To Want Her To Move Out

[SickandTired01]

Ok, so my step daughter (there's nothing "Darling" about her!) has lived with me and her dad (and our DD) for the past 4 years. She is 16 and is at college. She moved in with us after her mum kicked her out, they'd been having problems for a few years - typical moody pre-teen stuff.

Things were ok at first, we moved to a bigger house so she could have her own room and we all got along perfectly well. Over the past 2 years she has turned into an ignorant, rude, lazy and just plain horrible girl. She recently announced that she has mental health problems (which she says started when she was about 5) and has gone through our GP for a referral to CAHMS, which I'm glad about as if she needs help then she's doing the right thing to get it, although she's blown off an appointment today because she couldn't be bothered going....(read into that what you will).

More recently, say the last month or so, she has been constantly answering back, talking down to me and her dad and throwing a strop if we ask her to do chores (she doesn't have many) she purposefully does the bare minimum or outright lies that she's done something when she clearly hasn't and her snide comments are starting to wear me down.

I'm also worried about the negative impact this is having on my DD, who at the moment is bright and confident and absolutely lovely with everyone (which I fear will change with constant exposure to her big sister who is a shut-in and refuses to talk to most people). She very rarely speaks to my DD and hates spending time with her, which really upsets DD as she looks up to her big sister and thinks the world of her.

Anyway, there's a tonne of history and our backstory would take up 3 pages... So what I am getting at is: WIBU to ask that she move back to her mum's? I've gone out of my way to make her welcome and to ensure she's loved and cared for (her dad and I have been together for 10 years), but it all gets thrown back in my face and the stress is now getting unbearable.

What should I do? (sorry for the long post)

& if as you say you can understand why she doesn't want to see her mother why an earth would you intend to dump her back on her mother?

Seek some professional.help.for all.of you. Someone who knows dss or gets to low and can offer strategies for all. Get dh involved too.

OP, my two eldest (the baby's too young to be included in this bit) drive me to bloody distraction on a regular basis. Really. They have faults. Not-so-nice personality traits. They can be shockingly rude (11 and 9-going-on-bloody-16). But I still love them to pieces and know them to be fundamentally fabulous. They need my guidance, my rock-solid support. And yes, it is probably different when it's not your own, but goodness, you've been in her life bloody long enough to have developed, if not a 'bond', at least a deep sense of this child as being as fabulous and infuriating and in need of love as any other. I'm not getting any kind of vibe off you that you are fundamentally behind your dsd, believe her to be a worthwhile lovable person who needs some guidance in life. Instead it's all about your dd, and you even lament that dsd is not willing to put her sister at the centre as well.

Teenagers can be really difficult to live with. My eldest DS really has tested my love for him to the extreme. I can't lie at times I have thought longingly about the day he moves out but I also long for a decent adult relationship with him. His brother is two years younger and is a totally different kettle of fish. He has never mirrored his brothers behaviour. I worried he might like you do but he hasn't because he is a totally different person. My eldest has settled a lot and things have improved. Our relationship is intact!

You absolutely cannot ask her to move out. She's already been rejected by one parent at a very young age....by all means do it if you want to completely fuck her up for life and damage her relationship with you forever. Unless she's being physically aggressive you just can't do that. IMO that would be unspeakably cruel.

If she's blowing off appointments, then make sure you go with her. I reckon going to counselling where she can speak to someone on her own would be good for her. She is doing typical teenager stuff (I was a horrid, snarling, grumpy teenager and I come from a stable background with 2 parents) but don't underestimate the impact being rejected by your own mother can have on you. I wonder if she's acting up in a way as she's testing her dad's love for her. Tell her you'll love her no matter what and reassure her you'll always be there for her. Yeah she'll probably sneer at you but she needs to hear it.

It's tough but she will settle down eventually. But please don't abandon her now, this is probably the time she needs you the most.

Ofcourse you don't take every nasty/snidy comment, but as the adult you learn how to deal with it like a grown up should, and like a child, especially a vulnerable one, can't. You don't contemplate rehoming her like a stray.

As you are aware patents don't allways like their children then you be must be aware that we find other ways of dealing with these problems rather than kicking out our kids. You're posts are dripping with your contempt for an already rejected child. And no this isn't the section for ranting, it's the section for being told it like it is.

Hang in there. You have done the worst bit the 13 to 16. Only two more years before she reaches 18 when the chances are she will become human again.

I was a bit of a shit as a teen - in the main because my mother was a controlling cow who never told me I was doing well and always criticised me, never bigging up what I could achieve.

Anyway - what I'm saying is that she has had a fair bit to go through so far - and whilst I understand your frustration - maybe look into going the other way than throwing her back to her mum.

Love bombing or however you label it - showing her that despite all this awful behaviour you both/all love her and want her to be around might stop some of this outlandish behaviour, which is suspect is designed to see how far she can go before you throw her out. One person already has done that - her mum and despite not wanting to your disapproval/frustration is showing through in your behaviour to her - she can probably see it and is testing you.

With my son I find that just yelling up the stairs that he has to put on his clothes / turn off YouTube and go to the appointment a couple of times is enough to get him out the door - once they have got that far they will probably go the rest of the way on their own. (Though when he had a horrible piano teacher he did use to just go and hide in the library instead! The teacher didn't even say anything, he was really shit.)

ohtheholidays I'm sad to say hadn't made that connection. Thank you for the different perspective.

I can't believe you would consider sending her back to a mother who chucked her out at the age of 12, has never apologised for this and with whom she clearly does not get on. You would just be proving to her that she has nobody to provide her with the secure love and consistency she needs and that she is an inconvenient responsibility for whoever ends up with her.

I am really shocked at all these people trying to say that this is just normal teenage behaviour.
I didn't behave like this as a teen and neither did any of mine.
Op I think you should be very suspicious of the 'mental health issues' she has mentioned. It seems to me that it's very fashionable at the moment to claim to be 'depressed' or 'stressed' Please don't let her use this as an excuse for her dreadful behaviour.
I think you need to have a serious chat with your husband and set some very firm boundaries. Good luck!

YABU

She sounds perfectly normal. You DD will be exactly the same, will you chuck her out too?

SusannahL thank you, and yes, I can't help but feel a little dubious about the MH issues.

She's 16, she's had a rough time - tough it out, OP - the end is in sight. A couple of years and she will be an adult. You have a chance to make a real difference to her future right now. Reject her now, and she could end up in a right mess.

I think it's interesting that she skipped the appointment possibly because her mum was insisting on accompanying her. That says something about their relationship. her mum doesn't have a better connection with her than you do - she's the one who rejected her - and she doesn't want to go back. Take that off the table. Let her feel safe and that she never has to go back there unless she actively wants to.

4 yr olds are easy to love. Teenagers are harder work.

I can guarantee that my DD won't be like her sister because she has been brought up better and will not be allowed to speak to/treat people the way DSD has and does.

My DD will be respectful and courteous and grateful because that's how I am bringing her up. (You may think me naïve, but that's how I was raised and I turned out alright!)

I recognise that DSD is not 100% at fault as she had no control over the way she was raised by her mum up to being 12, but that doesn't mean I have to be a doormat to her or put up with her attitude. Life is hard and sometimes it's shit - but that doesn't give you the right to treat everyone like shit and then claim mental anguish when they pull you up on it.

Yes. You've turned out full of compassion and kindness

She's been under your roof after an awful trauma, being kicked out by her mum, for four years.

Why do you think you've failed her so spectacularly?

What about your DH? Does he want to abandon her too?

category I've always told DSD that she never has to move back to live with her mum if she doesn't want to (I know I sound like I'm contradicting myself but I've never EVER threatened DSD with sending her back to her mums, this is just a thought in my own head that I once mentioned to DH when things were really bad and I was stressed and overwhelmed) but I do try and encourage a relationship as I've been told she should absolutely have one with her mum. Maybe that's where I've gone wrong? She may think that because I'm encouraging her to spend time with her mum that I don't want her with us, which just isn't true.

Do I wish she was easier to live with - yes, of course I do! Who wouldn't want a nicer teenager than the one they've got!??

Do I wish she'd never moved in? No, I love having her, and when it's good it's awesome. But when it's bad I can't help thinking we did the wrong thing in allowing her mum to kick her out in the first place! That we've damaged her further by not helping her mum sort things out before it got to that stage.

Jesus the arrogance!

No guarantee your 4 year old will turn out 'perfect'

Given what this poor kids been through I'd be AMAZED if she DIDN'T Have mental health issues, frankly I think she's doing bloody well!

OP you can't guarantee anything about how your DD will turn out. As she gets older and forms relationships outside of your control your influence on her will diminish. I know lots of people brought up in lovely homes with lovely parents who went totally off the rails as teens. Your feelings for your own daughter are different but they don't have to be - families who adopt children are able to love and parent them. Of course DSD will have picked up on the fact that she is very much second to your DD. she must feel very unloved.

No, you really can't guarantee your DD will be better behaved. I would have said the same when my DD was 4 - she's being brought up well, clear boundaries, parents who love her, all the rest of it, no way would she be a teenage nightmare. She was a teenage nightmare - she had me on my knees with anxiety and misery and relentless hideousness. Hormones and differing circumstances and all the rest of it play a part too - it's not the quality of the parenting. My other 3 DCs were/are relatively stress-free in teenage years. So don't be complacent (as I was).

Meanwhile - you say nothing interests her, but would she do something like see a film with you? That really helped with my DD at that age - a shared experience but where we didn't actually have to talk to each other, and it gave us something in common. That sort of thing might help you start to like each other again.

Her mental health problems started when she was 5.... 10 yrs ago, when you and her dad got together.....make of that what you will [sceptical]
She sounds like she's hurting and the last thing she needs is more rejection
These teen years can be awful, my dd was awful between ages of 13 and 16 , but now she is 20 and at Uni she is a changed person...give her time and support

OP how can you say you don't want her to move out? Look at the thread title!!

Told by who? Just having a biological connection doesn't mean she owes her mother a relationship. You've even said yourself (without saying the full details of what happened) that you don't blame dsd for how she feels about her mother so I'm guessing at the very least emotional abuse.