I can't imagine how hard it would be being the bio parent of my SD10. She is not liked by anyone other than her dad inside or outside the home. I care about her future and have poured huge amounts of time, effort and money to get her the intensive help she needs. Nothing has worked and HD can't bring himself to put her in residential treatment so I have tried to create one in our house. She is mentally disturbed because her BM is a full on narcissist/borderline and completely neglected my skids. Unfortunately knowing why she is the way she is and loving her father does not make it any easier living in a home with a 10 year old void of any conscience or feelings and I get angry and wish HD would be more firm with her.

She needs a very strict environment to protect others and their property as well as herself. When it is just me around I have her in a very controlled environment and she actually relaxes and feels better about herself since she can't lie, or steal or hurt anyone. As soon as HD gets home he gets defensive about her not being treated like the other kids and then we have chaos. SD10 turns on the min-wife theatrics, I'm angry and feel like everything I have tried to do is thrown out the door, He's defensive and angry and tries to over compensate but ends up alienating her even more from me and everyone else in the family. So I fix dinner, we eat in silence, I am the first one to get up from the table and hide in the bedroom with a drink until she goes to bed. He just pushed her bedtime back to 8:30 :/

Once she is tucked away we usually drop the anger and enjoy a little time together but not always.

My question, and I do have one: How can her issues be discussed with HD in a way that doesn't make him defensive or hurt him? He wants to minimize and deny how serious her personality disorder is and I can't blame him for that. I don't want to be stabbed to death in the middle of the night. I have compassion for him but still can't find a way for us to work together when it comes to her.

Example: I ordered a security system and am getting the indoor cameras outside of each bedroom door, I never said why but he is all but furious with me. It's for everyone's safety and really it will be better for her because as it stands now if anything is missing she is automatically blamed, she has been caught stealing several times at school, camp and home. She has also set herself up to be victimized because everyone knows no one believes her. I think the cameras keep everyone honest and hopefully safer. Sad to be justifying something like this...