My SD is 37, but I have raised her since the age of 3. She has a couple of other 1/2 siblings and my H and I have a 24 year old son together. She has been terribly jealous of me from the beginning and my H felt guilty about taking her from her mother so he spoiled her and gave her everything she asked for.

We never got along well. I tried to love her as if she were my, own but she fought me every step of the way. I was her room mom, team mom, and scout leader. Her dad was never home, always working so I made sure she was fed, clothed, taken to school, picked up, taken to after school activities, watched as she played outside, kept safe, and nurtured, yet we clashed the entire way. She visited her mom and brothers in a neighboring state twice per year. She resented the absence of her father and hated me for me for my constant presence. When she was 13, I gave birth to her baby brother and she had something new to resent. She raved about how I loved him more than I loved her. He was born deformed and required surgeries. She hated the time and attention he required from me. My H and I made sure we took extra time for her and did special things for her like getting her braces and buying her a new instrument for band.

When she was a senior in college her mother died of a drug overdose. Eventually she married and had a child of her own. Over the course of these years my husband had an affair, which she knew about and was the one to inform me about. She wanted me to walk away. She tried everything she could to get me to leave her father. We separated for 3 years and she became very close to the other woman and her family but eventually became jealous of her kids too because her father was spending too much time with them. Right before our divorce was finalize my H and I were able to reconcile. We have been reconciled for over 3 years and have been extremely happy. She has been growing more restless and has begun calling her father to express her discontent about his lack of interest in her life, and to repeatedly tell him how unhappy she is that he didn’t have time for her as a child or now as an adult. She is insistent that he make time for her and her child or she will cut him off. She also told him that I have “hated” her for years and have never done anything for her. Since August 2022 I have not had any further contact with her.

I have a relationship with my biological son and also one of her brothers, my SS. A week ago my father-in-law passed away. We flew across the country to be with the family and I texted pictures to both my son and SS. My SD called my H to complain that I had played politics by not sending her pictures and that I had also done her dirty on Facebook. I don’t know what I could have done to her on social media since I don’t have anything in common with her on social media. I refuse to diminish my relationship with my sons just because she is a narcissist and needs to emasculate the men in her life. There is so much more that she has said and done that I could go on for days, but in the interest of ending this rant, I will stop here.

Just because you start a skid young doesn’t mean peace as an adult. Being a step-parent is a thankless job.