So SD is nearly 17, I have known her since she has been a baby. We have had a difficult time as a family mainly due to her mother causing as much issues as possible, ie stopping contact, texting SD constantly while she is here, turning up hours early to pick her up during our contact time.
Our relationship really deteriorated when she was 13 and I barely had any contact with her for 3 years ( DH and DS had some contact but was not enjoyable for any of them including SD)
She then asked to visit when she was 16 and has been here most weeks Friday to Monday, she has to sleep in living room as eldest DS moved back in after relationship breakdown ( he is planning to move out soon) SD has told us that her mum encouraged her to treat us badly and she is furious that we have contact again, it sounds like their house is quite toxic she has a Step Dad and half younger sibling, we have listened to her and talked things through ( me in particular) for hours and hours, some things are shocking , she told me she went for counselling and she told them that her dad and I used to hit each other and were bad to her brother ( 11) at the time, she only told me because she said her mum was threatening too so we wouldn’t want her to stay anymore, this really upset me as there is absolutely no truth in it and we feel really vulnerable that we could have had SS at the door.
My problem now is that every time we see her she wants to talk for hours about how much she hates being at home,
how they all fall out constantly , hates school and wants to leave and wants a p/t job. Except she actually doesn’t want to make any of this happen, we have talked through her options, she could move in here soon, we got her an offer of a p/ t job we offered to explore
college options but when it comes down to action she backs off, I am finding this completely exhausting having her talk about her problems constantly but having absolutely no intention of acting on them.I have also lost the use of my living room at weekends (husband works a lot then so isn’t so affected) which I find stressful and I’m torn between feeling guilty for not always have been there for her and resentful that I feel I’m being talked at for hours during my time off work ( stressful job).We told her we were always there for her and we are but it’s like Groundhog Day same discussions, no changes and my DH and I are starting to dread our weekends.
DH recently started working with an old friend of his ex, she told him that her and other friends stopped speaking to ex years ago as they ended up being totally disgusted at how much she boasted about the fun she was having disrupting our relationship ( no wonder it was a struggle) she gets on well with her 2 brothers , 1 step , 1 half but the younger one does get a bit resentful that he feels we have to dedicate so much time to her problems and he feels he doesn’t get a look in ( we have tried to deal with this but he then says he can’t find the words to talk ( 14) don’t really know what I’m expecting people to say, I feel really bad about how I’m feeling and so does my DP, we also struggle to know how much of what we are told is truth and how much fantasy and feel guilty about that too!