Resentment is building
I haven't written here in awhile but I think I am here now and it sucks. SD13 is sucking the life out of our home, she is with us 50% of the time, the other 50 with BM who lets all hell break loose on a daily basis. SD is failing school and is apathetic to this, she has no interest in school, doing better, completing assignments. She has been tested for learning and behavorial disabilities previously. BM moved a town away with 4 days notice to us back in November switching schools because she believed that particular school was the issue and not her daughter. So of course this changed my partner and I's life having to bring her and pick her up eash day she is with us from another town (she can't take a bus when BM makes a unilateral decision to move)
Meetings, Emails, Parent Portals thru the school it is daily life in our home. My partner is not particulally good at not just being angry, while I play mediator to prevent them from killing each other. I am in-home therapist right now and I am at my breaking point. The probkem is I don't know how to NOT care, I am starting to back off with things that are hard on me as I am not the parent and I have no decision making on what happens with her, I am just lucky to have a partner who listens to what I say (sometimes after he has already gotten mad) and takes it seriously. He is ready to throw in the towel and emotionally detach from his daughter as an act of self-perservation. I don't know how to? The issue I have is that I am an empath and both SD13 and BM are dictonary definitons of narrcissist. They will eventually eat me alive if I don't withdraw.
We have tried everything including sitting at the table for hours to do school work and ensure it's done, then she refuses to turn it in. I have a close relationship with her and have talked to her for hours on end about the importance of school. She refuses to go to school and at her mom's she gets away with it. She acts out, tells of principal and teachers and BM rewards her with movies, shopping and a sleep-over. She hates being at our house because "all she does is school work" but at this point she just refuses and goes to her room. The battle is that BM will continue to make excuses for her, she will continue to tell the teachers they are wrong and her daughter that she is perfect and it's everyone elses fault. We are up againt a battle we may never win.
She is a smart kid, she understands what she is doing right now, she understands that she will repeat the 8th grade and when I try to sell it as , then she will have 5 years of school instead of 4, she replies "If I have to stay back I won't go through 4 years of high school" she has made it pretty clear her intentions are to quit school as soon as she is old enough. I want to keep fighting for her, I want to figure out what the "committement to "not giving a f##k" comes from. I think she fell behind and then the reality of catching up and being on top of it all is overwhelming. I want to believe she is not just bullshit and that something will help her.
I don't know what to do but I need to somehow be less involved for my own mental health. My partner is fairly convinced his lazy, asshole kid is going to end up living with some boyfriend by the time she is 16, and he feels like he has zero control over the situation dealing with a BM who is not actually a partner in improving the situation. Finally changed the Wi-fi password yesterday and finally found the only thing she cares about- Minecraft and she tried to talk to me a few times about "just needing the wifi password" and I said "perhaps you use this time, your school vacation to get caught up" and she replies "I don't want to" well then sorry kid no data or wifi for you until you do what you need to do. Yes, that is the ONLY thing she cares about is that we changed the wifi.
I have spoken to her about accountability and BM has convinced her that being accountable, is being weak. I told her I hope she doesn't hold onto that belief and it takes a big person to be accountable and own their shit.
All the talks in the world arn't doing anything. How do I stop caring? How do I protect my relationship from me wanting to just escape. Side note this has all been escalating post surgery for me where I can't drive, I am sort of stuck in the drama.
My partner is now concerned that she will screw up our relationship, I am resenting her when she is over becasue he is always just so irritated with her. He told me yesterday that he didn't need to bring her on vacations, buy her things outside of what she needs (required) do anything for her b-day or christmas, he could just be a minimal parent up against an asshole BM who is more concerned with being her daughters friend than a mother. Yet we have a meeting with an attorney today to see about getting a more concrete parenting plan and not at the descrition of BM who thinks she makes the rules. Part of me is like "f##k it, let her mom deal with her" and the other part of me is "I don't want to give up on her, she is only 13"
Cont...
Also to mention my partner has a 23 year old son that gave him a run for his money as a parent and he is convinced that his daughter will be just like that. He is convinced at 13 she is setting the path to be a useless, loser, asshole and he won't be there to save her. She is entitled, spoiled (from BM who spends thousands a month on clothes and things for her that she doesn't appriciate). I try to do nice things for her, I did a lot of my own christmas shopping for her, I organized her 13th b-day party (not cheap or easy) and try to build a relationship but her dad is convnced she just lies to me about everything and she is manipulating me (I don't think so, I am not blind to her antics)
An older gentleman in our
An older gentleman in our office lost his kids to his crazy ex wife. Says based on his experience and those of his peers ,Kids are more resilient than we think. They will survive all the crazy BM stuff and hopefully not make any permanent mistakes along the way. In the end, they will gravitate towards the more sane parent as they get older.
I hear you on the school work. My SS is 16 and barely literate. His BM just wants to be his friend not his parent. Us trying to get him to stay in school and do homework makes us the bad guys. I let it go at times then feel like I’m the failure for not being able to make a difference in this kids life for the better. Dammed if you do dammed if you don’t. It’s better to have the DH make the kid accountable for school work.
You can't care more than BM
You can't care more than BM does - BM's way will take over. What kid isn't going to gravitate to the home where she has fewer rules and doesn't have to do homework? If you, as SM, are the only one pushing her to do well, it is doomed to fail.
In fact, your DH has a case for telling BM that because she moved, he can no longer maintain 50/50 custody and will be moving to an every other weekend schedule. Would BM agree to that? She sounds like she would, since she's the type to blame the other home for the problems a kid has.
Listen - it's admirable that you care, I used to care too - but all it will get you is pain and suffering. Just let go, you are fighting a losing battle. Let DH handle SD as he sees fit, even if you think it's wrong.
This is something I struggle
This is something I struggle with every day too: "I don't know how to NOT care." It used to bother me when people would say you can't care more than the parents. Of course, you can, I thought, and in your case, you do. However, I realized that what is meant by "you can't care more than the parents," is that if you do, there will be hell to pay every which way and then some.
You are caught in the cycle so many of us SMs are caught in--damned if you do and damned if you don't. You care, and you want what is best for any child, much less your partner's child. However, society tends to think of SMs as intrusive be.atches. They don't look at SMs as having any rights whatsoever to the child, and legally SPs do not. Good or bad, you are literally expected to just suck it up and take it, stay out of it (unless they want you to cook or babysit for free or pick up the kids, etc., of course) and just more or less act like a wallet in your husband's pocket whenever his kids are around. Not that noticeable, but you are quckly whipped out whenever needed for someone else's conveniences.
As hard as it is, and as a huggy-kissy-touchy-feely person, after years I'm coming to the conclusion and realizing that all you can do is what works for you and let the chips fall where they may. You do what works for you, because every SP'ing situation is different and conventional wisdoms (such as just be nice and pleasant and all will be well) don't apply. In actuality, much of conventional wisdom is backwards for SPs. SKs don't want you to be nice. They don't want to like you, at least initially. Unfortunately, very few recognize this, other than SPs who are wholy enmeshed in it. No one else really can see it or can't believe it.
Bio-mom and bio-dad created this child and ultimately have 99.9% of the responsibility for the child, regardless. The court system recognizes this as well. As tog redux said above: Let DH handle SD as he sees fit, even if you think it's wrong. It is the parents who damaged this child and have made her life a hell. Not you. You can't fix Chucky.
NORPLANT!!!! NOW!!!! Daddy
NORPLANT!!!! NOW!!!! Daddy needs to make sure this kid's womb is off the market until she turns 18 so that he does not get stuck supporting her and her spawn..
You are going to have to take the write off and complete direct confrontation of crap behavior model to save yourself. Or she will just escalate her NPD crap until you go up in flames.
Take care of you.
Someone else said it - you
Someone else said it - you can't care more than the parents.
This kid has 2 parents. Let them parent. It's that simple.
You enjoy your husband, your life. And step away from the toxic.
I'm in a very similar
I'm in a very similar situation and I hope you have someone to vent to because that is one of the only things that helps!
I have a solid group of
I have a solid group of friends and my sister, only one is dealing with an ex, her kid and a step-parent. So that is why I come here :)
How do you not care?
you just say to yourself, this isn’t my kid, she has 2 parents who cannot parent effectively and you/hubby have talked to her and she has refused to better herself so why bother. Don’t feel guilty because she can’t blame stepmum for bad grades. She had 2 choices, do her homework and succeed at school or not do it and fail, she chose the fail option
how do you let her not destroy your marriage? You don’t let her issues ruin your relationship with hubby. You should be the stress reliever for hubby and he the stress reliever for you, not the stress inducers. How do you do this? Spend quality time alone, whether its a weekend getaway every few months or every few weekends you cook out a storm and hubby enjoys heaven in his belly.
my husband can’t bear the thought of me divorcing him and imagine life without me and our kids, he said we are his daily stress relievers while his 3 kids with ex and the exwife are his stress inducers so i told him if you treat me with dignity and respect and not allow your kids to disrespect me and our kids or let them sabotage our relationship, i will always stick by you
there are always a few slip ups but my husband spent 14 yrs married to torturous exwife, thats a lot of re-conditioning of hubby to do
If sd is refusing to do homework at your home, maie life painfully boring for her, remove electronics, computers from her room, she has a mattress on floor and a desk to do homework or she sits at dining table
skids always want to do this power struggle crap, when a parent lays down the law like a hurricane and scares them shitless, they know they can’t mess about but its hard when skid knows other bio parent doesn’t give a shit when they are splitting times between homes regularly
Rather than not caring I
Rather than not caring I consider what has been recommended as caring about ones self and focusing on the behaviors that the kid is perpetrating rather than on the feels and the why's of what they are doing. The feels and why's don't matter IMHO. Only the behaviors matter.
So, give yourself a break and focus on the SKid's behaviors rather than the intense emotion of it all.
If the kid behaves, then you win. If the kid doesn't bahave you confront the behavior, apply escalating age appropriate consequences, the kid craws into a dark corner (or their room as the case may be) and then you win.
Eventually you land on the right level of abject misery that either drives the kid to fix their behavior or to stop visiting.
Either way, you win.
If your behavioral focused interface with the kid drives improved behavior. The kid wins too.
Thank you everyone. SD has
Thank you everyone. SD has started to spend less time at our house, which makes me feel many different ways:
1. Nervous that DH will not have a solid relationship with his daughter (as a kid whose own father just stepped aside it sucks)
2. Relieved to have a day where it isn't all about her and the drama she is creating.
3. Nervous more time with BM will just make her a worse person. Her mother is a narcissist and toxic and SD is more and more like her daily.
4. Sad that we don't have quality time with her as we did before.
just saw yesterday that she didn't want to come over because she was spending the day with her boyfriend (mother allows this we do not)
Also the attorney after we
Also the attorney after we talked for over an hour stated
"You want to take your daughter out of her mothers house where she can do whatever she wants, and move her into yours FT. I could help you win custody of your daughter if this is what you want but let me ask you,do you want an angry teenager in your home fulltime?" He suggested that we if we can just go about the curent lack of parenting plan or designated responsbilities that DH has over his daughter and just ride it out. He said BM is so attached to labels (Primary Parent) that it should be up to her to deal with most of the bs she is creating.