. Draw your own conclusions.
I think living behind a wall of “this is not my fault” for the next two years is not going to be pleasant for anybody in the house, but I don’t have to live there. You do.
And if I were Mr Lissar, you’d be saying hello to the wonderful world of sitting on the doorstep with one change of clothes in a bin-liner, and if you were unreasonably lucky the change of clothes would be clean.
Laina’s suggestion is pretty good. You may have to just resign yourself to the fact that she doesn’t like you and you don’t like her. You can’t be a raving maniac all the time around the other children, because I have a feeling this situation is going to get worse before it gets better.
Make a list of chores she must do. If she doesn’t do them, let her father know. Trade your chores for her chores. By that I mean, if she doesn’t pick up her clothes, don’t do her laundry. If she doesn’t do the dishes, you don’t pick up her toiletries at the store. Stuff like that. Put a price on everything (within reason). Let her know what her lack of cooperation will cost her so there are no surprises.
Good luck. Teenagers, for the most part, are a whole 'nother animal. I don’t envy you at all.
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
From years of struggling with life’s vagaries, the wisdom I’ve managed to gain is this:
What are the things I cannot change? Pretty much everybody and everything.
What are the things I can change? One thing: me.
cruel butterfly, I hope you realize that people responding to your post are not criticizing you, but merely passing on what small bits of wisdom we’ve picked up along our journeys. I truly hope you can find a way to restore some peace in your home.
I thought about this last night. Shoes on the dining table? Leave them there. When her father asks why there are shoes on the dining table, tell him you don’t know, they’re not your shoes. Dishes left dirty after washing? Set her place with the dirty dishes. Etc.
Malacandra, do you think it’s unreasonable to be angry if your spouse doesn’t listen, is patronising, and fails to back you up to your kids? I don’t. And if I failed to listen to him, acted patronising, and didn’t back him up, he’d certainly like to smack me.
So intolerance for bad behaviour is mutual. And the physical threat was hyperbole, based on our absolute refusal ever to be physically violent to each other. I’m sorry if that didn’t come across in the earlier post.
I have appreciated everyone’s willingness to respond to my dilemma. It seems as though you guys are a compassionate bunch.
When I first created the thread topic, I was still bristling with a whole lot of unfocused anger. It’s been two whole days since I decided that I had had it with my stepdaughter and her father. I think each post I’ve read or composed in response has served to soften the initial burst of anger and frustration.
Magpye is right. I am frustrated and unhappy with things at home. There are two sources of this frustration. One is my inability to understand and combat my stepdaughter’s behavior, and the second is my husband’s failure to step in and back me up with her.
Some of you suggested counselling. I’m not against the idea of it. What worries me about it and why I balk at individual counselling for myself is that I don’t want my husband and my stepdaughter to be able to say, “Well, see? There you go. She really was nuts. It wasn’t our problem. It was hers, after all.” It’s my fear of the side effects of counselling, not a complaint against whoever suggested it to me.
Someone characterized me as “sinking my fangs” into people who chose to respond with suggestions I didn’t necessarily agree with. I never intended for anyone to perceive me in quite that way. Transcribing thoughts onto a page is tricky business. It’s hard to tell what the intended meaning is just by reading it. I’m sorry for not being clear about my intentions. My intent was never to come across as antagonistic or ungrateful for freely-given advice.
cruel butterfly, I didn’t read any of your responses as “sinking your fangs” into anyone. (that’s an interesting visual I’m sure will turn up in a dream at some point - a butterfly with fangs) You try to be a nice person, and find it difficult to understand why other people aren’t nice, especially when it’s easier to be nice than it is to be snarky. I have gotten burned by so-called friends many times because I try to be a nice person. Unfortunately, I have so much scar tissue I’m not as nice as I used to be.
They really need some counselling, especially if they think that counselling is only for people who are “nuts”. :rolleyes: The 50s called, they want their attitude toward seeking help for mental/emotional/relationship problems back.
That idea about counselling is very harmful- I used to believe something similar, and as a result I put off getting treatment for depression and anxiety for ten years. I spent ten years being miserable when I could have easily gotten help and not been miserable because of that attitude.
What did you do? Read my original post then click “reply” without reading the entire thread? If you haven’t read the entire thing, you should go back and do it. If you have read it in its entirety, then you must’ve scanned right over the part where I describe in detail about the efforts and my motivation behind those efforts to try to be a positive presence for a girl I met when she was 11 instead of 3. Your assertion that I don’t understand the “connection between earning respect and giving it to others” is way off base as well as insulting. I’ve spent the last five years with this girl trying everything I know to “earn” her respect. The fact that it isn’t reciprocated after everything is what prompted the one conflict that you seem to think sums up my entire personality.