My Step Daughter overheard me venting about her to my therapist

When I was young we fostered some kids whose mother was found by the social worker holding a knife to their throats. It was an absolute slog to get them to like us. (Their behaviour was really shitty because they'd been bounced around a lot, so they got the attitude that they might as well be shitty so that they'd get moved on to the next bunch of do-gooders who would end up betraying them just like all the other ones had).

Eventually (years later) she got some psycho-therapist to sign off on her being 'all right now', and she got visitation rights. When she had them she would shower them with gifts and tell them that only she loved them, and that we didn't really love them. Their behaviour went back to being shitty - even more shitty than before.

Eventually their mother forced the system to make the children vote who they wanted to live with (after we'd had them something like 12 years) ... and they instantly voted to live with her.

Didn't even last a week before they were asking to come back. They couldn't stand each other and drove each other absolutely barmy.


Nice story but how does it pertain to your sitch? Well, I'm guessing that the derelict BF has been using his visitation rights to fill her head with junk about how you don't really love her, and only he loves her.... which is why she's been acting awful. It's a weird kind of test where if she's shitty enough to you you'll eventually snap (who wouldn't FFS) and that will 'prove' that you never loved her.

You're putting up with a lot of behaviour that would be unacceptable from another adult - e.g. if she was a roommate.

I don't think you should be paying for her college. But I do think it would be good for her to go live at some college where she has to live in a dorm or some other form of having to get along with other people she doesn't know.

If nothing else, it might recalibrate her socialisation.

Sending her to live with her 'real' Dad might also be a dose of reality that she desperately needs. Not because you want to get rid of her, but because the problem is until she does she's always going to have a 'grass is greener on the other side' mental framework.

A nice hard cold dose of reality should sort that fantasy out right pronto.... and pretty much nothing else is going to do it.

Also, your wife needs to get on board with this programme of now that the child is a grown-up letting them treat you like shit is unfair to you. It's also bad for the daughter's mental development.

Then, if you do get a clean break, and she does come back at some point (e.g. four years from now after college or a week/month of living with the deadbeat or whatever) you and your wife both need to set firm boundaries about expected behaviour from another adult living under the same roof. Be absolutely draconian too. Zero tolerance for abusive BS. And then if she shows she can actually behave in an adult fashion and acknowledges that her behaviour towards you was awful and that she regrets it, then you can gradually ease off the restrictions and increase the level of privileges.

Right now, with the amount of abuse she's been giving you, she should immediately lose all privileges. Don't do anything for her you wouldn't do for some random hobo that was hurling abuse at you for not giving him twenty bucks.

/r/relationships Thread