Your husband jumps in and tells you to shut up?! Well why wouldn't she do it then, she gets away with it! He needs to set an example & demand that she respect you! She will never behave if he condones her actions. I can't believe your husband would do that. Did you ever adopt these kids?

Linda,

At 16-17 she can be emancipated at your husbands initiative. I would shut that crap down immediately. Let your DH know that the next disrespectful outburst from SD16 she will be out of your home. ZERO TOLERANCE!

The next time she pulls that crap pack her crap when she leaves for school and put it on the curb. Whatever is left when she gets home she can take with her.

Change the locks so she has to stand on the lawn waiting for someone to let her in. Have the come to Jesus meeting with her that she will be allowed back in only once and only if she agrees in writing to follow some basic rules of common respect and decency with all members of the household. Don't let her or her stuff back in the house until she signs the paper and has the wide eyed terrified look that she got the message.

An ill behaved child is one thing. An ill behaved teen is another issue entirely.

I experienced my own version of your SD's 16yo idiocy though I would not have lived through even one incident of disrespect that you described you SD perpetrating. My parents would have killed me for that.

After my first sophomore year of high school (I had two sophomore years) my parents enrolled me in Military School. We were waiting at the airport with my Dad for him to board the plane to fly home (pre 911). School did not start for a couple more weeks and Mom and I were staying behind to get me started at Military School. With about 45 minutes to go before boarding I turned to my Dad and Mom and said "I am not going". My dad opened his brief case, pulled out the check book, wrote me a check for $500.00 and said "You are 16 and do not have to go to school any longer. Here is $500.00. Write your mother when you find a job and have an address that we can write back to you at."

I sat there staring at the $500.00 check with the wide eyed terrified look thinking how badly I had screwed up that time. When they called my Dad's flight I stood up, handed him the check and said "I'll go". He gave me a hug and boarded the plane.

I made straigt A's my second sophomore year and for the rest of high school. I needed the proverbial come to Jesus parental kick in the ass to get my head strait. It sounds as if it is time for your SD to get the message.

Just my thoughts of course.

Good luck and best regards,

with YOU as the ONLY mother figure in these children's lives.

The one who has been there for them, taking care of their every need, tending to them when they were sick, teaching them, "parenting" them in every sense of the word...

And yet, NOW, your DH has the utter GAUL to tell YOU to SHUT UP when the child is being disrespectful to you????

I agree 100% with Melis on this one. It is not the CHILD- it is your DH who, with his attitude, has given her the green light to speak to you and treat you with this blatant disrespect.

HE is the one you need to have a long talk with. And now. His attitude cannot continue. HE needs to show HIS daughter through both his words and actions that SHE cannot treat the adults in her world in such a way.

"If you have never been hated by a child, you have never been a parent."
-Bette Davis

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

When I asked him to tell precious SD17 to get up and go to bed instead of sleeping on the couch-SD13 was sitting on the floor, H had the easy chair, and I was left to either pull up a piece of floor to sit down & watch TV, or leave the room). His response?
Don't tell ME what to do.

These men and their attitudes towards their precious offspring are compounding the problem, not helping solve it. And you, putting your years into this ungrateful kid-smack!

I think alot of us could benefit from counseling...not because we're the ones with the problem, but just to have a professional inform the idiots (ok, don't know if your H is an idiot or not-just currently very upset with my H) we married that they are in the wrong.

A little laugh at my H's expense-talking to him, the young employee who was sharing his apartment at work has been moved to another location. But, his boss is being moved back to his location, so they will be sharing the apartment. So I said, so-your boss will be your new roommate. He responds No. I said-well where's he going to live then? His response-here. in the apartment, but he won't be sleeping in my room so he's not my roommate. I had to refrain from informing him that a roommate is "a person with whom one shares a residence whom is not a relative or significant other". I've decided that helping educate this grown man (44) is not my job. But that's typical. Argue or disagree with anything I say, to try and make me look dumb, when he's the one with the lower IQ.

Put him out on his ass with his daughter.

Or, the next time he is in bed sleeping crawl under the bed and sew the sheets to the bottom of the bed. Then gently wake him while holding a base ball bat in your hand and inform him that if he ever speaks to you in that way again that you will sew him firmly in to the bed and wake him up enegetically with the bat.

Then lean over and kiss him on the forehead, let him stew while sewn in to the bed for a few minutes to contemplate the error of his ways. Let him out when you think he has the message.

Nahhhh. Just throw him out now. My wife nor I would tolerate being told to shut up by the other.

I for one am not that brave. If my wife did not make me regret my poorly chosen words my mother would after they talked. Of course if I called Mom to complain that my wife told me to shut up (which she has never done) my mom would ask "what did you say to have her tell you to shut up".

It is tough to find alies when your Mom and your wife are best friends.

I have similar issues with SD 13, but she's Bipolar/Borderline PD like her mom.

She used to adore me initially, and now despises me because I don't let her manipulate me or sneak something by me she's not allowed to do.

Her mom is down to one night a week, though told my DH last week that overnights "just aren't working" for her, so imagine she will be gone completely in another year or so.

If my DH didn't support me 100 percent when SD's disrespectful (sometimes he's even harsher than I would be on her because it makes him so upset that she doesn't appreciate what I do) I would not be able to stay for long. He needs to get this one and he needs to handle her now.

I think I would recommend you see a counselor, and get some feedback about why SD is turning on you, and how to let your H know his reaction is even more disrespectful than SD's since he's your spouse.

So sorry to hear your facing this particular challenge.
Hugs to you.
"Om Tare Tutare Ture Mama Ayurpunye Jnana Putin Kuru Svaha"
~Sita Tara Mantra

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

Hate to say it, but kids calling their parents and other adults stupid is more common than not anymore. I've heard teens (and younger) say that to their parents so many times it's pathetic. It's so painful, and this coming from a child that you raised as your own is probably doubly so. Guess you could become "stupid" and forget how to cook, how to drive (that is, of course, selective stupidity-forget how to drive to where ever SHE needs to go), too stupid to do laundry, or dishes.

As for your H-who am I to offer advice? My H goes from being soooo in love with me to treating me like something on the bottom of his shoe in a nanosecond. Guess if he wants you to shut up you could just quit talking to him at all. Heading out the door, if he asks where you are going---well, guess he could just wonder about it because you were told to shut up, and the defination of that is not speaking.

Seriously, you don't deserve this treatment from him or his precious daughter. I'm sure, you never dreamed when you said your wedding vows, that you were in for this kind of treatment from the ones you gave over your life to. It's just sad.

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

It's happened here more than once. So the last time,same scenerio-SD17 sleeping on the couch, H in easy chair SD13 on the floor, me walking around again, so when H got up out of the easy chair to go to the bathroom, I quickly took it. So now there's SD17 snoring away on the couch, SD13 on the floor, me in the easy chair. Thought for sure he'd wake that selfish brat up and make her move. Nope. He actually sat on the floor rather than disturb his precious darling! That took the cake. Trust me, if it had been me taking up the couch like that, he would've had a fit.

And my H has, unfortunately, gotten pretty fat. It's not easy for him to sit his fat behind on the floor these days. Unbelieveable!

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

I am beginning to suspect H may be bi-polar. He can be so hard to deal with on one weekend, a sweetheart the next. One weekend-he'll buy the store out (hard on the checkbook). The next weekend, I can't do anything right, he'll fight over anything he can find to fight about. So I have to time things just right...

I'm just keeping a little diary (my posts) on his obvious preference for SD17-and the way he allows her to act in MY home. Not mainly for my benefit, but for the benefit of sweet SD13, mostly. It's painful to watch the little girl see her older sister treated so much better than she is. Then, bam! waiting for the ball to drop, as I'm sure it will-and then off to family therapy we will go! Hard part here-I used to work as a secretary at the mental health clinic-the only therapists in town-and they are all female. He has now proven to me that he does not place any value on anything coming from a woman, so I'll have to wait until the male therapist starts making visits to our little town again. But it will happen.

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

Linda, from your post " Sometimes she'd act really sweet and give me a gift. I'd open it up to find a dead praying mantis or spider. I asked why she did it and she laughed. She said she liked to make me mad. She asks DH to kill me. She tells me to kill myself."

This from your SD? And your H knows this is what you live with and does nothing about it???? Girl, if that was going on here, I'd document it, have a voice activated recorder going-and boot them to the curb. That's just insanity. I mean, this girl is beyond anything I've heard of, and your H allowing her to continue threatening you like this is inexcusable. And dangerous.

I'll just go out on a limb here-and I know that this is extreme-but lately, listening to the news, how many teenagers have actually physically gone up against adults? It's the teen on the school bus attacking the driver, it's the girl who planned and committed the murder of her parents over a boyfriend, it's the teenage girls attacking and beating up the art instructor. I know these are extreme examples, but, for Gods sake, be careful.

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

Honestly. Your SD asking your DH to kill you? Telling you to kill yourself? And your H expecting you to live with that? I'm nearly speechless.

I've been questioning my H's motives for marrying me lately-expecting me to accept SD17's behaviour, and worse yet, siding with her whenever I say anything to him about it, is not the action of a man who loves a woman. And neither is the business of not giving me the time of day during my Halloween meltdown.

But your H has gone even beyond that. He expects you to take verbal abuse from your SD, to the point of asking him to kill you, and then tells you to shut up? Where in that equation is his love for YOU?

Why do we accept so little for ourselves? We may not accept it lying down, be we are, by continuing to live it, accepting it.

Linda,

Regardless of how long you have been together I think it is time for you to let DH know that the SD has to go. I understand that parents should support their kids but enough is enough and your (the wife's) safety and well being trumps a kids. When I was going through my own snarky teen crap my parents let me know in know uncertain terms that I should never put them in a position of having to choose between each other or between me and my younger brother. It was obvious that I would loose. Of course they told my brother the same thing when he starting pulling his own snarky teen crap. Mom and Dad and their marriage trumped Teen Kids every time.

The same should hold for you. I am not sure the best way for you to jerk a knot in DHs tail on this other than to record your SD petitioning her Dad to kill then let the police haul her off in hand cuffs for a several nights in jail. Getting the juvenile authorities in on this one is important I think. Take it completely out of DHs and the SDs hands and let them deal with the authorities.

A good friend of mine booted his daughter at 17 and forced her to emancipate. I would let DH know that SD will emancipate at the earliest possible opportunity unless she gets on board with reasonable behavior immediately.

Keep that recorder rolling and review the tapes with DH at a later time so that he can hear what your SD is saying. If that does not motivate him to personally correct SDs behavior let the police handle it.

Just my thoughts of course.

Good luck and best regards,

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere
Linda, you responded that I described your husband to a tee

"His father always belittled his mom, even after she had the stroke. DH said he hated the way his dad treated his mom but, as I screamed at him last week, he treats me the same way.

He too spends money like water and then'll turn around and act like a miser.

I am always after him about respect. He counts himself and skids as "we" and counts me as being by myself. He's always telling me what the skids like and don't like."

My life. Your life. The only dif I can see is that I am not being cajoled into killing myself, or having my sd ask her father to kill me (at least not that I know of).

My MIL recently described what FIL (deceased 5 yrs ago) was like when he was living-and while he worked like a madman to support his family, he was a horrible husband.

I don't pretend to be any kind of mental health professional, but I was a secretary at the Mental Health clinic here for a period. And these highs and lows are not normal-the manic time, when H is so loving, so generous (too much so, actually), let's travel here, let's buy this, let's buy that- and then low times-angry over the money spent, angry over everything-I walk on eggshells, can do nothing right. Those are the things that I see that make me wonder about the bi-polar (or manic-depressive, if you will).

But, my big concern here is for your safety. From your SD. And again,I've thought of this all day. Rags had some excellent advice; please, please take it into consideration. This is not normal (or, as the therapists used to say, does not fall within the realm of normalcy).