Think DD has just destroyed relationship with DH her dad. Final straw.

[Facefacts]

After a long rocky period with DD 17, I thought things were getting better. Again, tonight, DD determined to get her own way. Wanted boyfriend to come over we said no as I had to be away all day and overnight, husband had to leave later as working away. So after I left mid afternoon she has massive argument with poor DH who is already having counselling (partly from previous rocky period as well as other things). She is so unsympathetic and uncaring and verbally very attacking. DH in pieces, DD just continued attack. And flounced off to boyfriends saying would be back for 11. Just arriving back now. Refused lift back and DH couldn't face scene if just went to fetch her. He now has two hour drive and has to be up early. He's broken and I'm fuming with her. She has a brilliant social life. Saw boyfriend 2 or 3 times in week. Nightclub Friday and friend stayed over Saturday. Don't know how this is going to go but we have been on edge of throwing her out before for stunts like this. Is this what we have to do to save DH from total breakdown. When she decides she is doing something there is no compromise, no care of the impact on others. It seems the more understanding and caring we are the more she takes. Someone please give me a plan to change this before she throws away a lovely home and family.

He isn't claiming that see my previous post. Her previous behaviour in addition to the other things that were happening did add to it at the time though. Her behaviour yesterday very triggering for him. He holds it together on a daily basis and tries to do what is right by her. And he is receiving treatment although DD doesn't know because he doesn't want her to feel guilty for partly causing it because he tries to do the right thing by her.

Blythe - as I and others have said on this thread, your blanket statement that "Teenagers are difficult, presumably you knew this when you were signing up to parenthood" is nonsense. Plenty of teenagers cause their parents no problems at all and there is a big difference between "difficult" (which many teens can be) and what the OP is describing - that behaviour is way past difficult and in any other situation, such as a work place or in school, would find them out the door.

blythe - re "I find the part I mentioned to be treating her like a twelve year old". And this is what you mentioned:

"Accept that she had a right to negotiate with you now and has a right to consider each instruction on its own merits as reasonable or otherwise. She has a right to disagree and be listened to; if you are trying to dictate to her"

She can disagree all she wants, but needs to understand that if her parents do not want some guy she has been with for one week staying in their home while they are gone, that guy will not stay over while they are gone. This is not about her being treated like a 12-year-old. It is about respect.

As for "right to negotiate" - She clearly does, as she gets to most of what she wants to do (go out clubbing, see boyfriend multiple times during the week, etc) although she is failing at school. In most households I know, she would be expected to stay in and study until her grades improve. In this household, the teenager mostly does whatever she wants because she has managed to intimidate her parents.

How many times does it need to be said before you listen OP? No matter what way you explain the situation, your daughter did not, in any way, cause your husbands PTSD.

Her behaviour might have clashed badly with the other stuff he was going through, but it did not add to it.

Also, how do you expect her to understand the effect her behaviour NOW is having on him if you aren't being open with her about the extent of the problem?

"If there is a lack of parental authority then that is not the daughters fault."

No, that is not the daughter's fault. But we are not here to assign blame (or are we?).

The point is that OP and her DH need to get back that parental authority they have lost. Ground rules need to be established. Consequences need to be laid out.

Yes, a teenager should be able to make decisions about her own life on a daily basis, but not when these decisions affect her parents. She cannot force her parents to accept her boyfriend of one week into the house overnight if they are not comfortable with this. And she certainly cannot go around the house verbally abusing them and breaking stuff, because she didn't get her way for once.

As an adult who as a teenager behaved in a similarly selfish, dramatic and manipulative way myself (quite a bit) I think blythe speaks a lot of sense in her post above.

Honestly, it was only when my parents stopped engaging, stopped pandering to me, and made my own emotions my own responsibility that I actually started hearing myself, and what a totally self involved, immature twat I was.

So OK she wants to do certain things and get lifts, and have friends to stay in the family home, and have a rocking social life that you must at least partly fund and enable? Then she needs to treat you in a civil manner and contribute to a harmonious home. Have a family meeting and talk about a family contract for how you can all live together happily. All of you agree about behaviours you find unacceptable (let her talk about yours and DHs, and listen).

Make it clear though, that if the behaviour happens and she's a drama llama slamming doors, and being horrible, there's no lift, no £20 for the night out, etc. Be really calm about it, state the case and walk out of the room. If she's smashing up the place, make it clear she'll be paying for any damage, and leave the house yourself (sit in the car round the corner if that's what it takes). Disengage. Then get a quote for the damage and make her pay for it in sacrifice of pocket money and/or her Saturday job. She'll soon think twice about a repeat. Make her take responsibility for her emotions and the actions they lead to. It'll probably take a while for her to stop trying the dramatic tactics that have worked until now, so it'll be a hard road but who else in life apart from you and your DH is going to stand by and let her have what she wants when she behaves like that? It's a lesson she needs to learn.

But if you are going to make your daughter's emotions her own responsibility, you also need to give yourselves the same advice. Your DH has the power over his own reactions to her behaviour (unless he has unmanaged mental health problems, which I haven't quite caught? In which case he needs help and therapy to get strategies to manage his reactions). It sounds rather like she is being blamed for destroying your husband, but you are the parents, the adults and the ones with decades more life experience at your hands to find solutions for the reasons why he is "breaking". Don't make it her problem, she's your child. Making her feel responsible/blaming her is just wrong. I think it might be part of why she's kicking off like she does. It must be really annoying and feel unjustified to be made responsible for her dad's issues.

I do think though if you are giving her the responsibility/burden of being left alone in the house at night, then you have to just trust her and meet her half way to have a friend of her own to stay so she has some company, or you need to arrange for a relative or friend of yours to stay over with her so she can go out and come home and you're not worrying about her, but not insisting she stays in alone. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Cote, you talk so much sense

I clearly have a really slow connection as the thread moved on two pages by the time I posted so I was responding to an earlier post. In any case, that's still my advice...

Cote
As I understand it, the problem was not that the boyfriend wasn't allowed to stay over but that she wasn't permitted to go and visit him in the evening, instead being instructed to remain at home so that her parents could have peace of mind about where she was, rather than having to worry about lifts. It seems that she accepted he wasn't allowed to come - after first having asked permission - so far, so good. She then organised her own transport and was responsible enough to make sure she caught the bus home. Again, nothing here that would make me think the OP is reasonable for thinking she has a demon child who is incapable of taking responsibility for herself.

The part of it that seems out of step to me - and the part of it where the girl's behaviour deterioriates - is the blanket refusal to allow her to leave the house, even though it was going to be empty (and the emotional pressure that she has to do this because of strings attached to previous favours - which, if they were transport-related, she clearly does not really need).

I do think it is unreasonable to expect a 17 year old to stay in a house that the parents are not even staying in themselves. Yet she wasn't asking to stay out all night, just asking to pay a call in the evening. No one is suggesting her behaviour is desirable, but do you really think the OP's choices were particularly textbook either? We really can't expect our children to behave perfectly if we're taking short-cuts ourselves.

OP, you need to forgive your DD for what you perceive she's done to her father (especially given that she was still a child at the time and therefore in no way responsible for protecting her father's mental health). Allow the relationship a fresh start.

stilldoctor No one is suggesting the behaviour is acceptable, just that the moral indignation is misplaced, given that the teenage years are often messy and difficult, on both sides. Teenagers do not owe it to us to navigate these years without making mistakes, but we owe it to them to support them into independence in a manner that models genuine respect and healthy boundaries, without martyrdom, undue emotional fragility, histrionics, threats of abandonment, or spur of the moment, dictatorial demands.

Is she likely to go to university? If so the end is near so tough it out and wave her off with glee when she goes!

Can you change your while mindset?

She is 17, not a baby, so why not try thinking of her as a lodger? Stop offering practical support (lifts etc), unless you are actually going there yourself, stop telling her when to come and go. Impose the same kind of house rules you might have for a lodger - guests, yes, overnight guests, no.

If you can emotionally disengage with her for a while, it will give you peace of mind and will give her a bit of a shock - taking responsibility for herself. But, you MUST keep it up. She will come back to you eventually, she is just being a total pain in the arse in the meantime, but you must stop pandering to her.

You and DH take this opportunity to think of yourselves.

I ran away from home at 16 and never went back, she WILL survive, I promise, but try to think of her in a different way for a while and see how that helps.

Good luck OP

blythe totally agree with you.

If my DD asked if she could go out at 17 I would have stared at her in disbelief and said " why on earth are you asking me? " my job is to prepare her for adulthood and that seemed a good place to start!

Her BF however, comes from a more controlling family. In his late teens he was asking permission to leave the house. When do you think it's acceptable for her to decide when to go out without asking you? Do you have an age in mind? I wouldn't ask my DH to stay in the house because I was out....he would think I was bonkers - so why would you ask your daughter?

The point is that OP and her DH need to get back that parental authority they have lost. Ground rules need to be established. Consequences need to be laid out.

Parenting a 17 year old is much more nuanced than parents are the boss. At this age the relationship needs to be moving from one of parent and child to a relationship built on mutual respect, but at 17 it will be in the middle of that process. It keeps being said that the DD needs to show respect, well from what I am reading, it doesn't feel like the DD is respected. Respect has to go both ways. And when it comes down to it, being given lifts/money is not reflective of respect. Saying "we do all this stuff for her" does not equal "we respect her".

My issue with this situation is the sheer level of overreaction on the OP and her DH's part over something that is a normal teenage battle. The DD could well be abusive and violent and all the things the OP says she is. But this is the same OP who is assigning blame on to the child for the parents MH issues. The same OP who expects her 17 yo DD to stay at home alone because she is not there.

The DD should be able to have an argument with her parents without her mum blaming her for triggering her dads PTSD (which she doesn't even know about ffs) and the relationship being threatened entirely. Even following a pattern of behaviour, the dynamic in the household is extremely dysfunctional, and that will always fall to the parents to sort out.

Perhaps in the instance in the OP, what needed to happen was mum say to daughter "me and your dad will be away on Sunday night because of X, so could you be home at such and such a time" for example. Instead of waiting for a request from the DD and having to say no. The first would feel like a mutual decision that the DD feels involved in, because it happens in advance, before the DD has the chance to make plans with her friends/boyfriend, rather than a parent curbing a teens life.

Finding the cause of her anger is the best route. You alluded to something earlier - that something happened to her that she should have counselling for. Could this be the root of her flying off the handle?

Allow her to talk to you openly about how she is feeling. Ask her open ended questions so she can offload in a managed way.

If your dh has ptsd then her actions won't be helping but she isn't the cause of it. Whatever his experince that caused ptsd is the cause of his mental health issue.

I think you need to explain his illness and what he feels when she gets loud/ breaks things. She is old enough to understand. Perhaps all this would be best in family therapy, where you can all be more honest and open about your feelings without laying blame on anyone.

cote expecting a teenager to study if things aren't going well is possibly counter productive. Learning happens when you are open to it, engaged, not when you are unhappy perhaps avoiding it, making excuses.

Parenting a 17 year old is much more nuanced than parents are the boss. At this age the relationship needs to be moving from one of parent and child to a relationship built on mutual respect, but at 17 it will be in the middle of that process. Respect has to go both ways. And when it comes down to it, being given lifts/money is not reflective of respect. Saying "we do all this stuff for her" does not equal "we respect her".

This is very wise.

op is your DHs therapist attributing blame onto your DD for contributing to his PTSD? Is his therapist recommending that you keep the treatment a secret?

It strikes me that your DHs mental health is a huge elephant in the room which everyone is aware of but that no one is allowed to talk about.

Your DD is not stupid. She'll know something is going on with her dad, and is all too aware that she isn't trusted to know what it is.
No wonder she's acting up.

Lizkeen you are saying as fact that my DDs past behaviour didn't contribute to PTSD without knowing the situation. I would like it not to be the case but unfortunately it is. And you wouldn't know unless you had been through it. So please don't judge.

"Cote expecting a teenager to study if things aren't going well is possibly counter productive. "

What things are going so badly that she cannot study the bare minimum to pass?

Is she being abused, beaten, or forced to work in a mine?

What tooold said.

The repeated and assured way in which you attribute your DH's mental health problems to your DD's behaviour suggests that the emotional bond between your DD and you as her Mum has broken down completely.

Most mums would defend and deny that their DC was to blame for such a significant and life altering event - they'd grasp at any straw offered to take the blame off their DC. Yet despite saying you "haven't told her in order to protect her" you are quite happy to place partial responsibility for his illness on your DC.

I wonder if your DD senses this? In any event, she would probably be better off living elsewhere as she is unlikely to feel emotionally secure in your home environment.

Gotta say, OP, have looked at previous threads of yours and a recurrent theme is everyone needing to 'put DH first' and be 'caring' towards him - and his PTSD type reactions that he has ascribed variously to the house not being better organised and his kids' conflicts. (This was before any mention of violence, broken doors, etc - just dd wanting to go out and disobeying when she's told no)

Someone else has mentioned ASD, and it may be worth considering that this may also be an issue for your dh if he has such an adverse reaction to conflict and a bit of household disorganisation to the point that it traumatises him.

Clearly your dd's behaviour at the moment is way out of line, and frightening, and upsetting to everyone (including her I imagine). But going further back it does look like everyone's being required to treat DH with kid gloves for a long time, and you're playing a part in perpetuating this DH-centric dynamic.

Don't have any easy answers about what to do next, I'm afraid, except that I reckon all of you could do with someone to help you mediate and understand one another better. And I can imagine you are under a tremendous amount of stress trying to protect the person who seems to you the most vulnerable (your dh) - but who might be helped to recognise that he wields a lot of power (practically & emotionally) - including (/especially?) over you.

Best of luck to you xx

I am not saying anything as fact. I am posting my opinion based on the small amount of info you have provided. I am unsure why I need to point that out.

I am finding it hard to imagine any scenario in which a child could cause or contribute to PTSD in their parents and still remain in the family home. If DDs behaviour was yet another thing for your DH to manage while he suffered the initial trauma, then that was not good, but that was no more "adding" to it than paying the bills was "adding" to it. We all have stresses and strains in our lives, and in the middle of a traumatic event they will all mount up and cause more stress and worry, but to blame your DD for that...that isn't right.

I am not judging you OP. Your family has clearly been through a lot. Please don't make your DD the fall guy for all of that. She can probably feel your resentment a mile off.

Gotta say, OP, have looked at previous threads of yours and a recurrent theme is everyone needing to 'put DH first' and be 'caring' towards him

OP I know it's not the done thing to refer to previous thread, but this isnt the first time you've asked your DD to stay in when her Dad is going away for work, is it? It happened a year or so ago, too.

It does sound as if she is resentful of the expectation that her life is dictated by his ability to cope with changes to his usual routine.

If she's not asking you to faciliate her being out, and she's not going to disturb you by coming in late - then while I'm sure your DH would be more comfortable knowing that "the family was all safely at home" before he goes away for work, thats no longer a realistic adjustment to accomodate his condition. Your DD is months away from being an adult, and cannot be expected to plan her life around her Dads needs.

I have only skimmed but, having lived in a household where one of my siblings had incredible anger issues, was violent and controlling and manipulating, I think that everyone should be wary of what is labelled 'normal teenage behaviour'. Our lives were a misery for years until sibling was eventually taken into care, but not before I'd almost been strangled, we'd all experienced regular hidings, lived in almost constant fear including my mum.

I'm not sure what the answer is OP - my sibling was aware of having that control over the family at a very young age and was never able to develop enough maturity or empathy to stop it from destroying us. Even now, that sibling has control and violence issues.