anger at stepchild

[journeygal]

Ok, time to vent.

I'm going through a lot of stepdaughter drama right now. But hey, this is nothing new. This has been going on steady for the past 6 months or so, and on and off for the past 3 years. She's still the same...difficult child she's always been.

The problem is me. Jack and I were fortunate to have her leave the house for a couple of weeks. And now she's back, as rude, disrespectful, and belligerent as ever. Before she left I was in codie-mode, trying to protect hubby's feelings. But I had to let that go b/c it was driving me batty and I wasn't taking care of me.

So now that I'm back to focusing on me and my feelings, I have all this ANGER!!! I am angry every day - pissed that this child treats us like sh**, pissed that I can't have peace in my own home, pissed that her mother fed her a boatload of lies all her life and now refuses to have anything to do with her own kid, and pissed that I have to feed, clothe, and house her while being spat on every day. I even dreamed that I beat her up! That can't be a good thing...

It's not often that I deal with this much anger. Usually I'm so busy focusing on everyone else, I'm never really in touch my my own feelings. But now that I'm trying to take care of me again, all the feelings I've been denying over the past 6 months are erupting. Every time I see her or hear her voice, I want to smash her face in.

Since I'm not a violent person, there's pretty much no chance of me causing her bodily harm. This anger doesn't scare me, but I hate feeling like this all the time, especially in my own home. The good thing is, it seems to subside once I've vented, and fortunately my friends haven't aren't sick of me venting to them yet. But that means I'm pretty much venting about an hour each day! I know I need to let go, but this is the first real anger I've felt during this entire situation, and I know I need to work through it before I can truly let go.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[smoke gets in my eyes]

Hi Journey.

Once I dreamed I beat my bosses head against the wall until it cracked open. At the time I would not have described myself as a violent person. I did backhand Dino once and I once threw a stack of clothes at him. I do know now though, that I can lose it in the rage dept. I have tried to be better about acknowledging my anger and trying to get rid of it before I have a boilover. Keep venting. Exercise like mad. Delete old emails and clean the house. Anything that feels like cleansing. It's hard to be philosophical when you're seething. Oh yeh... and keep telling yourself that you'll outlive her... or that you'll win the lottery and won't leave her ANYTHING in your will.

Love you!
Smoke

PS
In case it's hormones, feed her lots of soy protein.

[Gabe]

JG,
Vent away! It's the best thing you can do when you have all that pent up rage. It sounds like she gets lots of negative payoffs from her haughty, belligerent ways. In a perfect world, the next time she cops an attitude you would yawn and go fold clothes. Can you imagine what that would do to her? No payoff for her histrionics. No audience for her little theatre of the absurd.
Work through your anger, and then try totally tuning her out. It's a knee-jerk reaction to respond to their anger with anger. It's teaching our knees to jerk in another direction that's the challenge.
Big huge compassionate hugs to you JG.
Peace,
Gabe

[JT]

JG,

I am the first one to spout "let their relationship be their relationship" but it still stinks the house up. I was almost living in my car! How's that for a life!?

In the end someone had to go. IF I wanted a relationship with Ward it was the Beav who had to go. If I was the one who left, the Beav would follow me. Even in my insanity I could see that was not an option. If Ward left...believe me, he had a foot out the door...the Beav would still follow me.

We had a friend who provided the crystal ball I needed. He was 45...and alcoholic...lived with his mother....she drove him to work, picked him up....get the picture?

My very first aha moment was "they could hate each other if they wanted". My second was "we can't all live under the same roof and thrive"

It was close to a year later that we made the Beav leave but the plan was in place.

Journey....you are not thriving and neither are they. I am afraid you are going to get sick. That constant tension can do that...

((((Hugs))))
JT

[journeygal]

I think I should do like Glenda and start keeping a countdown calendar!

Thanks everyone. And you're right JT - she has to go. Unfortunately, it's very hard to get rid of a minor. It would be easier if she broke the law or something. She's bad but not bad enough...

Nope, no one is thriving in this situation. We have another year left until she graduates. After that, she's on her own. I think Gabe said it best. I have to work through this anger and learn to tune her out. I have a few more gray hairs than I should, but thankfully I haven't had to deal with any health issues yet.

Oh and Smoke, she was cut out from the will a long time ago!

[Ann]

JG

My heart goes out to you. I believe that not reacting to her, in any way, may be the ticket. Yawning and folding the laundry is a positive action, so is just walking away mid rant. When she no longer has an audience, she will tire of the game. When she no longer gets a reaction, she wll be dancing alone.

Vent, rant, rave, scream here. Hourly if necessary. I already arranged to have this thread padded and sound proofed, so just come to the padded room and let 'er rip!

Love ya JG.

Hugs
Ann

[jeepgirl]

journey,
I went through some very rough year with my daughter. It took me years to realize that to not react would diffuse her! She got my goat, and her dad's a million times.
It won't work overnight. But keep it up for as long as you can, and you may be surprised. (she turned out to be bipolar - insane mood swings... even so, this really helped). Oh, and say no when you really want to. I said yes too many times to keep the peace. It was a fatal mistake.
jeepgirl

[Paulie]

(((JG)))

Vent, scream, whine, jump up and down, throw things....what ever you need to do to help release it. Holding this stuff inside is so bad, you know that.

Time, that is what is the problem here. Time until she is of age. Keep taking care of you, those steps that we talked about!!! Me to.

[Tink]

I am having trouble with my bf little girl (8), its been rough around our house, her dad relapsed, my dad died, and then 5 weeks later my brother died from a drug deal gone bad. we have his daughter part time, every tues, & thursday nites and every other weekend. It has been a battle, I am close to her, but not to her mother, long story short, she was not with us for 2 weeks, and then came back to us last week. It was our short week with her, so that meant tues and thurs only. Before she left she was having a hard time with her dad's relapse, this was her whole focus, she went on easter break and came back, on tuesday it was ok, but on thursday plans had changed i needed to pick her up an hour later so she could do homework with her friend, long story short, rearranged my schedule picked her up, she was not ready, she wanted to stay at her friends for dinner, and took 20 minutes to get her shoes on to leave, while walking out the door i said so youre all done with your homework, the answer was no, they played instead. So now we have to get home, make dinner and do the homework that she was supposed to do. WHen we got home i told her dad, yep I was upset, he tried to talk to her, and she had nothing to say, went to the bathroom, ignored him and has total disrespect for him. 45 minutes later she finally gets her homework done. My patiences is wearing thin by now. So the next day I guess she decided to write me a letter telling me how she feels, she mailed the letter to me, she said that I was mean. Mind you, I had explained to her that I did not want her to think I was being mean, I just did not want her to get a slip to take home from school, she said I dont think your mean. She is only 8 but wants to be the boss of everything, she can be such a sweet little girl, but then everything seems to be fight lately, and she knows it all. She has no respect for any adult, and is trying to hard to grow up to fast. Her mom told me the letter was coming and how I should handle it, she just wanted to tell me how she felt, the letter went on to say and why did you start smoking (cigarettes), and why when I asked you about daddy slamming the hood on the car did you say you do not have to know everything, and that she did not want to talk to me because I will get mad, and tell her it is a lie. We use to talk about everything, including her feelings about her dad relapsing. and that she did not cause it. She did not think that the letter came yesterday, and I really do not know what to say, about it to her. I know this is drama for her, and she is getting all of this attention from this, since she can longer put blame on her dad, he is 11 days clean today, and she hadnt seen him for over 2 weeks. I remember what it was like to be 8, and one thing was that you had respect for adults, and you did not run the show. I love this little girl, but I do not appreciate everything that happens in our house goes back to her mom's, and then i have to hear how I should feel, and handle this. Last nite when i told her the bath was ready, she just ignored me, and then this morning there was something else. The shocker of all this was my bf has never validated my feelings before or stood up for me, and he finally did. I will not see her until thursday nite, should I ignore the letter, should i wait for her to bring it up, should i bring it up. I just want to do the right thing. But I refuse to let her and her mother run our household there are rules at our house, and i do refuse to let her treat her dad with disrespect, that just is not right. Her dad is my family now, and we live together, and plan on being together for the long haul, thick and thin. thanks for letting me vent. I am right with you on the venting, and I am trying to release it and let it go. funny how when you start taking care of you it can be so painful and hard. It seems so much easier to take care of everyone elses feelings, but that was the old me, I have feelings, and JG i am proud of you taking care of you

[journeygal]

(((((((((Tink))))))))))

My goodness, your story is very familiar! When my stepdaughter first came to live with us at age 13, the damage was already done. She had (and still has) no respect for any adult, thinks she should run the show, and at the time her mom was calling everyday, trying to tell us how we should be handling her. Uh, hello? The child has horrible behavior, you raised her, and now you want to tell US how to raise her?

I think you should acknowledge her letter so she knows you care about her feelings. I certainly don't know the right thing to say to her, but I feel your pain. Step family situations are so hard.

Whatever happens, keep taking care of you and keep venting!

Hugs,
JG

[Tink]

thanks JG, well she did not bring up the letter last evening, so neither did I. Her dad however thinks that I should be talking to her about this, and do I hate her that much, no I do not hate her, but he can not force the issue. and he also needs to let her talk about it when she wants to. He then says dont you care about her feelings, it has nothing to do with that, yes I care that she has feelings, but so do I and nobody cares about my feelings. So last nite he said something smart about parenting, and since I do not have any kids of my own, yadda yadda, i decided that I would let him do all the parenting on his own .... by the way he is the addict in my life and when he wants to run out the door to go use or drink, she is the furthest thing from his mind, and has no trouble just doing what he wants and leaving her with me. I guess its okay for me to take care of her then....THis morning I let him deal with her, after about 5 times of asking her to put her shoes on, and drink her milk and take her pill (she has adhd), he then became frustrated and yelled at her, they were going to be late once again, I calmy told him, dont yell at her, dont talk to her like that.....he said I was being cocky, I flat out told him no I am not, I am just acting like you and her mother do to me, and telling you how to handle your feelings, and reminding you she is only 8 like all of you do to me. It felt good to step back, I think I am going to continue on this trend. Today is my birthday and I plan on being good to me, even if nobody else is. This is our long week with her, so we have her the whole weekend, Let's see how it goes, I keep telling myself this could back fire, he could get so mad that he will drink or use....but I am Powerless.......I am powerless, and the serenity prayer....Hugs, and thanks.

[HardHead]

Snuk in the back door.lol
Happy B-d ay Tink,
Good luck to Y'all
Just surfin round trying to figger my chit out.
Later