Question:

I have a stepdaughter with serious emotional problems. She cannot cope in any school that she has been in (three) and is now being home schooled. She has been "guilt parented" by both mother and father (my husband) and has recently started to self-mutilate herself along with fabricating the truth.

She is now claiming that I have hit her over the head with a computer keyboard and that I post signs on her door that read she is stupid and that my son is wonderful. How can I accept this child in my home after such horrible, untruthful accusations have been made?

I tried to give consequences for bad behaviors, but my husband was a culprit in not allowing the follow through. Our family is on the verge of breaking up because of this last incident, mainly because I don't think I can live with the fact that he believed what his daughter alleged. He seems to think I have an anger problem, which I may be willing to admit to some extent. I do have a short fuse, but it doesn't usually blow until I've had to ask or tell someone something 10 times. Even then, I don't hit – but I do yell.

I am working on this problem; however it is very difficult to not feel personal when someone else's child refuses to respect your wishes. If a friend kept on disrespecting your feelings, would you keep them as a friend? I wouldn't, and that is now how I feel about my husband's daughter. I can see that she manipulates both parents and myself, and she is playing the game very well.

I am now being accused of being an abuser by everyone involved, including my husband. He feels that I have been emotionally abusive because I don't love his daughter, and I am not warm and sensitive with her. I cannot pretend to be someone I am not, yet it seems everyone thinks I should pretend for the child's sake. I'm not capable of doing that.

Of course, every child will misbehave, and at certain ages, there are different things to expect. She is now 12 years old, and I still have to beg her to make birthday and Father's Day cards for her father. She only talks to him when she wants something, and quite honestly, I can't remember a time when she thought about someone besides herself. It is very sad. I think my husband knows this about her also, and it is painful to see him hurting. I am resentful toward her for treating him this way. I am also resentful toward him for believing her lies and other things that have happened over the years.

If expecting a child to clean her room, bathroom and pick up after herself is abuse, I am guilty. If expecting her father to impose discipline when needed – or least to stand behind me when I have imposed a consequence – is abusive, I am guilty. I think I am at the point of giving up.

My friend suggested counseling, but I don't even want to try any more. I feel I have been a better mother to this child than her own mother. The child herself used to tell everyone she wished I was her real mom.

How can I find forgiveness or get past this? I don't even want to look at her.

I'm not sure that this matters, but I also have a 4 1/2-year-old son that probably has taken away a lot of attention from her, and my family members adore his every move the way I do. But it is true that neither they nor I feel the same affection toward my husband's daughter. We try very hard to make it equal when she is over visiting, but I am sure she can feel it.

Would she be so hurt by it if she were receiving the love and attention that her mother should be giving? I don't think so. She once said she wished her mother loved her the way I love my son.

I can see what is going on, but I don't think anyone else can. She also sees a counselor. I have been told by the mother that the counselor believes that there was a lot of mental abuse going on here. How can a competent counselor make such an assumption before they have heard all sides? This particular counselor has only heard my step daughter's side of things, and if they are anything like the recent lies she's told, of course one would think there is abuse. What can I do?

Answer:

That said, though it is very hard not to take things personally, you want to go in that direction. You won't get completely there, but you can save yourself some frustration if you look at her behavior as symptomatic rather than "disrespectful." When you describe your stepdaughter as "manipulative," I say (in their language) DUH! All you're saying is that she tries to make things turn out the way she wants, like most teenagers and like most adults.

You have described some disturbing behaviors in her that need attention. Whatever is happening that results in her inability to stay in school and in her cutting is serious, but these things are a response to her world as she sees it. I would refuse to see this as a problem between you and your stepdaughter and begin seeing it as a problem between you and your husband.

If, in fact, you are being accused of hitting her with a keyboard and that didn't happen, and your husband is taking her side, the two of you need to get that taken care of before another word is said. If you can do it by yourselves, fine. If not, get to a therapist. If I were a troubled kid and I saw that much distance between the people who are supposed to be taking care of me, I'd be hell on wheels. The only people who are manipulative around me are those I allow to be, but it's a lot harder if you and your husband aren't together.

As far as the issue of whether you love his daughter as much as you love your own child, it would be unusual if you did. You can't be asked to love someone more than you do. What you can do is be fair, and you can treat that person as if you did love them as much as your own child. But if you try to pretend, the first one to smoke you out will be your step daughter – plus, there really is no such thing as "as much." If you work all this out, you will love her differently. That's the best you can hope for, I think.

You say it is unfair for a counselor to hear just her side of the story and come to a conclusion. And I have to say it would be just as unfair for me to hear just your side of the story and come to a conclusion. Everybody's truth is different. But I would do this: I would tell my husband that he needs to be the primary parent for his own daughter, as you will be primary for your own child. He needs to set consequences for his daughter, and he needs to follow through with them.

I have a feeling one of the reasons you yell so much is you get into power struggles you can't win. You say one thing, and your step daughter knows she doesn't have to follow what you say because it's not what her father would do, and in the end he will win out.

When I read that you're begging her to make birthday and Father's Day cards for her father, red flags go up all over the place. What in the world are you getting into that fight for? What you're saying is that you have decided how you want her to behave and are not letting her have her own relationship with her father.

If she doesn't give him a card and he's hurt, then he can say so. If you do it that way, you don't get in the middle of something over which you have absolutely no control. Expecting a child to do her chores does not constitute abuse, but you can sure ruin a relationship by trying to make it happen when you don't have the authority.

The deeper part of all this comes in your last sentences. She wishes her mother loved her like you love your son. Think of being 12 and having that in front of you all the time. At 12, that could only hurt and make you angry. I'm not suggesting that you reduce your show of love for your son, but I'll bet if you started commiserating with her about her loss and how much that hurts – and asking what you can do to help ease the pain – she would see you differently, and you would have created an "in" with her.

None of this, I believe, is going to get taken care of until you and your husband get your act together. Your stepdaughter is responding, at least in some measure, to that. It sounds like this is one of those situations where you have to be willing to lose your relationship in order to save it. This has gone on long enough to come to this, and it's going to take heroic measures to fix. Start seeing this as a challenge.

Most of what is happening here is style rather than substance. She gets nasty with you because she wants someone to hurt as much as she does. She's nasty because it's a lot easier to act that way than to show how vulnerable she feels.

Somebody better act quick here, because if your description of her is accurate, she's headed for a personality disorder that will make her life absolutely miserable. And this will get a big raspberry from the "family values" folks, but if I were in your shoes and couldn't get something going soon between me and my husband, I'd get out, for the sake of the children. That kind of unpredictability is lethal.