In the past, i've talked about my adult stepdaughter, now 23--how she let my dog get off her leash such that my dog could have been put down by the city and instead of recognizing the serious potential consequences to my dog, focused everything on her scraped palm.

I have continued to have frustrations with her but am also looking at my own issues. For instance, I get heads down in things and don't want to be interrupted and I have to remember that relationships are more important in the end than the things I am perhaps focused on.

I've asked myself questions about how I treat my adult son (living with us) in regards to not cleaning his cooking utensils vs SD not putting her dishes in the dishwasher. In part. my own son does a LOT of work around here clearing snow. for instance and caring for animals when we go out of town...but then I remind myself SD also makes sure her bedsheets and towels are in the laundry for me when she leaves. And anything I ask her to do...she does cheerfuly and quickly.

In the past 18 months, DH has been having SD take over more of her own bills. He had been helping her a bit with her rent and her therapist bill while she was in college. She is now paying all of that. [She was talking to a counselor about her mother's death and then about the issues with DH's second wife/her first stepmother who was very cruel to her.] SD is now paying all those expenses.

In her last couple visits with us I notice she seems less worried that I'll flip out if she doesn't know where something goes as she empties the dishwasher. I realize she's begun to trust that I am not StepMother1.0 She strips her bed when she leaves and starts the laundry.

She made a point of calling me today for Mother's Day.

It's been gradual but I've seen the change in her behavior and maturity and I think a lot of it really does have to do with her getting farther from the abuse of her first stepmother and beginning to trust that I won't treat her that way. 

It's been some sucking it in on my part and trying to remember she's been through the very awful death of her mother at 13 and a cruel stepmother after that.

I've had to set aside my own frustrations and look at myself and what I can do--for instance I'm a VERY solitary person who could spend three weeks alone writing and playing music and never miss human companionship while she is a young woman desperately missing a mother figure and someone to talk to and trying to make that happen with me.