I don't know how to write this without sounding and feeling like a horrible person. But here goes.
2014 I met my partner. He had a child from a previous relationship, so did I. We got serious quite quickly, we had our children though on alternate weekends so for the first year we had to see eachother around them and then it was getting to the point where his ex, who didn't work and had 2 other children, not his was insistent he had his daughter every weekend because she needed a break. She, the mom, was the bain of my life as theyd have conversations about our relationship which i felt wasnt her business and many times i felt she was mugging my then boyfriend off. He paid maintenance and then some every week.He always obliged having his kid at the drop of a hat because he wanted to see his kid and having a kid myself I got it but it did 2 years in get to the point where I'd moved closer to be by him, he later moved in and we still didn't really have time to ourselves, which is important in any relationship. We would try to be a good family unit and if we were going out the kids were included. Even though this did frustrate me at times. Fast forward to 2016, his ex gets involved with social services for neglecting her kids and for domestic violence being present in the household. At this time, his ex had 2 daughters from a prior relationship, his child and then had another with someone else. Things then started to get complicated and did get worse. By 2018 my stepchild was crying about going home, her mom had 2 more kids by yet a different dad, we were ourselves then relaying stuff back to social workers who at first didn't agree with us but then something bad happened and they actually told us to go to court and recommended we had residency which we won in court. At this time we'd also had a baby together and got married..when we got residency it meant I went from one child to 3 full time in 3 months as that was how old my baby was.
Her mom was granted fortnighty visits and we were told to split holidays. It worked OK ish for the first year but then by the second her mom was doing stupid stuff and social services and police got involved and said that my stepchild would come to serious harm if she was around her mother and if her mom wanted to see her, she would have to take us back to court. That was may 2020. We got our stepdaughter to phone her mom every Mon under the guidance of the solicitor, but the her mom was being abusive to her on the phone and we the solicitor, social and school came to the conclusion we shouldn't be making the effort of the calls. We stopped and stepdaughter now hasn't spoken to her mom since Aug 2020.
My stepchild is mostly a good kid, she does get ignorant like all kids can and not listen, but she's repeatedly rude and lies alot. About really stupid things. Then there's the attention seeking about stuff to do with the past. One term she went back to school and was adamant that her moms old bf was trying to break into our house the night before. He wasnt. I help out at my kids school a lot and also work there and I had parents coming up to me asking if I still had puppies cos my stepdaughter had told their friends I had puppies, (don't even own a dog)then one day her friend asked if my husband was at home looking after her 5 other siblings and then today, her aunt who we don't see often visited and she was like I'm really worried about my siblings and bad things are happening to them right now because prices everywhere have gone up...my sister in law ignored her and walked off cos she knows she does this alot but it's causing no end of rows with me and my husband.
In 2020 when contact was stopped, the school suggested that she saw a regular counsellor and my husband said no. He said she'd be fine, but the lying and attention seeking is getting worse. She hasn't done it for a while but she's also hurt her little brother and on purpose and I still feel she needs to speak to someone because she's 9 and this isn't healthy. DH either won't agree with me and says all kids do this (!) Or he's looked into it and it's damn near impossible to get help without a referral and I've asked countless times why not get a referral?
My big worry is if we don't fix this now, apart from our marriage being effected her future will be. She can turn crying on and off when she wants and tries to manipulate others. This isn't a good skill to have. I know she's been through alot and some of it I probably don't even know about but I'm tired. She's lived here since 2018. She has friends but not many cos of the fibbing, it is effecting my own kids because she's constantly getting attention one way or another. Its OK someone saying just ignore it and they'll stop, with lying if you ignore it you're telling someone it's OK they've done it. I have had to speak to a counsellor myself because at times I feel overwhelmed with this crap because its me that does 90% of the care for the children. My husband is great in the sense he works hard, he's also the fun dad and leaves me to be bad cop and whilst he agrees with me initially when we talk, he still won't get her professional help which she needs and as I have no parental responsibility legally I can't arrange it.
It's making me resentful and angry because I never get a break, she can be disrespectful and as I said its effecting my other kids. I know she's had bad stuff happen cos of her birth mom but I'm beginning to selfishly think I'd be better off cutting ties no matter how much I love them both. I can't be dealing with the constant headache or worry what crap she's going to come out with next. Advice please. Little judgement if you absolutely have to.