Last Night's Drama...

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
So I had everything set up...

The instruments were gone. I left a note that said in very large letters "It feels terrible when something you love is missing. That is how WE feel every time we cannot find YOU."

I didn't know whether difficult child was going to come home after school, or go straight to her job - but I was taking no chances. I locked the house up tight, left a bad with work clothes in it on the porch and LEFT.

Meanwhile, I told husband everything and I told him he was NOT NOT NOT to have a big discussion with her. (And I am SO angry with him right now!!!)

I should have known he was gonna be a waffler because he was saying "Well, I just wanna know where she was...". I asked him whether he thought he was going to get the truth. Did he REALLY think she was gonna tell him who she was with? And he was talking all tough that if she tried to call for a ride today - he was gonna tell her to WALK.

So - while I was out, difficult child came home from school and grabbed the bag with the work clothes and left her backpack on the porch instead.

When husband found the backpack on the porch, he carefully carried it in and put it away for her. I reminded him AGAIN there was to be no big discussion. And at that point, he was still talking tough.

So phone rings later - difficult child wants to know if she can have a ride home? Well, husband jumped right up - sure thing, honey....I'll be right there! ????? Oh well, he explained, I really don't want her walking in the dark.

He brings her home - she is about to go into her bedroom and husband comes charging in to find me and basically yells in my face "It's gonna hit the fan! Are you making me handle this?" to which I said YES.

At that point difficult child comes tearing out of her bedroom screaming and swearing. She is yelling that she missed the bus (so clearly, she is under the impression that we only noticed she was gone when the schoolbus stopped at the house and she didn't get on). husband absoluely loses it and screams that he doesn't want to hear it because he has work to do!!!

Then he comes back to MY bedroom and screams at me and tells me that I am un-supportive and he doesn't appreciate my behavior.

What????

So I go sit right next to him and ask him what it is he wants me to do. Nothing. What do you mean? Well, now he wants to yell at me some more that difficult child is upset and it's not fair to HIM. HE wants to have the big discussion and get to the truth.

Meanwhile, difficult child is having a rage in her bedroom. She is screaming, yelling, ranting and raving - we can hear things slamming and banging...there is pounding on the walls.

That lasted several hours into the night - but difficult child never physically confronted anyone....so we did not call the police. Finally, things calm and we were able to try and sleep (yea, right).

This morning, difficult child was still madder than a wet hornet. Her bedroom is a mess - but there is not any damage to walls or anything so that is good.

In response to my note - she wrote a note of her own:

You Know what, I'm okay with-you taking them even though I thought I missed the bus, but I swear to all the divine if I never see them again because you've permanently gotten rid of them then you'll never have to see me again. But then, I guess that's what you've always wanted, getting rid of me.


So...my husband is mad at me and my daughter is trying to emotionally manipulate me.

Any ideas what I should do next?
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Sorry DF. I don't have the husband issue (don't have a husband!! LOL) but I have the EXACT same difficult child 1 reaction and "stinkin' thinkin" issue. I will be watching to see if there are any helpful ideas to change that line of thinking.

{{{{(((HUGS)))}}}}
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
LOL give her the pawn tickets and tell her, it's her job to get them back. If she never sees them again, it's now HER PROBLEM.

And point out the obvious: If we never wanted to see you again, why did we keep ANYTHING in your bedroom?
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
I'd leave her a note saying that you know she was missing well before 6:15, that her friend gave you a fake name and that her name in mud to you because you now have absolute proof that she lied and was sneaking around. Be actively disappointed in her in your demeanor (a few sighs and put your hands in the air). And say nothing more. No more consequences for this incident. She's completely lost your trust and respect and that can be her punishment. That is something that will be a lot harder to reclaim that a few musical instruments from a pawn shop. Don't talk to her any more that necessary and don't engage, she gets a thrill from the angry exchange.

As for husband... you two need to get with difficult child's therapist and talk about strategies to avoid being triangulated by difficult child.
 

slsh

member since 1999
Good grief - sounds like it got just all discombobulated last night, with you stuck squarely in the middle. Sigh...

First off, I would have very squarely confronted difficult child on her bologna about missing the bus. Kinda hard to *catch* the bus if she's not at home, Know what I mean?? And I would have let her know that you knew she wasn't there. Sometimes I think difficult children need a reality check - parents aren't quite as clueless as they would like to think.

Just my opinion, but looking at the whole picture, it sounds to me like Daisy needs a *serious* break. You can't win, between difficult child's junk and husband blaming you. It's not fair to *him*??? Puleez.... though I totally get his line of thinking, because my beloved husband pulled this stuff many many moons ago. ;) I think it's a man thing. Probably pointless to explain that it's not fair to you that he undermines the "plan". Consistency is key.

So, I think it's time for you to wash your hands of it all. Go on strike in terms of worrying/dealing with- difficult child. Hand it all over to husband and let him know he's responsible/accountable for difficult child since he feels your strategies are just making his life miserable. Do *nothing* for difficult child. Tell husband that he can handle all issues, period. That way, he can't be mad at you because he'll be the one picking the battles. And if/when it hits the fan again, I think it will be time for a quick trip to 7-11 or Barnes & Noble or the local bar for you. Remove yourself.

Prepare to bit your tongue, a *lot*. Until husband can get in the same chapter with you, you're going to be losing on both fronts - dealing with- difficult child essentially on your own (with a good dose of sabotage from husband) and dealing with- husband's unhappiness that June and the Beav aren't waiting for him at home. He needs to deal with this on his own, for an extended period of time. in my humble opinion.

Hugs to you. It's ridiculous the amt of power our difficult children can have over our marriage relationships. It's very easy (and I think normal) to lose sight of the partnership we have with- our spouses when we're in the midst of difficult child behaviors.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
And point out the obvious: If we never wanted to see you again, why did we keep ANYTHING in your bedroom?

The note is just ridiculous, isn't it? She's okay with us taking them - but is willing to threaten us to get them back. And she "knows" that our goal is to get rid of her - so she threatens to leave to make us do what she wants.

Couple of things, though - first, this sounds like typical "Borderline" thinking to me. She says I know you want me to go - but the threat is that she will leave. Classic 'I hate you - don't leave me' stuff.

Second, she fancies hersell a great author - so any kind of criticism about her writings gets her extremely upset (even if it's just to point out that she needs a comma or something!)

Third, I haven't told her the items were pawned - just that they were "missing". I'm hoping to be able to throw some of her own bs back at her. As in: her excuse for beng gone yesterday morning was that she was "confused and missed the bus". OK. So where are the instruments? I'm not sure - I'm confused.

Fourth, I suspect that difficult child has been lying to me about a few other things as well, so I want to wait and see how it plays out. Long story short, she asked us some time ago for permission to go on a school trip to play her instrument with a travelling orchestra. We told her to get her grades up first - until then, the answer was NO. I've been suspicious that she's forged my signature on a permission slip anyway, because suddenly she has all these new songs she wants to learn "just for fun". Next travelling orchestra concert is coming up in a couple of weeks. How much you wanna bet she needs her instruments back before the concert?

So even if I do eventually give her the pawn ticket - it won't be until after the concert.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Tedo--

Yep. "Stinkin thinkin" all right...

TM--

I think you are right - she gets a thrill from the drama. I'm not sure that I need to "disprove" her lie, though. I know it's a lie - and what's more, SHE knows it's a lie. What is there to prove?

slsh--

Yes - exactly. I'd like to be able to wash my hands of the whole darn thing....not sure how to do that right now - but yes, it would help.
 

bby31288

Active Member
I like your "confused" idea. Pretty far off from your situation, but my youngest is 17. She gives me a hard time everyday getting up for school. Late all the time. The other day she was really late and I was really peeved. I drove her to school, lectured her all the way. I saw the eye rolling, etc. As the day went on I got madder and madder. So it is almost time for her to be picked up. She texts me, who is getting me. I said me. Usually I am waiting there she calls as soon as the bell goes I drive up and pick her up avoiding the traffic. I waited to leave my house until 2:10. She gets out at 2:13, she calls....where are you, I said ohhh sorry, I'm running late. I didn't pick her up until 2:30. The look on her face when I told her that from now on every day she was late going to school, I would be late picking her up, getting later and later each day. Took 1DAY and she was up and on time. We are on a roll.

When I started this post I had a way to relate it, but now I don't know how. Just that I back you up with the whole insrument thing. She wants them, then she can work to get them.
 
B

Bunny

Guest
Daisy, is there any way that you ad husband can talk to the therapist? husband is not on the same page as you and that helps no one. Telling you that you handled is badly, but walking away with no other input will only lead to resentment. I was just talking to difficult child's therapist about this a few weeks ago when difficult child was not with me. I have times where I resent both of them: difficult child for what he's done to our family, and husband for making me deal with it mostly on my own. And trust me when I say that resentment helps no one. husband does the same thing. He'll tell me that I didn't handle something correctly, but he's at work and won't come home to help me ("You know, I can't come home every time you deal with him the wrong way. Figure it out," is really a great thing to hear while there is screaming tantrum going on in the background). I have told him to either get off his :censored2: and be a parent, or stop criticizing me. If he's not going to get involved, he's not going to have a say. It's gotten better, but I still do alot of it alone, and that jumped out at me when I was reading your post. husband didn't want to be the bad guy, so he walked away and left you in the deep end of the pool all alone.

When she comes home from school today, I would say nothing. Not that I would give her the silent treatment, but I would say nothing about what happened. If she brings it up I would tell her that you know that she was missing LONG before the bus was supposed to pick her up and that you know that the boy gave you a fake name. But no drama about it. She will feed on the drama and that will only lead to another bad night.

Did you sell the instruments?
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
I know this is not going to be popular with you and others.

Taking her musical instruments away? I do not see how that is productive in any way. I think this is one way to keep her involved in school events and not out drugging with someone out of high school. One way to give her some childhood memories that she can look back on and enjoy. Heck, I would not even require the good grades to go to this school event.

Her letter is not borderline - it is a frustrated angry girl spewing words to her parents that she hates at the moment. Totally normal reaction to me.
I also think many PCs do the sneaking out thing....it is a whole lot more scary when it is a difficult child sneaking out because we know so much more can happen. I don't understand why you did not confront her with what she was doing? When she said she missed the bus, you could explain the bus showed up and you were already gone.

Think back to when you were a teen. Didn't you sneak out? What was your mother's reaction? I bet she was not as involved in the details as we are today. I learned the hard way that it is truly OK to not know my child's every move. In fact, when I stepped back is when I started learning more from her about herself.

I am starting to worry about your feelings towards your daughter. I think you are resenting her more and more. I think Slsh is right - step back and let husband do it. See if you can get in a fun night in the next few weeks with just you and difficult child. I think you need to reconnect.

Again, I am sorry to everyone who disagrees with me. But, I could not live with myself if I did not say it here and now.
I only post out of caring, so please nobody read this with anger, hate or any other negative feeling. It is not meant to be negative.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I am starting to worry about your feelings towards your daughter. I think you are resenting her more and more. I think Slsh is right - step back and let husband do it.

I actually agree with you. At this moment, I resent not only my daughter - but this whole H*ll that has become my life. husband gets to come and go as he pleases because he knows I am there to handle everything. *I* am on the front line with difficult child, the school, the docs, the stupid state and county people, the other difficult child drama that gets dragged into my home (like other people's parents stopping by to threaten us for being such abusers)...

{I'm sorry...I'm starting to cry as I sit here typing this...so it may start to get confusing}

And *I* have been the one who is always first to defend difficult child...(like an idiot)...always waiting to hear the exciting news about the new boyfriend....the new friend...the new opportunity. Oh she must be in love! Oh she met someone new! Oh she's gonna get into ___________.

But it's all lies. All of it. Any story difficult child tells me is just a cover for something else. The boy she mentions is a cover for the "real" guy. The friend she is willing to introduce us to is not the friend she is going to visit.

I have a million people ready to tell me what to do and how to do it - and yet, no one has the answers. It was husband's idea to take away the musical instruments. Who was supposed to actually do it? Me.
And then he wanted to have a big, blow-out where we confronted her on her behaviors and at some point we would utter the magic words and out would come the truth and an apology and everything would just be hearts and roses.

I am the one who said No - I am not riding this merry-go-round again. If I am taking away the intruments I am putting them out-of-sight....I am not sitting htere holding them over her head every day.

Then husband wants to talk about installing more locks and keys and alarms and hooking my computer up to a secutiry system so i can sit there and monitor her 24/7. Yes - great - let's put that on me, too. And hey - there's no money for all that....so husband is sure I'll find some way to scrimp and save and coupon and whatever to pay for all this equipment.

That's when I started thinking about pawning the items - money can go towards that stuff....and the items can come back.

I also called the state person, to tell them about the situation and see if there was anything that could be done to help...

still waiting on her to get back to me.

But - we've got a therapist appointment tomorrow where we can armchair quarterback and go over this whole thing play by play and I can learn once again how I have done everything wrong....and if only I had a chart, or a contract, or followed the "Four D's" or some other such nonsense - everything would have been fine.

The bottome line is, difficult child is a beautiful girl who is so determined to maintain control and shut us out that she is willing to destroy herself to do it. How can I possibler fix that weith a chart?

So H*ll yes, I am resentful right now.

Anybody want to switch places with me?
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Taking her musical instruments away? I do not see how that is productive in any way. I think this is one way to keep her involved in school events and not out drugging with someone out of high school. One way to give her some childhood memories that she can look back on and enjoy. Heck, I would not even require the good grades to go to this school event.

And one more quick point -

we added the grade requirement when we discovered that the "school activities" was just a cover for having sex. She joined the drill team - and would ditch practice to go have sex in the woods. She ditched tournaments to go to some guy's house...and then accused the person running the activity of being inappropriate! After that, she was no longer welcome on the team. The grades, we hoped, would be a sign that she was turning herself around and accepting responsibility.

I don't know what more I could do...
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Wendy - you have good points - but I am with DF. I resent Onyxx taking up so much time and money, that we could use to maybe take ALL FOUR of us to Disney World. (Onyxx's foster care, legal bills and Residential Treatment Center (RTC) have cost the same as our mortgage in the last year. That's $9K we could use on something for the whole family.)

I can see why she cares what difficult child is doing - and why she would get so angry when husband goes overboard.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I also think many PCs do the sneaking out thing....it is a whole lot more scary when it is a difficult child sneaking out because we know so much more can happen. I don't understand why you did not confront her with what she was doing? When she said she missed the bus, you could explain the bus showed up and you were already gone.

I am tired of trying to convince difficult child that we know it is a lie. We can show her something in black-and-whie right in front of her face and she will still swear that it's not true. We have caught her on video - and she denies that is her. WE are always falsely accusing and making stuff up - and the lies only evolve to comform to whatever "evidence" we present her with.

*I* know she is lying. *She* knows she is lying. I do not have to make her agree with me - I just have to respond.
 

ThreeShadows

Quid me anxia?
Hugs, DF! I also have a conniving, manipulating, lying daughter who is a master of triangulation. I so understand the resentment, we are only human. I still love her but have backed off from keeping her safe. It's husband's responsibility now. He was always undermining me in her eyes. She has to be in control at ALL times. She won't have anything to do with me, oh,well, her loss! Still hurts like Hell though.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I'm sorry....

I didn't mean to launch into a huge rant. Just overly stressed and tired I guess.

I will be handling difficult child by myself after school today. Any ideas?
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
DF, I'm so sorry. First of all {{{{{HUGS}}}}}. It's so hard to have the responsibility for everyone's junk on your shoulders, and to have everyone look to you for answers, and then for blame when things don't go exactly as planned.

I think Slsh and Busywend have given you excellent advice on what to do next. You need to completely detach from your difficult child and let your husband handle her.

I think there are 2 reasons:

1) Your husband's perspective on what to do for difficult child.

Sometimes men have to live it in order to see it. You've been handling everything for so long that it's invisible to your husband. He likely will not ever understand what you're getting at until he has to deal with it. All of it.He can go to any appointments that have been scheduled, he can schedule any further ones that are required, he can talk to her, battle it out with her, do whatever is required. Let him carry the load for a while, because you're worn out.

2) Your difficult child's reaction to your efforts

Your difficult child seems to be incredibly resistant to parenting. Whatever you try to do to help her, she rejects your help and pushes you away. By continuing to try, you're continuing to put all of the power in her hands. And she's not getting better. So, stop trying. Do the opposite of what you've been doing and see how it goes. Given how chaotic things are now, it can't get much worse (and if it does, you can call the police or a hospital and have her transported), and it might just get better. At any rate, it will give you a break and let difficult child see that she can't push your buttons or pull your strings.

A couple of thoughts from my personal experience that might help (well, I hope they do):

Thought #1:
It could be the Asperger's, or it might just be my personality, but I find that when people try too hard to get close to me it makes me withdraw from them. For me, a relationship needs to have a lot of space in it. Not distance, but space. Space for me to get comfortable, to take in information and to respond to it. If someone's always initiating, and never gives me a chance to interpret and respond, then I pull back. If your difficult child is pushing you away, it might be that you're not giving her enough space to come to you, in her own time and in her own fashion.

Thought #2:
There was a time when I completely walked away from my difficult child. Aside from "hello" or "I'll get your father", I didn't really speak to or interact with him for a couple of years. He had broken my trust so badly that I just wasn't willing to deal with him at all because it hurt too much. Things are much better between us, in no small part because I've maintained that boundary. That approach might work with your difficult child too.

I hope that nothing I've said causes you hurt. It is said out of caring, just offering my perspective in the hope that it helps.

Trinity
 

ThreeShadows

Quid me anxia?
DO NOT be sorry for having your feelings. It isn't a rant, you're frustrated and hurt. Some of our kids just do not want to be parented and this society is unable to change that behavior.
 

keista

New Member
((((HUGS))))


At the risk of telling you what to do, you need to take a vacation and make husband handle it all. in my opinion it is definitely a Y chromosome thing and as long as you're around to take care of it, he never will.
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
{{{Daisyface}}} While I certainly don't want to trade places, I do wish I were nearby to help you out. Not that I could do better, mind you, but that maybe you could get a break from the chaos. Keista has an excellent idea, do you have any family an hour or so away from you? It might be time for a weekend visit. Also, I understand what Trinity is saying about creating a boundary... difficult child doesn't get to cause this sort of pain in you without it damaging your relationship.
 
Top