A need to vent

Moving in with Gary has given me a sense of contentment and happiness but it has also given me great frustration. As much as we are alike in regards to things we enjoy doing and our objectives in life and how we treat people we are COMPLETE opposites when it comes to parenting and discipline.

His daughter lives with us. Her and I had a decent relationship prior to my moving in but it has become somewhat strained since I now live there. She is 16. She is not any more extraordinary than most 16 year olds but her parents are. They have coddled and indulged her to the point she is truly spoiled. She has an exaggerated sense of entitlement. She has no sense of respect for her parents at all. She does seem to have respect for adults in general and people in authority but none for her parents. She expects them to buy or give her anything she wants and the second that she wants it. She has no respect or concern for our possessions or privacy or feelings. She has gone through more cell phones since I have known Gary than my kids and I have owned in our whole lives. She doesn't have a clue about picking up after herself let alone having household chores.

Gary has fought an uphill battle for years. His ex was from an abusive home and had a skewed sense of what was discipline and what was abuse. He was never allowed to discipline his kids and she never would either. "No" was just not a word that was used with those kids. Consequences were never dealt out for bad behavior. There was just the feeling of despair and being out of control as the kids got older. The older they got the worse they behaved and the bigger the issues got. Once the parents split it became even worse because then there was the fear that the kids run to the opposite parent if either one tried to exert any authority. Well, actually it is Gary who frets with fear that his daughter will turn against him. He is so afraid that she will hate him that he just lets things go.

It soooo goes against everything I believe in. My kids were plenty spoiled and they have gotten away with stuff and are not perfect by any means but.....nothing compares. It feels like I am just running around cleaning up after a primadona diva and I can only hope that some day soon she will either "get it" and start doing what she knows she should be doing (probably not gonna happen) or I make it through 2 more years to her graduation.

And example of what she does:

This morning she put a pair of jeans in the dryer and set it to 80 mins then left for school. The rest of the load of (her) laundry was still in the washer. WTF....