Torey has been a challenge pretty much since she became a teenager. One on one she’s not bad, but as part of the family dynamic we’re never quite sure which girl we’re going to get, the fun happy girl or the moody gloomy teen. She’s also taken to bowing out of time here. She’ll usually text her dad a day or so ahead of time with some reason along the lines of “I have so much studying to do and I’m really overwhelmed” or “I didn’t sleep well, can I stay at mom’s”. Basically it’s nothing that really can’t be accomplished at our house, just that she doesn’t want to.
I know my Husband struggles with this. Every time she asks to not come over it hurts him, badly, though he tries to shrug it off. Obviously he wants her to want to come over. We also don’t want to give a 16 year old control over our lives/household. At the same time, what can we do? We can’t physically make her come over, and what consequences can we apply when never see her. His response is usually along the lines of “do whatever you need to do, we’d like to see you”. This, of course, results in her not coming over.
Unfortunately, my responses is usually something along the lines of “why do you let her get away with this” or simply throwing the phone at my poor Husband. Definitely not the most mature response. So the other night I initiated what turned out to be A Conversation (notice the capital A and capital C). I asked him what he needed from me as it relates to Torey. He pretty much said he needed me to be positive. Ha. Okay, so that wasn’t going to happen. Next best option was neutral and/or not negative. I didn’t take that well.
After a couple of days I was able to see how attacking Torey to my Husband really didn’t help. It’s the whole “no one beats up my little brother but me”; when I was negative regarding Torey it not only hurt Husband, but he also felt a need to defend her even when he was also upset at her. (Keep in mind, these are all conversations and interactions that are just between us, none of the Kids are around at these times.)
So, I’m learning to bite my tongue. I’m learning to support Husband and whatever relationship he can have with Torey. I’m still angry with her and have trouble just letting that go, but I am working on how she impacts my relationship with my husband.
It's a Step Life 