I have been a SM to a Now 19 & 17 yo girls for 10 years. Have one 15yo son from previous relationship and my DH and I have 8 yo daugter together. Relaionship with SK started out pretty good. My H was awarded full custody of his kids by court bc BM was a drug addict. Contact with her was non exsistant. After a couple years with no contact she slowly started to clean up her act and began small supervised visits. The better she got the more she came around the further away from me the kids drifted. I work from home and my H always told me I was in charge of the kids. I slowly started noticing him overriding every decision I made. the more I tried to parent the more he tried to be liked. Everyone treated girls with kid gloves bcause they had a rough time with their mother. ( my father has been a drunk most of my life and abandoned me as a young child, It does not define me and would never think I deserved to be treated any diff bc of it) It was soon obvious there was a line being drawn. Basic things I expected to happen (clean up after your self, put away laundry, basic cleanliness), all of sudden became my responsibility not theirs. He would be upset with me when they didn't clean their room, or do the things I had been telling them were their responsibility. When oldest got her license he told her whenever she needed gas money just ask. He gave her my car, and told me I had to pay her insurance. The one condition he had was shhe needed to have a job. Job lasted a few weeks. She quit, and why not my H and I were paying for anything and evrything she wanted. She got the car in an accident after being parked illegaly in a parking lot. My husband was very uset, but paid to have it fixed ($2000) and gave her the car back. We paid all of her expenses for her to go to college for a year, car insurance, gas, rent, books, food. Everything. She quit after a year. She came back to our town and started working in the field she had gone to school for. Though she did not finish she did have enough qualifications to get a lower paying job. She refuses to work 40 hrs per week. Not sure why, laziness. She is still driving my car. She makes her distain for me well known. Has said some very hurtful things to me via text, she swears at me, and has told me to my face she doesn't like me. Though she has no problem texting me when shhe needs money. Her sister is starting to take some of her influnce. I found out today that she called my H and asked him point blank if we were planning on buying her a car. As she is having this converstation with him. I had my moment, my last straw. I had a cop show up at my house asking me about the car I owned (the one my H so thoughfully gave away to my SD.) It was involved in a robbery. My first thought is the car was stolen. Nope. She was the get away driver in my car in my name from a liquor store robbery in the middle of the day. I told my husband when he got home what had happened, and he basically said if I had signed the car over to her I wouldn't have to deal with it, turned around and fell asleep on the couch.
I am so angry at his complacent additude when it comes to his two kids. He is enabling them and whatever they do. 17 yo has missed almost one month of one of her classes and is at risk of failing. He doesn't care.
IMO he sufers from guilty dad syndrome. He works so much and doesn't do much with us. And his kids have always made him feel bad for it. THe problem I have is my son and our Daugter adore him. I am miserable, always stressed out, but as he has been quick to remind me in the past, without him I have nothing. I work for his construction company. But it is because of his hard work that we have what we have. I don't know if I have the strength to do what my head is telling me to do. I can't do this anymore.