I felt like we were in an ok place around here.   DH and I stopped going to.the marriage counselor bc we felt we reached a good place, but we have the option to go back if needed. He is doing better with communicating with me and not catering to everything SD15 wants, I am doing better with not shutting down and trying to be less uptight.  SD has not stayed here much, this summer she stayed at friends houses a lot, and with school back in she said she wants to be based at her mom's.  DH is trying to get some sort of schedule in place (which our counselor also agreed with, for the sanity of everyone), but SD wants to come and go as she pleases, usually only coming if there is something in it for her.  Which is a teenager thing I am sure, but the problem is if he is not able to accomodate her last minute, she gets mad and lectures about how its not her fault they are divorced and how he is selfish and doesn't care about her.  He has been doing pretty well at holding up to that, but it hurts him.  We are open to some of her requests, but we are also not making our plans contingent on her whims.   For the most part there have not been any huge blowups....until this weekend.  Last year, I made the request/rule that she let us know before dropping in for things when she is with her mom.  That caused huge problems, she said she felt unwelcome (after cursing my husband out about it) and didn't come here at all for a while. At first, I wanted her to wait for a response before coming to make sure it was an ok time, but in an effort to compromise I am just asking for notice.  I do not like to be walked in on by anyone unexpectedly, and i feel like a heads up text is a simple thing to ask.  She has for the most part been letting DH know, sometimes 5 min before, but at least that is something.  She never communicates to me, that she is coming or even responding if i text her for any reason, like asking if she needs something from the store.

This weekend DH was out of town for a concert, and she had plans with her mom.  She was very aware of where DH was.  She came Friday to get some things, so I did not expect her Sat.  Around 8 on Sat, I was downstairs in the laundry room and my son was in his room. He heard knocking on the front door, looked out the window, and didn't recognize the van(turned out to be BMs boyfriends).  We don't open our door when we don't recognize. I came up a few minutes later and he said someone had been there, so I looked at my phone. SD had called 3 minutes before, but didn't leave a message.   I did not call her back because frankly, I was ticked off that she would have walked in without letting me know, and I figured she would have left a message if it was important.  If she had left a message saying she needed something i would have called her back, but not if I am too insignificant to communicate to.  Normally she would come through the garage, but we lock it at night and I hadn't gone anywhere to unlock it.  Turns out, she had texted DH 10 minutes before she arrived, but he didn't see it (because he was enjoying guys time out of town). Within a minute of calling me with no answer, she blew up his phone texting  how awful it was that she was locked out, and that she would be back to her her "shit" because she was done here.    A) I didn't know she was coming bc she didn't let me know like she was supposed to and She didn't even give me time to call back (if i were going to) before saying hateful things to DH. 

I am so over all of this, feels like a constant power play and always the threat that she will not come back. I just want to live our lives, we love our kids more than anything and do a lot for them, but they are not in charge and shouldn't be.   DH is trying, but he is hurting and he does not want to lose her.  And I feel like the catalyst for the conflict, if I weren't here, he would probably not enforce much (we don't even have many "rules", be respectful is the main idea).  Does being in a 2nd marriage with kids mean you have to give up ALL expectations, boundaries, rules, and needs in favor of the children? I can't.  I am glad that DH is able to see my perspective, but it is breaking my heart for him to have the fallout.  I dont even know what to do at this point, I feel like I need to get out of the way, I don't want to leave DH but I don't feel like I can handle the guilt I am feeling

But then...after saying she is "done"...she had BM call DH last night to say SD needed to come stay a while because their power was out and it was "hot". She spent the entire time in her room and left without saying anything.  I am so over the mean, entitled, using behavior.