Hello to everyone.

I'm 26 and I've been married to my wife for nearly 3 years. She has a 13 year old daughter that is my step-daughter, obviously. Step-daughter's (SD?), dad was pretty much out of the picture for most of her childhood as far as I can tell. Perhaps he's been intermittently shooting in and out of the picture in her early years, but now he's making an effort to at least take her for a weekend every couple of weeks (although that could be as rare as once a month or more).

The issue these days is that whenever my wife and I come together to discipline her daughter, SD will try and turn it into a case of "You're just taking his side". She usually backs this up with "I want to go live with my dad".

In a nutshell, SD's biological dad (BD?), has done nothing for her until perhaps a few years ago, when he took her for the entire Summer holidays. I'm sure he's probably talked to her before plenty of times on the phone, but from what I understand he lived no further than 20 miles away and could barely make it out to see her at the best of times. SD thinks the absolute Earth of him, regardless of the fact he (says) he can't buy clothes for her for school, give my wife money so she can shop for her and buy her supplies for school or other things... he really only gives to her on special occasions such as her birthday, and for the most part puts his eldest (my SD), behind his new wife's kids, and his other ex's kids as well.

Not too long ago we had a miserable fight because she sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night to try and meet up with a boy she was talking to on the internet. As a result when she came home I literally flew off the handle at her for what was basically the very first time I had ever done so. I put a few holes in the door and did a fair bit of screaming (note that I've never been violent to either my wife, step-daughter or anybody else for that matter and am naturally pretty pacifistic, patient and reserved), but I was so distraught at the fact she'd place herself in danger for such a stupid reason I felt I needed to show I was actually downright angry and hurt for once.

A week or so after this incident, step-daughter decided that she didn't want to live with us anymore (later on citing that my behaviour had caused her to feel unsafe - fair enough, even though like I mentioned it was the first time I had even yelled at her like that in the entire 3 years I've been living with them), I believe an argument ramped up the feelings at the time and she went to live with my mother in-law for the better part of 2 weeks.

At this point I'd like to say that my wife can get extremely depressed about these things and had threatened to kill herself, citing the fact that if her daughter didn't need her, even though she'd pretty much taken care of her for her entire life, then nobody else did. In the end the only thing that convinced my step-daughter to come home was the threats of her mother... I don't find myself agreeing with that even though it was the result we'd both wanted (step-daughter coming home).

Tonight we had another argument, and like always she ended up going to my mother in-law's place. I said some pretty bad things about her Uncle, whom she loves because "he's changed", even though his alcoholism caused him to treat her, my wife, myself and pretty much the entire family in the house like absolute garbage, since even before she was born. I said that the only way he'd change for the better is "If he was dead", after she suggested that "He comes before you here", and tried to invite him over here because the power went out in their house.

I don't know where I'm going with this.

I'm just fed up at my step-daughter's lack of appreciation to everyone around her that actually does something for her. She can be so good, so disciplined... she can listen to us, do what we ask, we can reward her and everything will be great. Then in typical teenage fashion her mouth will run away with her and my patience is tested, not to mention my wife's, who has little to no fuse at all. She idolises her biological dad, who has literally done sweet crap all compared to even me, let alone my wife, who has been taking care of her ever since she was born... then she talks about her alcoholic, formerly drug addict Uncle as if he never got physical with my wife, mother in-law, brother and what-not - as if she can pretend he was never the scum of the Earth all of her life.

I feel like I can't discipline her because it'll become a huge issue about my wife taking sides. I feel like I don't know where to begin to bridge gaps, to bring her closer to me.

I blame everyone around her in one fashion or another for affecting her upbringing. Her mother in-law spoiled her whenever my wife tried to discipline her. She'd always run to one figure when another was mad at her for consolation instead of reflecting on what she'd done. I've always said, and everyone's said it at one point or another, that her grandmother tried too hard to be her mother instead of her grandmother.

I blame her two Uncles that they'd lived with for most of their lives, for being drug-addicts around her and alcoholics. For getting physically violent in front of her with her mother, her grandmother and each other. For the way they treated their mother, showing her that it was alright to fight your mother, to yell at her and curse her out... to hit her and put her down.

I blame myself for not knowing what the hell to do or how to go about the business of being a step-father to begin with. I wasn't raised this way. I wasn't raised to get away with so much and not be disciplined. I wasn't raised to talk back without the threat of getting slapped/physically disciplined (no, not abuse, but the physical discipline that's been lost somehow over the last 20 years).

I guess I just need to vent and see what happens. For another night my step-daughter... in my eyes has "won" by getting her way and going to my mother in-law's place, while my wife's obviously frustrated because she's sick of getting dragged into the middle and made to choose.

I'm sick of seeing that happen.