I'm there with Redface Magee and darling Princess Pisspants. One mother is raising her child to be a statistic and the other is raising her child to be a gold digger. I don't see hope for either.

I do and DH is getting pretty close. We tried again with skids this past weekend. We took them and my BS to an activity. BS had a great time. The other children there were having a great time. Skids were completely disengaged from us. They acted like robots. They complained and said they didn't have any fun. DH is so sad over it. He keeps trying and gets nothing back from them. DH actually commented how he completely believes me about how BM is now. He told me he's thinking of taking a break from them and see if it has any effect. I told him I doubted it would and that it would just give BM what she wants and more ammunition if they go back to court next year.

Apart from singing the praises and merits of Nutella, I don't see anything SS doing in his life that is noteworthy...

...
.....
...

Except being tall.

Unfortunately, I do think SD23 is hopeless. I think she will follow in her mother's footsteps, being with a man (any man) instead of being independent. And in between men, relying on her mother.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't think I am.

Yes, I feel that way too.

It's terrible because they are hopeless in radically different ways.

SD is going to do fine in life (probably). She is smart, she works hard. I consider any chance of a civil relationship with her to be hopeless. I'm not losing sleep over it though.

SS does worry me. He is friendlier and has been more accepting of me from the very beginning. I could probably reach a certain level of comfort with him given enough time. I do think he's doomed to fail in life though. That worries me because I don't want to deal with a lazy unproductive adult skid.

not hopeless - oss, and mss
hopeless - yss.

i get along w/ oss and mss very very well. they each have their own asshole qualities, as do we all, especially that oss is entitled and mss can be lazy. but pretty much aside from that, i think they will both turn out just fine.

yss on the other hand, yes he still has a ways to grow, but he gets worse as he gets older and definately favors the polluted end of his gene-pool (thnx rags, for that expression!). he has potential, but the uncertainty is too great that i dont expect much from him. you know, keep your expectations very low so you'll *never* be disappointed, but *maybe* pleasantly surprised....

I guess I am naive? dumb? stupid? but I always believe there is hope. Especially for the people at the ages as my skids are. (21, 21, 19, 15). I think that people can go up, change their feelings, not hold grudges, mature, etc.

I no longer hold on to hope though. I used to. I tried and tried and tried everything to make the situation with the skids better. It just never did. And I always held up to hope and kept a positive outlook on it.

Over time I realized that I was probably the only one who had that hope and that I was only hurting myself and in some ways, my marriage, by holding on to hope.

The skid situation is pretty much dead in the water. I could even say "hopeless". But I am a positive person. I believe in good about people and am open to a positive change in the situation if I felt up to accepting it.

I do feel though that a lot of damage has been done that is probably irreversable.

I am very fortunate to be able to say NO, my SS is not a lost cause, or hopeless. I believe the kid has a bright future, he's a good kid.

As far as my relationship with SD, honestly I don't care. It will probably always be what it is now, which is not horrible, just not great. I see her a couple of times a year, act cordial, and that's it.

So far SD21 has only been able to hold on to one "man" for any period of time, and that "man" had six kids with four different women, so ... She is determined to sponge off a man (maybe any man) all her life and never work to support herself. So far she's succeeded with daddy dearest, and I know she plans to hook in a husband as well, but no luck to date. If she wasn't so selfish and wanted all the money for herself (and therefore doesn't want a kid she would have to spend money on), she could hook her man the old-fashioned way by getting pregnant.

every once in a great while I will see a glimmer of hope with SD16, I will have a little tug at my heart telling me that maybe I SHOULD try harder to have some semblance of a "relationship" with her. And EVERY time within 24 hours she does something to make me remember how much I dislike her.

Sometimes I feel guilty... like I sent BS4 to his room on probably 3 different occasions over the weekend, but after 2 minutes or so, when he comes back downstairs, we are all good. No grudges, no bad memories, just a clean slate.
why in the world can't I do that with a skid??

I fell like my SD will be completely hopeless if my husband doesn't do something to stop it soon. It is up to him to fix the relationship between us, in my opinion. I can't have a relationship with his daughter if he isn't also actively involved in it.

SD19 is a sophomore at an honors college but is a budding ODD and BPD. She is an entitled, narcissistic bitch. She whined to DH that she didn't have any friends because she couldn't stand any of them. Maybe none of them could stand you, either, SD19? She is a control freak like her late BM and crazy GM. She is coming home to get her head checked this week because she is suffering from anxiety. I guess it's tough to CONTROL everything, now isn't it? She is taking tons of classes that are way beyond her level because her boyfriend is taking them and he can "help her." Funny how we haven't heard about her GPA as much this year.... She may have been given larger brains when compared to YSD, but her anger and control issues? She will always be miserable and depressed. Poor SD19.

SD13 was definitely the more confident one up until this past summer when she hit puberty. She decided she wanted to be a boy in August, but is still very much a girl. She is very quiet at school now and can't remember to wipe her ass unless someone tells her. She is becoming more introverted and told DH and I she has no one to trick or treat with. It's too bad, because I had the most hope for her. Now she is just very naive, immature and geeky, like a 5' tall 7yo....Maybe she'll come back out of her shell one day, but she has to graduate school first. She never does homework and is going downhill in 8th grade. Check back with me in 3 years on this Skid.... :O

~ Moon

Hope ??? For what for her to get an assholectomy ??? Ha ha ~ no surgery can help her !!!

The Narcassistic Veruca ~ has established who she is going to be. HS education ~ a community college drop out.

I guess with a mother who got knocked up with no idea of a future other than mooching off of DF to better her life. I see BM as her idol in life ~ ( oops I think I just threw up in my mouth ) ~ reach for the star girl. I guess standing on a chair is all the reaching you will do.

She has one of those personalities that people think is fun to be around. Until you've been around her too much. Typical narcassist , it's everybody else fault she is like she is. Ummm her poor decision making got her where she is ~ look in the mirror that's your problem.

I used to have faith/hope whatever you want to call it. That she would strive to be better but ~ those were just stupid thoughts.

I hope n pray I am wrong ~ cause I really don't want her to ever grace my front door with her presence.

I have two adult SDs. The elder is a narcissistic GU, but she's functional. She'll never be successful as far as interpersonal relationships go, but she's a domestic goddess. The younger SD is batpoop crazy. As a teen she saw four different therapists, with no improvement. YSD cuts a swath of destruction through life.

Both women need psychological treatment. It's doubtful they will ever get it so no, I have no hope for them.

Both hands UP!!!

Because they've been coddled, told they're "learning disabled" due to the fact they are C.O.D.s. The BM infers as though they were the ONLY family on this earth EVER to get divorced--OH the HUMANITY!

So therefore, all three were brought up with no rules, boundaries or structure out of sheer guilt. Sprinkle in the fact that Chef was a feral child from older, too pooped to pop parents, and the BM was the spoiled "miracle child" princess who could do no wrong; pure as the wind driven snow (TM)despite her many drunken sorority parties and plagiarism all throughout college.

BM's message? Why work hard when you can cheat, steal other people's ideas and cut corners through life. Fill your head with pipe dreams and latch on to someone ELSE'S wagon.

Chef's message? I'm scared shitless of the BM so I'll go along with anything she says and kiss your butt just to keep catching a glimpse of you racking up bills.

All three are epic academic failures and going nowhere fast.

Sd8 is doomed to be like bm. Selfish,whiny,manipulative,and immature. I refuse to take any credit for it. She would turn out so much better if she had a bm like myself. I dread the teen years with her. I have already warned dh!

Sd8 is doomed to be like bm. Selfish,whiny,manipulative,and immature. I refuse to take any credit for it. She would turn out so much better if she had a bm like myself. I dread the teen years with her. I have already warned dh!

No hope for either. SS17 still fawns over his "Mommy" which is creepy and he has no friends. SD13 is stepping up the slutty and selfish behavior typical BM style.