I am new to this support group and find it helpful to hear stories so similar to ours.  We are a blended family, married 8 years, I brought 2 sons to the family (BF deceased), DH brought 2 daughters to the family (by 2 different BMs).  Oldest DS died in tragic car accident at the age of 18 – a year after we were married, youngest DS21 is a junior at a major renowned university.  SD15 is our problem child mainly due to PAS and narcissistic BM’s influence.  DH never married BM1 as pregnancy occurred immediately upon them meeting, if you get my drift.  SD12 is a delightful and happy girl.  DH rebounded and married and got pregnant much too quickly after the forced relationship with BM1 soured.  BM2 and her current DH work well with us together on the co-parenting of SD12 and the difference in the happiness of the two girls is vast. We get SDs EOW, same weekend so they can try and be sisters, school days off, and 2 weeks in summer. So says the parenting plan anyway.
 
Needless to say, SD15 and BM1 drama dominates our home life.  My biggest problem is resentment toward DH letting SD15 get away with sooooo much more than the other 3 kids with miniscule accountability.  She talks to DH disrespectfully, dresses scantily, and generally behaves inappropriatly by our values. My boys were treated horribly in comparison nor would SD12 get away with such disrespectful behavior.  I do not know how to roll with this resentment other than count the days until SD15 turns 18 and at the very least the drama over visits, vacations, and school breaks will be over and done.  I know this is horrible but I hope she will be gone for the most part once she is 18. Probably wishful thinking!!!
 
We have spent close to $30,000 in the family court system to get a parenting plan in place after it became apparent that BM1 was quickly poisoning SD15 and she was beginning to prevent her from being with our family for holiday events or vacations.  Since DH never married BM1, there was never a legal parenting plan.  BM1 immediately decided the plan was meant for us only and she did not need to follow the order at all.  Unfortunately, the family law system back-fired in our face when we filed contempt of court and change of circumstance (to prevent further alienation).  It was a huge mess that ultimately resulted in false sexual abuse accusations against my deceased son (how convenient was that since he was not alive to defend himself) and us undergoing an investigation and SD15 granted a GAL and an incompetent psychologist that believed we were the cause of all this girl’s problems and wrote an affidavit to the fact.  We lost that petition and was charged with paying the majority of the GAL’s fees and ALL of BM1’s legal fees.  This case went on for nearly 2 years due to the investigations and we did appeal  (but only ultimately winning some clarifications to the parenting plan in DH favor) so this was all very costly.  Also, BM1 is totally vindicated in her behavior.  Never underestimate the powers of a pathological liar.  We were ultimately deemed acceptable parents after all the investigations and the parenting plan schedule was reinstated but we are stuck with this constant draining drama and huge debt to BM1 adding insult to injury.
 
Of course, nobody took into consideration that our other 2 living children are happy and thriving students and citizens.  How did we manage not to mess them up but only SD15?  HELLO??
 
Besides venting my story and the unresolved resentment and overwhelming exhaustion of it all……my question today would be…..How have you all dealt with a master manipulator who changes  the rules regarding visitations, vacations, and school calendar interpretations to their favor in every instance?  We cannot afford to go back to court with our track record although we do have a decent attorney that provides guidance on how to file motions ourselves.  This has worked in turning BM1’s way of thinking around once or twice.  It gets so old arguing and fighting and filing motions for every single day my DH is entitled to spend with SD15.  To SD15’s credit, once the GAL painted the picture for her to suck it up, her attitude regarding spending time with us has improved overall.  SD15’s overall respect for her personal actions, appearance, school work, and authority continues to decline.    Does anyone have any suggestion on how DH could cope better with this constant drama without losing his religion and allowing them to dominate our family schedule and ruining DH mood so much?
 
Oh, there is so much more to our story and so much of it sadly mirrors other’s stories on here.