My step daughter has raked up old problems?

....when I thought everything was OK. My step daughter is now 25 and I have lived with her father since she was 12. Her mother was an alcoholic and prescription drug addict and lived 300 miles away - no contact. When I and my 2 boys moved in everything was fine - she had a brother of 13 as well - so there were 4 kids. Then the weird stuff started to happen. I caught her pretending to cry in front of a mirror. She was always saying that my boys who were then 6 and 4, were trying to watch her when she got undressed. Loads of my stuff - jewellry (heirlooms), money from my family when they visited went missing and her brother got the blame. Cut a long story short - we thought she was jealous of me with her father and we tried to address it. She confided in a teacher who was also a friend of ours and between them my partner was 'forced' to let her foster my step daughter. A year went by and I approached her to make amends and to start being a family.

2008-04-08T01:21:36Z

Her mother whom she had no contact with committed suicide. My partner and I were the first to be told by the police and we went and told s/daughter and brother personally and saw them through an emotional time. Next, her dad got nasty txts off her and a nasty letter bringing up the past but getting it ever so wrong. What does he do - confront her - ignore it - if he agrees with her then what? Why do you think she is doing this when we have been there for her through loads of probs over the last 8 years (when she left home). How can this be resolved?

letterstoheather2008-04-08T01:27:06Z

Favorite Answer

I sure hope your step daughter gets the mental health treatment she needed long ago. If she's never been in therapy to deal with an addict mother who abandoned her then killed herself, and a woman who just waltzed into her life taking her father away, no wonder she's had and is having problems.

It's not YOUR fault and you did nothing... people don't realize that kids feel shut out, shoved away, no matter how nice their step mom is... things 'seemed' fine, but they weren't. And her acting out saying your son was trying to watch her dress, and stealing your jewelry says quite a lot to me....she felt abandoned when her father married you and doubly abandoned by her nutty mother.

the kid had a rough go of it.