Some kids are just self-centered, entitled and rude. They'd give any SM a hard time. They can't be changed and can't be loved.
They are also SMs who try hard or not and get it very wrong.
I used to hate my SM. Really hate her with all my heart. Why? Because I felt that she'd never accepted me as the child and person I was. She had an image of what the perfect child should be like and she couldn't accept I wasn't like that child. So she judged me. Never directly but I knew. Some conversations heard she thought were away from me. Some facial expressions when I said something, a lack of enthusiasm or even mild interest in things that mattered to me. Some very hurtful comments which left me sucked of any confidence. The more I lack confidence, the more I acted in away to justify how she felt. A complete vicious circle.
Yet we moved from all this. When my dad cheated on her, it was be she called to talk about it and it's her I defended because my principles took over.
We are now quite close. The way we see it now: she genuinely care for me and wanted the best, at least at first. She thought the way I was brought up by my mum, and dad to done extent, who both were much less strict than her, would mean I'd turn into an unrespectable adult. I turned very well and actually better than her own DD (something she says herself).
She says that if she could turn back time, she'd met go of many things, let me feel that I was home when coming over rather than constantly on edge that she was going to be cross, disappointed, annoyed, even disgusted by me.
I wish I could have understood that her actions were because she really did care rather than growing to believe that she was just spiteful and only wished I didn't exist.
We can't judge a blended family, who is right, wrong, what could be done differently, who should take a lead on the initiatives to make changes, who should be blamed, who should make more efforts without knowing the family very well.