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Middle child is driving me crazy!

kds123's picture

I am 38 yr old and have been a sm for 18 years.My husband has had sole custody the whole time. BM gave up custody because she felt she was missing out on her childhood when the kids were younger (we are the same age) It has been rough over the years dealing with a bm who is selfish and self centered. She is married to a total jerk.
2 years ago my middle child was a junior in highschool. She made us all think she was doing so well and had a great outlook on her future. Her grades were good and we really didnt have any problems, until... My husband found out that she was not where she was supposed to be a few times. So we put a GPS locator on her phone. One night we got a call from my sister in law and she told us that my sd and her daughter had gotten into a fight over a boy and my sd had some stuff to tell us.
We found out that she was hanging out with real dirt bags that did drugs and she was being sexually active with a few of these dirtbags. It was heartbreaking to say the least. After my husband called the bm and told her all of this her husband and her decided to take the car they bought her away. About a month went by and homecoming was coming up. We all decided to let her go with some friends but gave her a curfew of 1 am, which happened to fall on the bm weekend. She told us she was going to the dance and then a few of them were going to "hang out" at a well known friends house. My husband and I were on our way home from friends house at about midnight and decided to drive by the "well known" friends house. Long story short no one was there. They all went to a party in the woods, we tracked her friends down at the party but my sd decided she would leave her friends and go to her boyfriends house. We went there at 1 am only to find they were there alone, needless to say we were furious that once again she had lied to us. My husband called the bm and she decided she would lie to her husband so my sd wouldnt be in trouble over there. But told us to tell her she was grounded and losing her car again. Somehow my sd decided that my husband and i were evil and didnt want to live with us anymore. So after Thanksgiving break when she was supposed to come home from her mothers she decided she was staying there. Almost her entire Junior year she barely spoke to us. Holidays and birthdays were the hardest. I had to call the school to find out how she was doing because she wouldnt talk to us. She was skipping school almost everyday and her grades were dropping. Her sd and her started to but heads and then she came running back home. We never talked about the past just pretended that it never happened. ( Which killed me because I have to talk about my feelings) She moved back in but her sd took her car and sold it. So a friend of the family bought her a car. She couldnt afford to put it in her name or insure it by herself so we put it in our name and insured it for her until she could transfer it. She is now a senior in highschool. The only rule we gave her was to be honest with us about where she was going and no one drives the car until you get it transferred because of liability. She starts dating a real piece of work and she has to drive him everywhere because he wrecked his familys only vehicle. 3 mths later i get a phone call that the boyfriend had her car while she was at work and rear ended someone and hurt them :/ Of course those people sued our insurance for the full amount of the coverage. He totaled her car. My husband was furious, the boy got in his face told him he would sell drugs to pay the deductible. It got ugly, so of course she moved out again. We couldnt let her have the car because it was unsafe but she thought we were just being jerks. About 2 weeks went by not a word from her, she finally asks about the insurance $ for the car, it took over 2 mths for them to give us a check for the car and my husband gave it to the family friend that bought the car in the first place. She was furious. Now she tells everyone that we are so awful to her and we want nothing to do with her. If only she knew how broken hearted her father and I are. She won't talk to us though. Not about real stuff, when we do see her it feels fake. I never in a million years that the little girl I helped raised would ever treat us this way.

Comments

hanneyh1's picture

I don't have experience with older Skids yet, but I'm really sorry she's putting you through this. She obviously doesn't care. And if she's not going to follow the rules you put on things, I would stop helping her. I would just stop letting her borrow any cars, stop providing insurance, stop buying her cars, stop checking on her school (she's old enough to see what the consequences will be), stop everything. I know it will hurt and it will be hard, but let her learn the hard way. If that means having to ride a bike everywhere or bum rides from friends, so be it. She didn't give a damn about your rules and broke your trust. She doesn't deserve to be given another chance at "free" help. She needs to learn the meaning of working for her priviledges. If BM wants to baby her still and let her get away with things, let her deal with her. She will come to realize in time that what you have done for her was above and beyond what most parents will do, stepparents or bioparents. My parents never bought me a car. If I borrowed money, I had to pay it back. If I needed gas, I needed to get a damn job to pay for it. My stepbrother bounced from house to house when he was a teenager too and never realized how good he had it and that the rules were necessary until we grew up. He now sees what a loser his BM is and when he needs help, he comes to his dad (my SDad) and knows that if there are limitations, he best respect them or my mom and SDad won't help his ass anymore.