# update on status with adult stepdaughter...



## preso (May 1, 2009)

Oh boy.
She comes over and talks all about her "dreams" and wants my husband and I to tell her how great her ideas are.
I don't know what to say to her when she talks about wanting to get her own place, just her and her pit bull ( no apaprtments in my area will rent to anyone with them)...
about her going to college, she tells us she is not going to college to get a great job but find a job she loves, so she is taking art, weight lifting and other things most retired people take, all the while living at her mothers, working part time.
She is almost 20 and has no concept of how the world works and reality.
It's impossible to talk to her as she is so immature and also has no concept of the real world.

My husband wants to keep seeing her but we have had to curtail the time spent eating out and we have decided to try something different in meeting her once a month, allowing her to come over for 1 to 2 hours to play a card or board game...
We have had one such meeting with her at our house and it well CONCERNING HER BEHAVIOR as she did act decent, 
although we are finding her head so up in the clouds with reality...

we can only try not to laugh at her or belittle her as to her ideas and concepts, my husband says she will have to find out on her own. 
This is all we can do with her at this time as she lives with her mother and her mother fills her head with nonsense. 
My husband and I have been having less arguements over this doing it this way, which is a far cry from the fine dining and excess money he has spent for several years to see her.

I was hoping in getting to know her more, she would be brighter, but she is a spoiled, immature young lady. The one good thing I can say is she was older when we married so this nonsense of hers was short lived. She is an adult now.

My husband and I are so tired of her in that, it has caused us many arguements and grief. I suspect she will start to act up shortly as she argues with everyone, which she says she is going to counseling for now.
She is almost 20, when is she going to start growing up?????


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

I think it's healthy to be a dreamer at that age, somewhat of a natural shift to being an adult and much better than having no dreams of college, future, etc. At that age I went from pre-law to political science to math and finally got a degree in computer science... the only constant was a minor in philosophy...It would have been easier to 'know' what I wanted early on but it all worked out for the best in the end.

Young adults that don't dream typically want to stay living at home and not doing much other than a part-time job with no future plans and eventually need some tough love action.

My son is 19 and planned to work full-time (2nd shift warehouse job) while going to college full-time!? I told him that would be very difficult and part-time job would be a better plan but he went ahead anyway, traded in the car my h paid 1/2 for and got a used car with a loan...(now he had it all!) ...got his own studio apartment...school was too much so now he is forced into working full-time to pay bills...but he needed to do this his own way.

Just in the last few weeks he's been talking about full-time university when his lease is up in April...car loan is now paid off and he realizes hard work with 25 cent raise if he's lucky is not what he wants long-term. He is the youngest at his work and hears every day associates saying they wished they had gone to college. I think he gets it now. He came over a few weeks ago and I researched universities, his credentials and we had a good talk when he was here. I hope this will be a turning point for him, his future.

I agree with your husband, she will have to find out on her own...that's when she will start growing up and her plans will be more clear.


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## preso (May 1, 2009)

Hope she finds something out soon, but I think as long as her mother is behind her with this "dreaming" it may continue for some time.
After high school she wanted to take a year to find herself, now all these art and gym classes. She only works part time and has never worked more than part time.
You'd think her mother would push her a little harder, but she doesn't.
My husband says as long as she is freeloading on her mother and her mother allows it, she will never grow up. I can't believe her mother is allowing this as her mother, my husbands ex DOES WORK and is a hard worker, so its pretty mind boggling for my husband and I to see this going on.
Stepdaughter is majoring in partying mostly 

Hope she gets serious about something because we will not be taking her in should she fall out with her mother.

I changed my ideas a lot too at her age BUT I WAS ON MY OWN, SO WAS MY HUSBAND. That she lives free with her mother and not doing anything TO GET A JOB is what worries us.
She has never worked more than a 15 hour week and she is going on 20 !!! and the year after she graduated high school, she was only working 15 hours a week.

I was on my own at her age, my parents pushed me out... and I am thankful for that. The ones I knew who were living like step daughter either became drug addicts and died young or got married and had a brood of kids they couldn't control.
Either way is not good. Everyone needs to get serious about finding work and after high school should at least be working full time !


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

I had the option of working full-time and paying rent, going away to university or moving out on my own....if she is taking a few college courses here and there her mom should be pushing for her to work full-time and pay some rent...but not much your husband can do other than encourage your step-daughter if her mom won't put her foot down.


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## preso (May 1, 2009)

We have talked to her about going to nurses aide training as its a short program of a few weeks, and she could not only have a full time job but insurance.
She says she wants to be... she named a few things, all requiring several years of college study.

She is using that for an excuse to keep her lifestyle I think, as if she actually got a full time job, her mother may ask her to leave and get her own place, which would seriously cramp her current freeloading lifestyle.

Another thing she does is get all into adults ( over 50) business.. I guess to not deal with her own. My husband asks her why she is so consumed with what the adults in her life are doing ???
as she needs to make her own way. Our business is not her business as to how much we make and how much we pay for car payments or whatever.
We have paid our dues, are not looking for handouts.

My husband is trying to help her but it goes in one ear and out the other. She likes to play victim as to why she can't act her age.
The one good thing about this all is my husband is not going to help her to continue as is or support her lifestyle. 
The best we can hope for is to create distance at this point, and lots of boundries as to how she will act when near us... as not to 
get blamed for her shortfalls. We are hoping all the mess her mother created will fall back on her mother and not us, and why we have to have such strong boundries with his daughter.
Also to prevent the fits of rage from his daughter which she is prone to do when not getting her way.
The situation overall is improving but can go back to square one at any time should be be off gaurd as the young woman is very manipulative, and looking for any and every EXCUSE to make her issues, everyone elses issues.


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