Im new to the forum and this is my first post and I apologize, its going to be a long one. My wife and Is situation with our difficult child is beyond repair at the moment, only time will fix this but it does help to write about it. My wife (M) and I have been married for 3.5 years, together for 7. She brought with her a daughter from a previous marriage , I have no kids of my own or had been married before. J was 11 when we all met. Right from the start I could see that M and J had a strained relationship. For the most part J was a very nice quiet and polite little girl. I did notice she was immature for her age and it was really tough to get her to show or share her feelings. Her and I actually got along really good and developed a good relationship. I loved her as if she was my own daughter. There was always a constant battle though between Ms ex (R) and us. His whole goal in life was to turn J against us and get custody of her. My wife had full (not sure if that is the term) and J would stay with him every other weekend and visit with him one day of the week. He is pretty much a dead beat dad, always late with child support, always badmouthing us to J, always negative. It was the worlds fault that his life was the way it is. In one hand he would bark orders at her then be overly emotional with her. He would coerce J into things, like writing notes about us and leaving them where teachers could find them. That led to a couple of CPS investigations. Always ending with CPS recommending that J stay with us and R taking parenting classes which he never did. All these things happening really effected J and how she shared her feelings towards us, and anyone else other than her father and her grandmother. You could tell she would feel guilt. The CPS caseworkers called it emotional incest . We tried counselors and that really didnt help, J would just tell them what they wanted to hear and never really open up. At this same time we could see J was developing a really bad habit of lying. Lying for everything, for things we could not understand she would lie for. M and Is focus was to just remain positive , never bad mouth her father, and provide a healthy loving home environment with the hopes that she would eventually see the differences between how she was treated by her father and how she is treated at our home. It took a couple of years but she actually started realizing what her dad was trying to do. She started talking to us, opening up to us etc. Things were starting to really go well. M and J started to develop a decent relationship. She was doing well in school , meeting friends etc. She was still very immature socially and really lacked common sense, she also had self- esteem issues that were starting to show up. The lying was also becoming habitual, which didnt make sense because she is just a horrible liar. We would bust her every time. Although she knew she could pull the wool over her dads eyes and had even told us this. Again for the most part she was a good teen, better than I was at that age for sure. She never yelled at us, talked back , sure we would get the silent treatment once in a while but for the most part she would always apologize if she did something wrong. Both M and I could tell though that she was starting to develop some deeper issues and these spiraled out of control a little over a year ago. She was just shy of her 17[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday. She met a boy from school, he was a year younger than her but a grade ahead of her (J was held back in 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] grade due to some learning issues). At first we werent all too cool about her dating ( she showed no real interest in boys up til then) and we kept it as a friends thing at first. We met him, and had most of their meetings at our house so we could monitor. J also had a laptop and she was aware that we would/could monitor her chats , FB activity and emails. Well after a month or so things started getting strange, almost obsessive on both ends. Then their conversations started getting darker and darker (always initiated by him called B) So we started seeing red flags and decided to talk with his parents, we had met them earlier on when the two started hanging out with each other. So M calls Bs mom and has a long chat with her. And we find that they arent really his parents , they are his aunt and uncle. B had been taken from his parents at an early age by the state , he then bounced around thru some foster homes ending with them. He was diagnosed as a Bi Polar Schizophrenic and has anger issues. He had tried to commit suicide twice before. She told my wife the medicine he was on (when he decides to take it) and we looked it up and it scared the hell out of us. By this point J was lying even more even to B, her attitude was getting darker and we were starting to see some signs of rebelliousness. We could see in J and Bs chats that he was trying to turn her against us , also telling her that when shes 18 no one can tell her what to do anymore. M and I were starting to get scared for sure, we knew it was going to be tough and if we did the wrong things we would lose her for good. So we tried the same approach , positivity, talks etc. Always encouraging her to be her own person. Things went bad when we saw one of Bs FB posts stating that he didnt know if he was going to go to school the next day because he might do something that he would regret and end up being taken out in handcuffs. We saw that talked about it and my wife called the school. The next day the school talked with B, and his aunt and uncle. After that we were public enemy number one. He tore us up one side and town the other on FB, email and chat to J. And she stood by and took it, never telling him not to talk about us. So at this point we were concerned for Js safety as well as ours. We had several talks with her all to no avail. We set boundaries with her and results of what would happen if she broke the rules. That is where the lying and deceit started getting more and more. She would tell us one thing and B another. We ended up switching schools, because she told us he wouldnt leave her alone (and the school would not help) . Police had been involved. After starting the new school she told us she just wants to move on and get past this so things could get back to normal. We also told her to be honest with us and herself, if she doesnt think she can break up with him to tell us and we would have to compromise. She assured us that it was over. We told her that at this point in her life that school is the most important thing, then college and after that if you want to start things back up with B and if it was true love it would all start back up like it never ended. At this point we told her that if she cannot keep her grades up, lies or is deceitful again with us the only thing we could do was have her move out and go live with her dad. It was really starting to affect my wife and I. Not our marriage but we were constantly stressed, we couldnt believe a word out of Js mouth. Had zero trust in her. Well it all fell apart about a month after that. There was a huge blowout involving everyone. We caught them hanging out again , (B had found out her new school and tried to sneak in) and J told us she didnt want this and she was scared . So we went to Bs house and that is when the truth all came out. They were supposedly engaged, and had never broke it off like J had told us. On the way home J came unglued. She screamed and yelled at us which was a first. Honestly I think it was the first time in my 7 years of knowing her that I saw her lose her temper like that. I was the first target, she screamed at me that I never loved her, and wanted her gone then she did the same towards her mom. That was the last time we saw her. Her father took her home that night , which was a little over two months ago. We have had zero contact. No communication thru the holidays , nothing for her birthday. Since shes been gone we have found out more lies she had told us and some valuables had been stolen. We have heard that her and her dad along with B have had several altercations, two which have involved police. She is skipping school on a regular basis, and is failing classes. She threatens her dad that she is going to move out with B. Neither have jobs, cars or even driver licenses. We recently found Js new FB page and they are engaged again. Really how clueless can these kids be ?! J has turned into a different person, then the one she was when she was with us. She is dark , and un emotional now. Blames everyone else for her problems. Basically has become her father. Its crazy , almost like a lite switch was flicked. It is like she has lost all sense of emotion except for B. She has alienated anyone that has tried to talk to her about the situation, friends , family etc. It is such a shame to see a young person throw their life away like this. She had everything when she was with us and in the end told everyone that she chooses B over family. She just cant see that B is ruining her life. Not that she is innocent in the matter either though. As much as it seems like the focus is on B , really its her inability to be honest with herself and anyone else. The habitual lying is a serious problem, as well as the self-esteem issues. Along with being able to confront her mistakes instead of blaming everyone else. Until she gets a handle on these things, there will probably be no change. The sad thing is she has seemed to pick up some of the issues that her father has. We are close friends with Rs sister and brother in law. That whole family has pretty much alienated R years ago because of his constant hatred and negativity towards life. His sister has told us that all thru life R seems to be missing any kind of emotions other than anger. Well we are seeing that in J now, although it is scary how quickly she fell especially after seeing her improving before meeting B. Im sure a lot of it is , even though she is 18 , her maturity level is more like 14/15.
Ive done a little research (how I found this site) and have found that J fits some of the profile of borderline personality disorder and covert incest . Not that anything can be done now, we just hope that she will someday see the light and realize that family is important. We are deeply concerned about B though, especially with all the crazy things weve seen in the news about people that just go off that have the same mental health issues. I really loved being a parent (even if it was just a step parent)for the 7 years that I was, thru the good and the bad. My wife and I tried for a couple of years to have kids of our own but it just wasnt in the cards for us. We are both in our mid 40s so it is what it is. We have a strong marriage, good health so we will just move on from this. Someday J might come to her senses and maybe we all can rebuild then, who knows.
Ive done a little research (how I found this site) and have found that J fits some of the profile of borderline personality disorder and covert incest . Not that anything can be done now, we just hope that she will someday see the light and realize that family is important. We are deeply concerned about B though, especially with all the crazy things weve seen in the news about people that just go off that have the same mental health issues. I really loved being a parent (even if it was just a step parent)for the 7 years that I was, thru the good and the bad. My wife and I tried for a couple of years to have kids of our own but it just wasnt in the cards for us. We are both in our mid 40s so it is what it is. We have a strong marriage, good health so we will just move on from this. Someday J might come to her senses and maybe we all can rebuild then, who knows.