ExBIL needs some help from you guys...the pros

[Shari]

Actually, his wife. She called this morning asking for advice. I thought of you guys.

This is exBIL's 3rd marriage. He has a daughter from his first marriage, so she's been thru 2 divorces, the first when she was about 3. While she misses seeing us regularly (tho we do still see her, just not consistently), she was not unhappy to lose husband's sister as a step mom (sister wasn't very good to her, either). She is now 16. She lives with her mother about 2 hours from exBIL. She sees exBIL on weekends. Her mother remarried shortly after the divorce from exBIL to a man that exBIL has never even seen in 13 years. He does not participate in daughter's life AT ALL. In fact, mom and stepdad vacation WITHOUT daughter regularly. Either mom and daughter go, or mom and stepdad go, but never do the 3 of them go.

ExBIL's wife also has a 16 year old daughter that lives with them.

Together, exBIL and wife have a 2 year old.

ExBIL's daughter wanted to move in with exBIL 3 years ago, but mom guilted her into staying. I encouraged her to do what she wanted to do, but in the end, mom's guilt won out. Her mom is not a bad or unstable person, but daughter feels pretty rotten about being left out or excluded all the time.

Last year, she started being sick. She missed over half the school year. She's smart enough that she's able to keep up with the work, but her mother dragged her to all sorts of docs and had all sorts of tests done, all came back negative for anything. Her "illness" continues into this year. She is also growing very distant.

Her MD has now decided she's depressed and put her on prozac. ExBIL's wife thinks its making her worse, and I'd have to agree. She hit a parked car 3 times while trying to parallel park and completely did not care. Its not like her to not have no regard for others. Tho she is on Prozac, the doctor did not suggest or recommend any counseling.

But the real kicker is that wife's daughter said that exBIL's daughter told her she's got a crush on a boy at school that is a real "bad boy". ExBIL's daughter just wants a sexual relationship. Plus, he's into drugs, and he has the ability to make her feel better. Wife's daughter doesn't tend to be a tattle, and when she's expressed concern in the past, its turned out to be valid.

Wife is very worried. I am very worried. ExBIL doesn't know, and it frustrates him to no end because he feels there is nothing he can do.

So....anyone have any ideas? My suggestion is to make an appointment with the MD and find out why prozac, why no counseling, and to get her into counseling, even if its just once every 2 weeks when she's with her dad.

I'm also going to make an attempt to get together with her a little more often.

 

[AnnieO]

First question... Do they have shared parenting, or is it a sole custody arrangement? because if it is shared, exBIL has some say-so in her medications, and he can have them stopped. He needs to find out WHO prescribed them. therapist or reg doctor??? And why???

The not caring could not be related to the ADs, too. It could be a natural response to feeling alone. Which - if a child does not feel loved - can make them go after the bad influences, too.

I say this from my own point of view. From how I have felt sometimes. And my parents were not divorced...

 

[Shari]

medications were prescribed by her regular physician. Same one who ordered all the tests that turned up nothing. So he concluded it must be depression. They have shared parenting, but you know how well that often works.

(my husband has shared parenting, too...hahahaha...what a joke)

 

[trinityroyal]

Hmmm...could be that the AD is not working for her, could be that under the "bad boy" influence she has started experimenting with recreational drugs...at any rate, this girl doesn't sound happy. Is she still willing to move in with ExBIL and his family? Are they in a position to have her move in, and are they willing to do so? It might be worth getting her into a different environment before she gets too entrenched in depression, drugs or whatever else is going on. An environment in which she feels fully loved and included might make the world of difference to her.

At 16, with shared custody, the courts are less likely to make too many waves if the girl wants to go live with her father and her father is happy with the arrangement.

Just thinking out loud

 

[Shari]

That's what I think, too, Trinity.

My plate is overflowing, but I"m gonna see if she wants to do something in the next few days. She's such a good girl. I am so worried for her, and I know wife is, too.

 

[Marguerite]

The long-term illness sounds like what difficult child 3 went through a few years ago. it turned out to be extreme anxiety. He's doing better now - he did better back then when we stopped mainstream schooling (a major trigger for his anxiety) and then this year, just a few months ago, he's been started on anti-anxiety medications. Plus we've been doing therapy and CBT with him for a few years now. I also had him to a therapist back when the anxiety first became such a problem for school (he missed six months out of his school year, spread over the year) and that therapist wouldn't really advise, which is what we needed. In some ways he could be useful now (being closer) but the current therapist will at least suggest things to difficult child 3, will work out problems and solutions with him. Plus I am in there with him, so I can follow through.

I would be worried about what step-sister has said. Ex-brother in law's daughter is ripe for exploitation by creeps like this alleged boy; she's had years of feeling unloved and unwanted, and can't see that she would be simply another customer and possibly eventually money-maker for this guy. Time to change schools possibly. Certainly time to change households if it can be done, and then bend over backwards to involve her. Take her away on weekend trips. Every weekend for a month. Keep her away from being able to contact this boy on the weekends for a month, by doing family fun things together, out of the home. And yes, revisit the medications. Do a drug test also, in case "something else has accidentally slipped in there" because some creeps will slip things into a girl's drink... yeah right, I know, but that can be the tack to take with her when she objects. Just to make sure she only has her medications on board, and not something nastier. I got slipped hash brownies at work once; my work colleagues thought it would be funny. I was offered a couple of home-made biscuits and not told what was in them. Just offered a biscuit with my coffee... and it was darn good ***& too, I gather. It took me three days to climb down from the ceiling...

Marg