Hello all,
Asking for support and advice
Its complicated
My step daughter is 17. She moved in at 15 and it was disaster from the start. Her dad is a truck driver and hardly home. I personally believe he was subjected to narcissistic abuse by his ex wife during his daughter's childhood...He even left his home country and left his ex everything he had. it was so bad for him. He had a come to Jesus moment as a refugee(literally) and moved his ex and daughter here to make it work..it did not obviously.
Since we got married, I naively thought it would be helpful to his teenage daughter if she moved in (she was running away from her mom). Immediately she made false allegations to CPS on him, was still running away, truancy, using alias, and marijuana and slandering us to our community abound. His ex and her worked in tandem to bankrupt us , and the courts have given her teenage discretion for custody..meaning as a teen with obvious defiant personality traits she was given power over her warring parents, there is absolutely no discipline I found effective as a step mother. permissive parenting just strengthens the already defiant teenage mind. It is unfortunate because the obvious answer would be to take her to a psychologist and/or boarding type school at this point. But when the mother constantly interferes and alienates my husband from his daughter, as well as cultural differences. Also, he is naturally not a disciplinarian, and needed to build his daughter's respect after she l iij bed with her mom all 14 years. It became the perfect storm. For months I lived in my husband's truck because she became threatening, abusive and it was a survival issue for me. We tried to figure out a good plan but she would just blackmail my hubby with running away if the plan wasn't essentially to treat her as an adult. Then I sensed that my animals were being abused, and also my husband could not keep up with that kind of life and expense of providing two homes. He told her that she has her own room, school of choice and her mom lives one mile down the road. She has to try to respect me and I am coming back home. She waited for me, planned a brutal attack on me when I walked in the door...even attempting to disable my phone so I could not call for help. Then when she ran away while I waited for police help, she took the keys to my car...no personal items because she planned on coming back. One week later she did come back and stole our 2019 car while her friends blockaded me from entering my front door. That was in Oct 2019. We had to leave our city due to the slandering and backlash we recieved. We now have a new life, pay her mom current and back child support for all those years she lived with us and pray for her to come also to Jesus and care about her future. She does not answer any of my husbands calls or texts though her phone is still in use under the mothers plan. I found used underwear wrapped in a death threat to me when we packed her stuff to move. We want to forgive but can never trust that she is not plotting something with her mom again. Her mothers response to all this was laughter and telling my husband to send me away and let his daughter live in our apartment alone. I worry for him and the legal ramifications as she lives on the streets and we are constantly getting calls from the hospitals or police. Also her school is trying to hold him soley responsible for her truancy because they cannot see past the mothers charming personality. There are police reports but the DS will just hold him liable
Here is why I write..
financially there is no lawyer we can hire to help and no boarding school we can force his daughter to go to...especially when the mother interferes.
So we have no choice but to accept reality, get our life together and hope someday she will come back and truly want to try to be helped...we are willing if we see it is not intentional manipulation
But I cannot get over the guilt that this had a lot to do with me...as a step mother who lived 25-28 days per month alone with her, I had no power to be a parent. Her mom would even come over and assault me on my own property and in the beginning the police always took her side. In the end the police started wisening up to what was happening..but they are not the courts..
As a result and in hindsight, I do believe it was a survival thing, but nevertheless, I allowed this young minor free reign to smoke marijuana in our home and I talked with her more as a friend than caretaker. All of it was against my better judgment, even in the moment, and I certainly believed I had no way around it at the time. when I look back now, I can only see my role in this young girls demise and cannot stop blaming myself. Even when I try to forget, we inevitably will get a call or reminder that she is still out there. the haunting reminder that I had something to with the terrible future she will probably have. I cannot get over it. Doesnt matter that my intentions were always good and never I'll willed. It prevents me from continuing to live effectively. And sometime I want to run back to our city and let her come home. She would probably kill me next time. She feels no remorse..I do not see in any way that she abused me in a reactionary manner..each time was carefully calculated and planned. Yet she is only 17. (Realizing I am no clinician) I see that she meets every requirement of having conduct disorder and is well on her way to a sociopathic diagnosis in the future or something along that spectrum. I also understand what parents should be doing with knowing this about their child..but when the other parent is not on board and family court, society in general and the school system are also traditionally against the father. What other way is there?
I guess I just need to know how to reconcile all of this and live again.
Thanks for reading this long story.