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[quote=Anonymous]Our kid (not biologically DH’s) is and has always been a bit stubborn and difficult, but her behavior has (as expected) gotten worse since becoming a pre-teen/teen. Since her father and I divorced when she was still a toddler, I’ve been her primary caregiver. My ex-husband isn’t very involved in her life; he hasn’t remarried and unfortunately just doesn’t care enough/want to have partial custody of DD. So my husband has been in that role.

DD is extremely disrespectful to both me and my husband of five years. She constantly lies, talks back, swears, and uses rude words, and that has been the case since before we got together. When I remind her to do something as simple as to pick up her clothes off the floor or tell her that she cannot have a sleepover tonight with a friend, she’ll freak out, yell and scream at us. She very often has a bad attitude. A few times (like 5) she has gotten violent (with property) and one time she tried to hit DH and me when she was angry. Consequences like taking away electronics help to get her to do activities like cleaning her room and doing her homework before being told, but that doesn’t help with her rude and unpleasant demeanor.
We’ve gone through numerous neuropsychological evaluations and psychiatric evaluations over the years, but nothing has come up in the tests, so they have said that she might have a personality disorder but it’s too early to be sure. Academically and otherwise, she does well, but she behaves similarly and is very rude towards her peers and teachers at school, which causes her to get in trouble and receive detentions and have conflicts with other students.

DH is that father figure that DD needs, and he does a great job being a dad to DD and our four-year-old DD. They have shared a ton of wonderful moments, but her behavior has been tough for him to cope with. I make a point to tell him that he isn’t alone and that it has also been difficult with me. I make sure to tell him that we both need to remember not to take her actions personally and that we are doing our best to navigate her behavior, hoping she will eventually outgrow it. However, he’s not very hopeful and tends to have a very low tolerance for disrespect, so it is hard. I’m looking for advice, mainly on how to strengthen our marriage and not let this affect it and also how to ensure DH/DD have a close relationship despite all of this going forward.[/quote]

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