Teenager and husband rows ruining my life

[mrspippa]

My teen is 15. She is stubborn, hard work, pushes every boundary, argues every request, attitude is awful. Her dad, my DH clashes with her so much. The rows are awful and escalate into a power struggle. I end up in the middle of, trying to peace keep. I can’t cope with it anymore. I’m being pulled and pecked by both of them from both sides. I try to withdraw and leave them to it but if I do it just never ends.
I want to leave and never come back!!

What are the rows about?
Is it your daughter or husband thats the problem?

Anything and everything. Not wanting to do chores or help out. Wearing revealing clothing, she can be very selfish. At this point I think they are both the issue. She doesn’t behave nicely and he doesn’t handle it very well

You have to ride it out I’m afraid it’s part and parcel of having a moody teenager. I was dreadful at 15, my dad who has a fiery temper and I argued daily. It must have been horrible for my mum but at the time I was far too selfish and stubborn to acknowledge that. It’s not our proudest family era but it’s a universal experience for nearly everyone.

Your DD is 15 and sounds fairly typical.
Chores and helping out aren’t negotiable- I would deal with this by removing privileges like screen time, mobile , pocket money

Wearing “revealing clothing” normal and he needs to let it go, she’ll rebel and get worse if he goes on too much

Being selfish- teens are selfish, he should remember she’s still a child and not fully mature yet. Shouting arguments aren’t going to help.

So to me it sounds like it’s your DH that’s the issue not both of them.
You need to sit down with him and work out a strategy you both agree on to parent her

What has your Dh tried? Has he posted here, read ‘How to talk…’ etc? Does he acknowledge that it’s not going well?

Id talk to him as supportively as you can and identify red lines and battles to pick together. Have you both considered a parenting group to help survive this together?

Are you also addressing the attitude issues or is it just your DH trying to deal with it alone?

This is all on your DH. He needs to grow up and be the adult here. Your DD is a perfectly normal teenager. They are difficult, they do push the boundaries.

Your DH needs immediate help on how to parent.

She sounds like a teenager not particularly different from.lots of teenage girls, you need to talk to your husband out of her earshot, what are the non negotiable things you can back him up on the rest i wouldn't get involved, revealing clothes are a tale as old as time, he must know this , you have to learn to pick your battles ime

No man should be fighting and power struggling with a girl. He needs to get a grip, control himself and actually parent her before he inflicts trauma.

Choose your child, always.

Op, this was my house. Look up NVR parenting courses in your area. We got onto ours via CAMHS self referral and they've been amazing.

The hardest part is going to be getting your DH to accept that he is a big part of the problem.

I started with sitting them both down and being very clear that they were causing me great distress and causing me to feel depressed and anxious by putting me into the same position and that I was NOT going to do it anymore.

Once I did that, I now refuse to engage if they come to me to offload or ask me to intervene. I grey rock, I ask "have you spoken to x about that?" "What did they say?" "Maybe you should discuss this with x not me". " that sounds hard/upsetting/difficult for you, how are you going to speak to x about that?"

You have to disengage and point them firmly back in the direction of each other.

I agree that he is a big part of the problem. I have tried talking to him away from kids. He doesn’t seem to see how he is behaving and making the situation worse. I am going to try not get involved. It’s awful

@mrspippa I mean this in the kindest way, but take a step back and actually hear what your dd is saying.

What fundamentally started this?

I don't mean she didnt put her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. I mean go right back, where did it start?

Does your dh go straight to dictator behaviour? Does he try and have an open conversation or does he go straight to demands and shouting?

Is she an only child? If not what is dh like with her siblings?

My dm will still tell everyone i was a selfish vile teen. What I actually was, was struggling with a two tier household where I was always in the wrong. Where my sister did stuff that I got the blame for and so on. It manifested as me lashing out to protect and defend myself because ddad would never have a chat or a even a debate it was always him screaming, yelling and threatening me.

Look really objectively and honestly and the situation because I would out money on there being far more to this than you are saying. And I guarantee this is a dh issue not a dd one

She has a younger sibling who is slowly coping her behaviour and saying well if she isn’t doing xyz why should I. If anything we give 15 yr old more leyway because I know it will end in a fight. So younger sibling is seeing that and copying. I’m at the end of my tether with it all.

I know full well DH can handle it better. I have tried to get him to see that. He is the adult and should know better.

your Dh needs to be the adult and pick his battles. If he’s arguing back to her he’s then bringing himself to the level of a teenager. Do they have any common interests where they can spend time together and have fun?

@mrspippa

Training for Parents and Practitioners - NVR Practitioners Consortium https://share.google/znGBxBVYzi8w2dI78

Its not made things perfect, but it really has changed the vibe in the house.

When the fights start what do you do? What is your role.

You day you end uo in the middle...what does that look like.

Teenagers are arseholes. It is a right of passage and they have to go through it for their brains to develop fully and living with ut is hard. I have riaeed 2 stepkids from 9 &7 to now 23 & 21. Dd is almost a teen and my dh's son was 16 when he passed away. I have my fair share of experience of teens.

That said. We are the adults. It is our job to mould them and support them through.

You say your youngest is modeling her sisters behaviour, but your teen is modelling her father's behaviour.

Your dh needs to attend some parenting classes.

But you need to sit down with your teen and get to the bottom of what is causing her behaviour. But you need to listen and hear her. She is going to say some things about your dh that you won't like, and you will what to defend him but you need to not. You need to hear her before you lose her.

And for the record it isnt about giving her leeway. It is abiut giving her respect. Having firm boundaries and sticking to them and that includes if you expect her to speak respectfully to you/dh then you BOTH need to speak respectfully to her too.

You and DH urgently need to get on the same page and deal with it as a team. Leaving him to it is not a good option. You are undermining him by doing that and unwittingly exacerbating the situation. He will get more shouty and extreme if he feels you are doing nothing. You have to agree the boundaries and sanctions between you and both follow through. Shouting and getting angry achieves nothing but consequences of poor behaviour will. Does she get an allowance that can be made contingent on doing the chores? No giving lifts or paying for phones etc if no quid pro quo from her. Switch off the wi fi. But let the clothing stuff go. Agree a strategy and both follow it.

We have tried to be on the same page and it helps for a bit but then back to normal after a while. I’m happy to pull her up when I think she needs it but some of the things he says and does are disproportionate in my view. He says we gang up on him and he has no say in anything if I pull him up on anything.

That’s why you need to agree and he needs to abide by what you agreed if there are things he needs to let go. But equally you need to back him on things you agreed not to let go. It’s a dangerous scenario when one parent and child become allied against another for the marriage, the family and the kids.

You have to either support him or keep out of it, if you think he is being to harsh you need talk to him away from her, i don't think you can flip flop because it causes ructions.

Family counselling, you all need to truly hear each other. At the moment no one is really listening to anyone else. It’s very common but a counsellor might be able to help you all.

You are right about this. I genuinely don’t know what to do so end up messing up!

It isn't easy, Dd1 and Dh clashed, half the time it was him being totally ott about everything.

Sounds like your DD is in peak teen mode, sending all the sympathy! However have you sat down with your DH away from your DD and worked out what the non negotiables are? I suspect he sees you as too lenient and you see him as too strict and you need to land somewhere in the middle and compromise so you become a united front. Then you both hold the line and DD will quickly realise there is little point in coming to you as you’re going to say the same thing. If the boundaries are inconsistent then she’ll push constantly.
It really isn’t easy parenting a teen.

One of these people is a child flooded with hormones going through huge changes and trying to learn how to grow up in a world that wont let her but expects her to anyway.

One of these people is a full grown man who should be able to control himself by now, who is a parent and responsible for TEACHING her. Tell him to grow the fuck up and be a parent and lead by example. One of them needs to de-escalate it, that responsibility falls on the oldest.

Why don't you suggest you do a parenting teenagers course together. Or actually insist you do a parenting teenagers course together. If he doesn't know how to manage her, which clearly he doesn't, then he needs to learn.

The thing is. When a kid is being difficult it's hard. But when one parent is handling it so badly they just make it worse. And now the other parent is not only dealing with a worse child but also dealing with trying to manage the other parent as well. He's just making everyone's life harder.