Should I leave or try sticking it out?

[Abiamber]

I have been married for 32 years and have 2 DD’s aged 19 and 15. Older one is at uni. My relationship with DH is not good and hasn’t been for a long while. He is a very negative and angry person. Always seeing the worst outcome in everything and totally obsessed with saving money. He gets on well with older DD but him and younger Dd practically hate each other. Younger DD is difficult and always has been. She is defiant, badly underachieving at school and an absolute pain in the arse most of the time. However, because he is so negative and always down on her I over compensate so now she walks all over me and alternates between being wonderful and caring to being rude and very disrespectful. In my dreams I imagine living on my own and getting my life back instead of being stuck in the middle of their war. DD15 wants me and her to leave and live on our own. This would remove a lot of the conflict and she says she is only so horrible because she is so unhappy. If it was just the two of us she would be nice! As well as behaviour concerns she also has ocd which puts further stress in our lives. We never go out as a family. She won’t go out with her dad. She won’t let me go out and leave her ‘with him ‘ so I feel like a prisoner at times or her 24/7 personal slave. She never comes out of her room at home. All meals are ordered by texting me and then I deliver a cooked meal to her room usually followed by criticism over my shit cooking. Want to leave but how can I leave them together and if I take her with me will I just be more of her personal slave with no support. I have no family or friends I can stay with for a bit of a break so it’s either leave or stay. No trial run. When my daughter isn’t around like when she went on a 5 day school trip DH and I just about get along but I really don’t like being with such a negative person. I am 56 he is 66. Should I really give up on this and make a new life with/without my daughter. I know I don’t want things to stay as they are but getting out of a 32 year marriage is such a massive step. Any advice welcome.

Honestly, I wouldn’t feel comfortable in leaving your daughter with her dad. She has said quite plainly to you that she behaves the way she does because she’s so unhappy. If you leave without her she will probably never forgive you. My mum left me with my angry dad. I was a lot younger and not acting up, but she put her own well-being before mine and no I haven’t really forgiven her. I ended up leaving home at 16 and had some very difficult times. I’m sorry but she’s your daughter and she’s your responsibility. If she’s rude to you then you need to deal with that but you are the grown up here. It’s your job. If you had a wonderful DH and she was just being deliberately difficult, my advice would be very different. But you yourself are saying how angry and negative he is. It’s not easy having a challenging child, and it sounds like she has a lot of issues, but she’s your daughter.

My son is a little shit like this...when he dont get is own way he plays me n his dad off..tells dad he hates me n vice versa..couple years later we realised n yh me n partner spoke..he said i belittled him in front of son etc so from now on ill let him talk to son well shout n if its unreasonable id have word with dad when son is out of earshot...works well for us so i think thats what daughters doing..playing..no offence but fix up tell her straight that is her dad and she will respect him..bet him and you was ok before...just saying..ever thought that sh3 is the one that is fucking you 2 up...dont care what others say cause i know from my own n watching other kids thats how alot of relationships go wrong...not blaming her but seems like she dictated your relationship years ago and now you both resent each other becausrof the different tactics you have used to discipline..she has used it to full advantage and now you n Dh hate each other and cant even remember why...she does

All meals are ordered by texting me and then I deliver a cooked meal to her room usually followed by criticism over my shit cooking.

This is shocking!

Why are you letting her treat you like a doormat?

You are doing her no favours for her future.....

i'm way out of my depth here, but still i wonder if a technique i use might be helpful? a while back i got overwhelmed things in my life. so i chose just one rule / aspect i was going to work on. only one. let everything else go. choose the one that would make the biggest difference to you: being able to leave the house or not making meals and bringing them to her door. whatever the rule is you give yourself a couple of weeks and when you feel your resolve melting you think 'it's only for 14 days. just hold on for 14 days'. and at the end of that time reevaluate. see if you can see the difference.

this technique really helped me, because there was so much i was unhappy with i felt i couldn't change any of it because it was too much. when you see the results of sticking to one rule religiously it gives you the strength to keep going.

i do think you and your dh need to present a united front to your dd2, but if you feel he won't back you up you'll have to ignore him.

i think moving out at the moment seems too extreme with your dd and it wouldn't be good for either of you.

if you can get out with your dh every so often i think that would make a difference, wouldn't it? at least try to get him to stop undermining you.

good luck. this sounds like such a difficult situation. bottom line is it's untenable and something has to change.

Just to say the OCD is probably adding to the situation. We ended up in a situation where DC controlled alot of thing to avoid meltdown triggered by her anxiety- but ultimately us giving in all the time meant no boundaries so she felt even more out of control and tried to control more - it was a vicious circle. We needed help from camhs to break the cycle and we needed to work together. We'd often disagreed how to deal with it b4. If you really can't work with your dh seriously think about separation so the family therapy can be about you and dd fixing your relationship in the best way to help her.

Thanks for the support and advice offered so far. Her ocd and controlling behaviour seemed to get a lot worse from last September when DD1 left for university. I found it really difficult to deal with and became very depressed. I think dd2 took advantage of my weakness at the time (maybe not consciously) to gain control. I feel stronger now and hopefully ready to deal with this. I also worry that this is pushing dd1 away and I hate that. She has said she doesn’t like the atmosphere when she comes home. Dd2 makes it as difficult as possible for me to spend quality time with dd1. If I don’t get a grip I’ll lose my relationship with DD1 as well. I certainly will go with the idea of tackling one issue at a time. I think I’ve been focusing on trying one fix all approach but I think that’s unrealistic. Whether we stay or go I need to start putting boundaries in place or she will not become independent of me in the future.

I am very sorry you are in this situation, which sounds like a toxic triangle where you are bearing the brunt.

Your DD and DH may well deny that each is the problem and blame the other, but they both need to be told firmly 'this FAMILY has a problem, this dynamic is destructive, I cannot live like this.' It sounds to me like you need sone sort of mediation/counselling for the family (including the uni-age child), as your teen DD both needs coping skills and relationship guidelines, and needs to understand she is not the centre of the universe.i imagine you need an outsider with an expert skill set. I would fear that your DD, already behaving unacceptably towards you, could in turn vilify you and change 'sides'.

I think you should research local family therapy/mediation options, and then present a plan to the family, insisting that everyone give it 4/6/8 weeks. I appreciate this increases your load of responsibility for now, but somebody - an adult - needs to put the steps in place to fix this, and it sounds like your DH has no intention of trying at all.