Step kids and their permissive dad made me just leave the house
Hi all. I am new to this group so apologies in advance. I am beyond the end of my rope as I moved out a few days ago but was hoping to connect with others who may have had similar issues. I have 2 step kids, ages 14 and 8. Their mom and dad divorced many years ago and had a very bad marriage for several years prior to that. I am a cancer survivor for 15 yrs now but long story short, I have no biological children of my own and cannot due to the prior illness and surgeries and etc etc. I very very much love my husband and hoped that his kids would be the children I never had and cannot have. Their mother has emotional problems and their parenting was very permissive due to guilt over the divorce and rivalry between the parents. I tried and tried very hard with both skids and can honestly say that both they and my husband have truly broken my hearts. I tried patience, cooking for them, doing homework, consulting numerous child psychologists and psychiatrists over the years. I know that much of what they are today is the fault of their biological parents, but it has hurt me to the core.
The 14 yr old is as nasty as humanly possible to me. Blatantly disrespectful and practices manipulation and lying whenever it suits her purposes. Her conduct has forced the school to mandate therapy. At her tender age, she appears to have borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. Her parents refuse to accept this even though she has been evaluated by many top places. She self mutilates and then immediately tells a family member. This has always been in response to someone doing something she did not like. She posts nude photos in the internet, has made various threats to her parents whenever they don't comply with her ever increasing requests. I repeatedly told me husband that having her go through life with no coping skills and also as a highly manipulative and entitled child will not work whenever she has a fight with a friend, romantic interest or even the local dry cleaner. Psychiatrists have told the, she has no coping skills, no boundaries and is emotionally immature for her age.
No one listens. She has demonized me from the start as the person who took her father away from her even though the father divorced years before I ever met him. She recently found suicide threats and very superficial cutting as her way of controlling her parents. She also claimed she has hallucinations, although psychiatrists who interviewed her believed she was making this up to achieve a result as part of her personality disorder. She certainly did achieve a result as my husband is terrified of losing her love and does whatever she says whenever she says. Including asking me to leave my own home so she can have alone time with her father.
The 8 year old son is extremely hyperactive---yes ADHD and is on medication but not really that effective and no therapy. He also is unbelievably whiney, still sleeps with his father in the same bed, has beaten other children at school, and has threatened to kill animals with a knife, told classmates he wants them to burn alive in a fire and also plays with knives incessantly. He has thrown things at me and is rude as can be.
Both skids have no friends in their peer group and have a lot of personal hygiene issue. Their dad is paralyzed by guilt over the divorce, as well as being a Disney dad, and thus they have had no discipline for years. He has also been in serious denial over their psychiatric issues---personality disorder for one and perhaps conduct disorder for the other.
After dealing with them and their behavior for years (and yes I know their dad is very much to blame), I finally just left a few days ago. I would rather live the rest of my life alone than deal with the constant humiliation and abuse I have had at their hands. Although I say that, I am still extremely sad, traumatized, and honestly feel very much alone right now.
I saw this forum on internet searches and thought some of you at there might understand and be able to help. Pretty sad last couple of days. Thanks everyone
Thank you both for your
Thank you both for your comments and support!! It was a hard decision and I am still struggling with it but I hope I can stay the course and stay away and heal. I truly wish those children the best and hope they get much needed care, but the burden of dealing with their bad and cruel behavior and their unsupportive Dad was just too much to handle. It is really so sad that being children of divorce can set these kids on a path that is so bad. They may encounter worse problems down the road (as I did) and then how will they possibly cope? I know the worst problem my husband ever faced (by his own admission) was divorce. I know he used me (although I still find that painful to think about), but what would he and his children ever do if faced with a problem they have no control over?.. I had that and still live under the fear of it. My cancer and treatment did impact me both physically and mentally. I very much focused on trying to help people and be the best person I could be afterwards. It has been hard for me here as I so so wanted it to work out for so many reasons, but I agree I think they all treated me a bit poorly and I unfortunately allowed them to do it. Hopefully I can stay the course and away. So so sad some of these children of divorce are spoiled and conditioned by their parents to not learn the value of life and kindness to other humans. I truly and honestly hope they never have to stare true hardship in the face and falter when they have been so spoiled.
Run as far and as fast as you
Run as far and as fast as you can. I wish I had your courage! You deserve better and you will find better!!! Good Luck to you!
Margaret, Sorry to hear this
Margaret,
Sorry to hear this news, but it may well be a big celebration one day. You cannot live with a husband who treats you this way, you have made the right move. He can grow up or you will move on to a better and happier place. How he could ask you to leave your own home, that says a lot about him and the level of respect he has for you! There are many of us who fall in love with a man thinking we are going to be one big happy family; that we can make it work. Then reality sets in and it is so far from what we want or imagined, we no longer like who we are or who we have become. It is not you, give him time to change and make him listen to you for a change.
You are on the right track, great decision lady!
Margaret, first off let me
Margaret, first off let me say that you did the right thing. For your health and emotional sanity, taking care of you is 1st and foremost. I pray you can find some peace in your decision, as hard as it was. I'm sure you already know that you have tried your best, and without some type of backing from your DH, nothing will change. I'll keep you in my prayers and thoughts. Much happiness your way.
You deserve happiness. You
You deserve happiness. You can do this, you are a bad a$$ that beat cancer, you don't need him! *hugs*
Your health is most
Your health is most important. Sadly it is pretty much a guarantee that if you go back to that environment, you would have a health relapse. The sheer stress in dealing with these stepHELL situations have put a lot of SMs in poor health and may have lead to an early demise
Do not be fooled by promises to "work on it" by him or his brood. If you go back, it will only get much worse.
Run like the wind and take care of yourself!
Thanks to everyone for their
Thanks to everyone for their great posts--they really have given me a lot of support. You know it's really something that permissive parenting and a crazy, angry Biomom have set these kids up for all these problems now and in the future. The SD is well on her way to a hospital stay or a stint in a residential treatment center. The SS may end up in a juvenile detention center at the rate he is going. Aside from their guilt stricken Dad, Biomom has been the one to always always argue against therapy. She is terrified of going anywhere near a mental health professional and will come up with any number of excuses to avoid it.
I have seen that these skids are really developmentally behind (at least 4 years if not more). Hygiene and any personal responsibility is out the window. Their lives are really heading on a sad course. At least in my case (and I know this is not true for all), the way the biopsrents behaved after the divorce really turned these kids into messes that now a doctor or team of doctors need to try and straighten out ( if biomom would even alllow it).
Maybe I can solicit comments
Maybe I can solicit comments on 2 other issues. I did not mention that BM is the primary custodial parent and lives 5 min away. BM initiated the divorce but went crazy when I entered the picture. BM does not work but gets healthy support and is a professional victim. Particularly after I came in, she started treating the kids as her personal confidantes and would ask their advice about all sorts of adult decisions. She really empowered them. Then, they started acting up pretty badly. Soon BM was not very happy with them either and tried to dump them off whenever she could. We only are supposed to have the kids on weekends. When their behavior problems became worse, BM would say she was granting us more parenting time by literally dropping the kids off on the doorstep and calling from the airport saying she was off to a nice international destination. In one case, she literally dropped the SS off with one shoe. She never told the skids she was going away and we had no idea when she would be back.
She also likes to go out to bars in weeknights. She gets sitters in to cover for her outings (which are many times more frequent than anyone I know with a job). Several months later, she told us that the kids don't want sitters anymore and we better not get any for any reason (we truthfully never did although there was a family function coming up we were hoping for a one time reprieve).
BM has made a habit of giving us "extra parenting time" chronically. But because she is the BM she has almost sacred status no matter what she does. She only gets involved to veto therapy.
What surprised me the most is that she also found a crackpot therapist who would defend her as a single mother and defend all her time off as her right. This same clown treated SD for a while and SD went completely off the rails during this time.
It is amazing that both the courts and some mental health professionals will not even listen to the actual facts and just have this bias towards the BM. Seriously, if a wicked stepmom ever dropped a kid off unannounced on a doorstep with one shoe, can you only imagine the outcry. Especially if it was to make an unannounced party trip abroad?
BM definitely helped create monsters and now even the great victim that she is doesn't,t really like how they behave and wants to go do her own thing. No wonder SD is the spitting image of her.
oh dear - skid being only
oh dear - skid being only 8....I will do the same as you, move out and I will file for divorce, 10-12 years to wait is long long time, I moved out when Aergia(SD17) was about 14... I could not handle her anymore and her disgusting behaviors..
But I did not end anything, I still see SO everyday we still do out own things on week-ends, and I only have a year and half left before Aergia leaves home for Uni... then I will move back and holidays will not be fun for her, I doubt she will come home holidays, We live small town and she wants city life... but believe me if Aergia was 8 I would've ended it.....
Think of yourself, if your DH loves you like he says, he will parent his brats and sort them out to make you happy, if he does nothing, Hon do not go back, find happiness else where
You rock!! You had the balls
You rock!! You had the balls to leave!! I don't have those yet, but may be in your same boat. My lovely SKs put a false CPS call on me in retaliation for calling CPS on BM for drinking (Court ordered not to drink, 2 DUIS). Even tho I'm sure ur very sad, u know deep inside u did the right thing. You have to protect yourself. Big hugs!
Take care of you. Enjoy your
Take care of you. Enjoy your next life adventure with this shallow and polluted gene pool fading in your rear view mirror.