SD is ruining my marriage and I dont know if I'm the crazy one!

I am married to a woman, who i fell head over heels for. We were kind of thrown into moving in together because of the situation with her ex, and have now lived together for 2 years. I have 2 boys and she has 1 daughter. The kids get along like kids do, sometimes amazing and others just like brother and sister. Her daughter and I have butted heads from day one, she’s been given the world on a silver platter with no responsibilities for her entire life, she is 9. Her father spoils her because he feels the need to make up for time not spent with her and her mom spoiled her because she had no one else to give her love to, and the rest of the family does as well. If we tell people to not buy her a crazy amount of gifts, they call us mean, if we tell her she cannot have something, she will just go to her dad and he will buy her whatever she wants, which no matter how many times we beg him to not do, he doesn’t care. My children see this and complain because she always gets anything and everything she wants, which makes me feel bad because while I do buy my kids gifts, toys ect, I have tried to make them be thankful for the things they do get. She back talks me all the time, ignores things I say to her and pretends to her mom she never hears me, rolls her eyes at me, and argues with me over anything I do. As I said from day one me and the SD haven’t seen eye to eye, I do not let her throw 2 hr fits over what’s for dinner, I do expect her to do some chores around the house, and I do expect her to respect both me and her mother. All of which are not things she’s used to and causes lots of drama in our house. When we began asking the kids to help with chores, all of them didn’t like it of course but my son has been able to get past the fits and just does them, the SD refuses every single time, to which her mom in the beginning would fight with me because I requested her to do them, so now she will spend an hour or two in room, screaming and throwing things before she’ll finally do the dishes, ect. She is 9 and has more things than any other kid I know, her room is so packed full of things it always looks like a disaster. I’ve tried and tried everything I can to get some respect from her with it going nowhere. She has a cell phone, and ipad and a huge flat screen tv in her room so sending her there as a punishment is more fun than punishment, which is all her mom will do to her. Once my wife was gone and the SD decided that she didn’t want what I was cooking to eat, so she started screaming and throwing herself around the kitchen, so I asked her to go to her room. Finally after 5 minutes of that going nowhere, I helped her down the hall and closed her door, to which her response was throwing her IPad at me. I opened her door and took the ipad and told her she was going to lose it for the night, closed her door and she threw something else at it, so I told her for everything she throws will add a day on to the loss of her IPad, we were up to about 4 days before she stopped. When my wife came home, I told her exactly what had happened, I was told how wrong I was for doing that, she gave her the IPad back and then of course we fought all night because of it. I am told all the time I’m the adult, she’s the kid and I just need to deal with it. It took me almost 2 years to realize in my head that a lot of the SD behaviors were caused by her mother allowing these things to happen, and that all of this was not only the SD’s fault. My wife has always defended the SD and blamed me for everything, telling me how hard I am on her daughter. I’ve now requested my wife and her daughter to move out of my house, to which she refuses. Once that conversation happened, it dawned on my wife what I was saying over the last 2 years and she now gets why I have such anger towards this situation. She has now agreed to move out once the school year is over, which makes me ill because I love her more than I could’ve ever imagined. How can I let a 9 yr old little girl ruin my marriage and let my wife and her child move out? I have told my wife that I do understand I do not get to choose you or her because they are a package deal, but she would prefer me to continue living in the situation so that she and I do not separate. SD lives with us full time, while my boys are only half time as I have shared custody with their father, so there are never any breaks from the stress. I speak with my wife about the things that bother me, she tells me how it’ll all change, but it’s been 2 years now and things do not change, they just shift from one issue to another. PLEASE HELP!! I love this woman and we’ve gone thru many obstacles to be together, but I can’t live in a house where I’m no longer comfortable.

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You did the right thing in

You did the right thing in asking them to leave. This is not going to get better, especially if there is another parent involved who SD can run to when you guys lay down rules, consequences, or just say no.

Trust me, I have an SD17 who plays this gig and has her whole life. Unfortunately DH didn't catch on to the manipulation and what was happening until it was too late (about age 15) Then trying to tame the monster was like trying to get an armadillo to fly. It's simply not going to happen, ESPECIALLY when every time DH would say no to something SD would just run off to her GBM or BM or MIL and they would get her what she wanted and that won't stop.

Sorry you are going through this, but you WILL come out the other side of this and say Thank You Jesus!

I feel your pain... somewhat.

I feel your pain... somewhat. My Sd10 doesn't act out like that with me. If she did I would do exactly what you did. But I do have the feeling that she is ruining my relationship!

You and your wife need to be on the same page for parenting. Your wife is making you look like the bad parent, when in fact she is by allowing this behaviour to happen. AND by not supporting YOU.

I get the "oh she's just a kid" all the time. It's such BS.

I've been told to make a list

I've been told to make a list so it's clear to all the children what is expected of them, so I did and put it on the fridge. Things for chores such as the old two do dishes and clean their own bathroom, while they all, including my 3 yr old, are responsible for putting their dirty clothes in the hamper (Which my SD always leaves on her bedroom floor), picking up their toys, ect. Some of the house rules are no more any food until what you have taken is gone, putting your clothes in the hamper ect. We do not expect too much out of our children, but we both work FT and I go to school PT, so I do think they need to help out around the house. I have poured everything I have into helping my wife get her credit in order, paid for cataract surgery, all finances are in my name, including the house and her car so that will cause issues for me, and not to mention the fact that I really feel as I have met my soul mate and would hate to lose her. UGH I just hate all of this, and with the thought of her leaving in 2 months, I just don't know what else to do. We have sat down with the SD and spoke to her as an adult and just explained to her why she needs responsibilies and why it's not a good thing for children to get everything they set their eyes on. She was very calm and acted as if she understood everything, and 20 minutes after that 45 min talk, she was asked to finish the dishes and boom it was all like we'd never talked. Now that her mom has begun backing me finally, SD will laugh in her face when she's asked to do anything. I've explained how I feel as she could not care about anything we say because she only wants to do it her way, and now that her mom sees this, I feel I'm a little too negative towards change that I can't get past it.

Thank you, I have considered

Thank you, I have considered counseling as suggested by a friend. This might be my only hope at this point.

I did not leave my ex-husband

I did not leave my ex-husband for her, I was already 1 yr into separation and had previously filed for divorce. She was previously engaged to a man, they ended the relationship a week before the wedding because they both realized they were just getting married to get married not because they loved each other. Yes I am a woman married to a woman, I've never been with a woman before but I feel in love with her for her, not for her gender. Trust me it was strange for the two of us as well, but you can't help the heart.

The thing is, I'd seen this before, when she was with her Ex, we were previously friends so I did witness this first hand. But I guess I didn't really think of it because I wasn't involved directly like I am now. I seen her ex going through things like this, but he as a man, would for some reason just give in to the SD, or apologize when he was upset over the SD's actions because he was told to do so, to which I REFUSE to do. If I am wrong, I will apologize, but I will not apolozie for a SD causing an emotional reaction in me because she chooses to behave poorly.

Your post made me tear up,

Your post made me tear up, because yes this is what I dread is my boys living in a house they see such insanity. And I fear these things have also began to rub off on them, which I do not say my boys are perfect, but they were raised to know the difference between wrong and right.

Definitely see a councillor,

Definitely see a councillor, they will have good parenting tools and will shed light on the while situation and make it easier to deal with. There's always boarding school for naughty children...,first tho, a third person w help you both see the situation for what it is.

My SD throws tantrums like

My SD throws tantrums like that too, and there's very little that can be done to reason with her when she's in that state. My DH and I are always united in our approach and work together to minimise the bad behaviour. Now there are less tantrums which is good. Calmly setting down rules, and ignoring bad behaviour has helped, as normally it's because if attention.

You need to have a joint strategy for dealing with this. You need to ensure you and your partner are united. I would start with that, if you cannot agree on how to parent you may need to consider letting her go because this will tear you apart one way or another. Could the Father have a turn looking after SD for two months so he can see this behaviour first hand, give you space to work on the relationship.

You've done the right thing

You've done the right thing in demanding that they leave. And for the record, your SD is not ruining your marriage...your wife is ruining your marriage. This woman has no clue how to be a parent. Until she learns how to do that, your life will continue to be hell.
Have them move out....the sooner the better. Remain friends...or not. Seek counseling...or not. But know this: the problem rests solely on your wife's inability to parent. Until she realizes that and realizes that she HAS to change, then your situation will never change.

BTW: children should NEVER be allowed to have a tv, phone, internet in their bedrooms. Complete nonsense and dangerous. Again, your wife is clueless in raising children. Why would any child ever be a part of a "family" if all they had to do was hide in their room with their phones, their tv's, their internet so that they can entertain themselves WITHOUT their parents? My kids surrender their phones, ipads, ipods when they go upstairs. No tv or electronics are allowed in their rooms. When they grow up and move out, they can do whatever they want, but in my home, electronics are not allowed in the bedrooms. No point at all in allowing that except for the kids to distance themselves from their family.

My SD knows how to work her

My SD knows how to work her mom too and has told me point blank if I keep crying she will give in. But if I tell her she said that I am a liar. My wife is an amazing person who was there for me when my ex fought my divorce from him for over a year. Our relationship is certainly suffering and it breaks my heart, I don't want to lose her but I can't live like this forever