Update on our "heart to heart" w/ step-daughter

Well, the talk with my step-daughter didn't really go very well. It is so hard to talk to her when she is yelling the entire time.

First of all, her mom called Thursday night and told us the boyfriend's brother, (whose apartment she has been staying at) had told her she had to leave, so she is actually staying at her aunt & uncle's house there in the same town. I think she has been there for 3 days or so. I guess that is a blessing because we were concerned about her staying at the apartment with them having problems and being shacked up with the boyfriend. So at least that is one issue that is taken care of.

We took her to lunch since we didn't get to see her on her b-day. Afterwards, we tried to talk before we took her back. My husband started by explaining to her that she needed to get her tax return done to be able to have money to pay for the upcoming dr appt. I had called the dr's office to see how much it is going to cost for the follow-up, (since she is not on our insurance anymore) they told me anywhere between $18-$115, depending on how the doc billed it. She started getting mad as soon as we told her, she said "I won't even have enough from the tax return to pay for it". I don't know how she thinks she knows how much she will get back until she takes them to an accountant. I was told by an accountant friend she should get all the taxes back that she paid in. We also know that her mom gave her $100 2 days ago. So I know she has some money.

When I asked what happened with the boyfriend's brother, she said "he has never liked me and he got mad at J (the boyfriend) and told him I had to leave". I said, "I know that is hard to take, but it is his apartment". We stressed multiple times that she could come stay with us until she went back to her biological father's. She is very adament that she hates our town and will not come to stay with us. I tried to ask her what it was that she hates so much about our home, she just says "I don't know, I just don't want to live there". Of course everything we tried to talk to her about went back to something about her childhood. We both told her that we knew things were not always ideal, and we had all made mistakes, but we loved her and are trying to help her now. I tried to explain to her that those things are in the past and we have to live now and plan our futures. She plays the blame game everytime the ball falls in her court. If something comes up about her taking responsibility, then it is "if my parents would have taken care of this when I was younger I wouldn't have to be dealing with it now".

She also gave me the line I usually always get. "I never asked you to do anything for me, you are not my mother". And "you have no right to say anything, you weren't there". I told her I did things for her over the years because I love her and I love her dad. I didn't just marry HIM for life, I accepted those girls for life. Package deal, you know. It seems to me like it would mean more that I do things for her because I really DON'T have to. But that isn't how she sees it. If we mention anything that we do for her, she takes it that we are telling her she "owes" us. That isn't it at all.

She tells us she is still planning to go back to her biological father's house and get a job when she gets there. Her dad told her that her mom is having a hard time with the car payment and the insurance premiums. He told her since she isn't going to school, he thought it would be a good time for her to start paying for the car "to help her mom out". He gave her an ultimate deadline of June 1st to have a job and told her she would be expected to take up the payments on the car for the July 29th payment. He also explained the importance of good credit and building credit at a young age. So he told her after a few months, we could help her re-finance the car and get it in her name so she could start building her own credit. He also added that we had already talked to her mom about all of this and she agrees.
He explained that we were glad she was out of the previous living situation and staying with her aunt and uncle. But he told her that if she chose to move in with J or any other guy we would not support that and did not have to let her keep the car. That infuriated her, of course. "I am 19, how can you tell me where I can live". We explained that we could not, but by providing her with a car and paying bills, we were all enabling her to continue with a lifestyle we knew would not be healthy for her. I used the friend of hers as an example, she is 18 & has a new baby with a man that totally controls every move, gives her a place to live but holds it over her. We explained that we did not want to see her end up in a situation like that. That is the ONE THING she did not have a comeback to. I hope that meant that it was sinking in.

So... that is about it in a nutshell... lots of yelling on her part, lots of the blame game. But my husband and I agreed that it was all things that needed to be said. She needs to see someone professionally. She has alot of the same issues I had at her age. When I try to tell her I understand, she screams "no one understands". She thinks she is the only one that ever had problems. No matter how hard we try to help her she pushes us away. It hurts so much. My husband's heart is breaking, but he doesn't show it as much as I do. We decided on the way home the only thing we can do is keep telling her and showing her how much we love her. Try to be as patient as we can and continue to do the "right thing" and pray some day she will look back and realize we were only doing what we thought was right for her.