I'm so happy I found this site. As anyone reading this would assume, I'm not the type of person who would usually lash out or even confront a bad situation if I can avoid it. But I'm at a point that if I don't say something to someone I'm going to explode. It all started 10 years ago when I met my now DH. I was 21, he was 29 his daughter was 11 and my own daughter was 4 years old. From the onset I knew I wasn't going to get along with her because when she met my daughter she looked her up and down with a straight face like she was sizing up the competition. SD was living with her BM at the time and would only see her father on the weekends. She was your typical preteen product of a broken home. She would masterfully manipulate her mom and dad against each other with stories of how her mom would hit her and how her dad would neglect her, all the while reveling in the guilt trip induced extra attention each of her parents gave her. All of which became exacerbated when I came into the picture. Soon enough stories of how her father would neglect her to spend time with me, and of how I would talk all this crap about he mother behind her back started to surface. I'm a pretty patient person so I initially dismissed it as the over active imagination of a precocious 11 yr old with way too much attention and way too much time to herself. My indifference was vindicated when after much prodding into the issue, it turned out that her mother never laid a hand on her and that SD was just upset that her mother expected her to help out with the chores and her little brothers. Fast forward a few years, SD is now 14 and has decided that being asked to clean her room is just far too much to bear so she decides to move in with DH and I. It is at this point that DH begins to realize how much of a spoiled manipulative little bitch SD could really be. I have to point out that I really do hesitate to call her a bitch, especially since she was only 14 at the time, but if one could see the kinds of lies and crap she put my husband and I through, it will be clear that bitch is an understatement. While she was living with her mother DH was lead to believe that SD was a great student and an overall well behaved kid. However, when he went to register her for a school here in NY he found out that her mother had to transfer her 3 times due to her cutting class and getting into fights in her previous schools. Her grades were hardly much to brag about either. Needless to say that her behavior hardly changed and in fact got worse due to the fact that it was a bigger city and there were a lot more friends for her to get in trouble with.
It culminated with her not only having to do and extra semester after her last year of HS in order to graduate but also getting arrested and spending a night in jail after getting into yet another fight in school. By now not only have I been fed up for about three years, but my DH is starting to get fed up as well. During the five years she was in high school, not only was she a bad student, she was also a pretty crappy person to be around. Once she got into HS I decided, as most parents would, that she is now old enough to clean her own room, fold her own laundry and help out with some chores. She is so entitled and spoiled that she actually felt that I should've consulted with her first about whether or not she was willing to do those things before imposing said rules on her. That of course started an argument with my DH as she turned on the water works and tried to convince him that she was so traumatized by all the drama she had been through wit her mother that she deserved to have these things done for her. However as I mentioned before, DH was starting to get fed up with her already and he didn't allow her to manipulate him. The result was that to this day, not only does she not help me out with the chores, she still doesn't clean her room or fold her laundry. There have even been long periods of times, as in weeks on end, in which she barely showers. I noticed this behavior when she was still a kid and pointed it out to DH. I explained to him that she's growing up and as a teenage girl it is far more important for her to maintain proper hygiene. Any woman knows that as women, we can't just "shake it off". But at the time she was still daddy's little girl so he dismissed it and said it was her mothers’ responsibility to teach her these things. I subsequently tried to sit her down and explain these things to her too, but of course I was ignored. Fast-forward 5 years, she's now 16 and with a bad yeast infection. She calls me up at work and tries to convince me to get her something for it from the pharmacy. I politely refused but still kept it real with her by reminding her that because I've never had a yeast infection I wouldn't know what to get anyway. She hung up on me and never brought it back up again. I'm not going to lie; I did feel a little bad. But I'm the type of person that doesn't like to repeat myself, especially when I know someone's deliberately trying to dismiss me. And I won't necessarily confront someone about a situation, but when cornered into it, I will say exactly what I think, regardless of how it makes that person feel. So that's exactly what I did. And that's how I've always handled any tough situations in my relationship with my SD. It is one of the main reasons in my opinion that she doesn't like me.
Overall, I conduct myself as a proper, classy lady, and most people read that as a sign of weakness. What she doesn't understand is that there is a difference between tolerating someone, especially a young child, and putting up with the BS of young woman who should know better. Holding your composure while not letting someone's outbursts of emotion manipulate you into doing something against your better judgment is actually a sign of strength. As opposed to getting angry and emotional and in the face of every single person that says something about you. That is actually a sign of someone who is emotionally and mentally immature and far too occupied with superficialities. This attribute in her is emphasized by the fact that she cannot bear to wear the same clothes year after year. She has even been caught a few times deliberately tearing her clothes to try to convince her father to get her some new ones. The first time she did it I was done. Since that day I have refused to spend a single red cent on her wardrobe, I don't care how messed up it is. She came up to me a few times afterward to ask me for stuff and after the third or fourth “go ask your father" she got the hint. Her father caught her the second time and he has subsequently refused to get her anything other than bare necessities like underwear and socks. Any new clothes that she has gotten since then has been from her long list of boyfriends. Mind you she's 19 going on 20 now so it's not like she should be depending on her parents too much for those kinds of things anyway. Considering the fact that she still refuses to do any chores she's lucky her laundry is even getting washed. The only reason her father does it is to save money, but if it were up to him he wouldn't bother with it either. I do however gradually take out her clothes from the hamper and put it back in her room when she's not there. Since she never cleans her room she has yet to notice. None of that has put a stop to her other bad behaviors like expecting her parents to do her laundry, to cook for her, getting upset when we don't because we assume she'll be out all night as she usually is. But her overall worse is that she expects us, especially me to support her lifestyle. Once the recession hit I was laid off and have since found it difficult to make ends meet on my part. When I was working she would constantly complain that I was never home to spend enough time with her, all the while enjoying the cable TV, internet and food that I paid for that she would feed to all the friends she would constantly bring home. At one point DH fell for it and I had to end up keeping it real with him too. I reminded him that technically, as a woman, I have no real obligation to pay for a damn thing in that house. Also, since I'm not his daughters BM, I have no real obligation to her either. I am a grown woman with enough skills and degrees to last a few life times, so I'm not going to waste my time watching The Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo with a teenager just because she wants attention. She should feel lucky I give her the time of day considering all the stuff she uses at my expense with no gratitude. I went so far as to ask him if I should fuck her BF next time she "doesn't feel like it" too since that seems to be her excuse for everything these days. Needless to say neither of them brought it back up again. Now that I'm out of work the new excuse is that I'm the one that isn't pulling my weight in the house. That the reason a 20 yr old woman-child is so depressed and wanting to leave, the main reason she isn't going to college and is instead looking for minimum wage jobs is because of me and my supposed laziness. It was so preposterous that even her father started laughing. I decided to leave before I indulged her in anymore of a pointless audience. Her father and I have both sat down with her on multiple occasions and have explained to her the importance of finishing college and how it's going to affect the rest of her life, especially as a woman of color. Any person of color and any person who has their eyes open wide enough knows that even the best of us don't exactly have it easy. Consider all the racist backlash Obama has received, and he's the President. But she's too concerned with the latest iPhone and Kanye T-shirts to worry about all that. And because I'm supposedly no longer contributing to the household, all her depression and lack of confidence is my fault. Apparently she thinks that the money used to pay for the roof over her head, the bed she sleeps in, the food she eats and the clothes on her back all come from a magical tree I have hidden in my closet. DH brought up the conversation he had with her and before he could even finish I broke it down to him like this; I've been out of work for almost a year, and the only reason I have enough of a cushion to fall back on is because at 20 yrs old, I was going to college, raising my daughter and working part time jobs to pay my half of the rent even while I was living with my parents. I had no time to worry about friends or $120 T-shirts. So forgive if I'm not so quick to take life lessons from a 20 yr old who can barely be bothered to wash her ass more than once a week.
And at the end of the day I think that's what really bothers her. She sees me an she realizes that even though I was a young mother and had my domestic issue with my daughters father, I not only survived I thrived. I now work from home, with a DH that loves me and my beautiful daughter that calls him dad. She compares herself to me and she realized that her best days are gone. There is a little of a racial undertone here. Her and her mother are both light skinned Latinas, I happen to be of a much darker complexion. Despite all the challenges that has brought me throughout my life, I have been successful on levels they have never achieved. Both SD and her mother developed early and as a result were really popular in HS, especially with boys. Apparently that distracted them from developing any real life skills and subsequently they both found themselves at 19-20 yrs old with absolutely no direction in life. All their friends moved on and they were left with long forgotten memories of the only time they have ever achieved anything in their lives. Her mother did what any other girl that peaked in HS does, and married a rich retiree. SD seems to be following that same path, attaching herself to any man that will get her a new dress. I however can buy my own dresses and pretty much anything else I want and can do so without having to ask or answer to anyone, not even DH. If anyone reading this knew what I looked like and had a clue of what I can do, you’d know that I have no need to kiss anyone’s ass to keep any man. And as it turns out by my current situation, I am very capable of taking care of myself. Perhaps as SD grows up and realizes that life isn’t all about being the popular girl in HS, she will get her perpetual issues together. But I’m not holding my breath. My own daughter is still only 12 going on 13 and she already has enough art skills and intelligence to start her own web comic and be one of the best writers in her school. I have no time to worry about impressing or indulging the superficial drama of my overgrown SD. If anything, she should be the one worried about impressing me if she plans on staying in my house rent-free. But I could care less at this point. I’m just happy DH has finally seen through her façade and that my own daughter is set to be a happy and independent young woman.