Be prepared for that axe in your back !!!

Worry about your own child! I have been down this road for a while now, as have a few of us on this board. Wish I had a better answer for you, but being in a very similar situation, I have learned that the ONLY time DH actually wants my help is if it means playing taxi, or running to the store to buy this or that, or finding money so that he can get whatever SD14 wants. Otherwise, he doesn't really want any parenting advice from me, because any advice I have he considers too harsh. Since when is taking away her tablet because she stays up until all hours talking to boys on it or takes it into the bathroom to listen to music when she has specifically told not to many times too harsh? How is it too harsh to want to turn off the internet at 10 p.m. to make sure SD14 cannot be up talking to boys and actually gets some sleep? Is it really all that mean to think a solution to her repeatedly taking 45-60 minute showers after being told repeatedly 20 minutes and out is to turn off the water at the 20 minute mark from the house main? About as much as it is mean that I expect SD14 to pick up after herself and not leave her trash and dirty socks all over the TV room, and about as mean as expecting DH to punish her because she was caught in a lie! No, the lies are brushed off, she has unlimited unsupervised use of the internet, and only gets a talking to for anything else. The reason she is with us is because she skipped school and was caught a SECOND time smoking pot. Did DH punish her? Nope, because she didn't do these things at our house! Forget that she was sent to us the same day she did this because BM couldn't take it any more!

For your own sanity...just concentrate on making sure that your daughter learns right from wrong, and to respect others!

Stay completely disengaged from the kid. Although you have the right to make a comment, once, to husband about any particular item I'd also keep silent in that regard also. He knows damn well what she said and does not need your reminders or even knowledge that he knows you heard. Silence is best unless he brings up a subject.

Explain to your child that since you are not the girls mother you have no say about what he does with his kid and since you want her (your kid) to not go down the same path the rules are going to be different.

Once the logic is explained and she sees the errors the step daughter makes she should understand why she must toe a different line.

My YSD moved in with us just before she turned 14. She had already been staying out till all hours, drinking, smoking, seeing boys and had started experimenting with self harming. She is a pleaser who likes to get her own way without getting into trouble. A lot of her behaviour stems from her lack of emotional support in her preteen years, when her parents had divorced and her mother's drinking had escalated.

I also felt like she needed guidance from a female. So I waded in full of concern, care and firm resolve. But, she is also "the type of kid that smiles in your face, says yeah and then the next day she is back to her tricks." SD did all sorts of sneaking around while being nice as pie at home, and as time went on it became horrendously stressful living in a constant atmosphere of mistrust. You may have more success than I did, but my experience was that SD had set off down a path which I didn't have the ability or sufficient support from DH to change. Honestly I think if you don't give these girls the right support, self esteem and boundaries before they reach 12/13 it's a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted for anyone, let alone a stepparent, to try and influence them at that point. By that age the voice of peers and media is way more powerful to them than their family.

She's moved in with you, I think your goal should be to live reasonably amicably with her, to enforce some basic household rules, and leave the way clear for DH to step up and deal with her more challenging behaviour. In my situation my involvement right from the start meant I took everything much more personally, and took it much much harder when she flouted boundaries and continued down her self destructive path. It also enabled DH to take a back seat and leave me to have a lot of the difficult conversations and have a much closer involvement in her life than he did. Only when I disengaged after 2 years did he have to step up and do something.

Yes you keep disengaging and explain to your own child that you will be giving them the right skills to go and have a good life. Tell your husband that it is hard for you to hear him being disrespected and leave it at that. Don't argue it out. Believe me, its a waste of time.