Have Any Ideas

I firmly believe that we need to be free of our last relationship before we start another one. This means dealing with all the fallout of the separation/divorce. If we don't finish with the first relationship first we are likely to not succeed in the next one because we do not have an understanding of how we contributed to the failure. And because you are still in a very emotional tho negative relationship with your "ex". As you are seeing this will negatively affect your children.

You are a mother first. It is your responsibility to protect your children. Your daughter is obviously angry not only with your fiance but also with you. Have you considered that her anger is related to your requirement that while she is still dealing with the loss of her father you are asking her to deal with your new man. He is a negative part of her life.

Your finace does not have any responsibility for your daughter and he should not be involved at all with her. Especially you should not leave the working out of this relationship to the two of them. What does either one have to gain?

Your daughter needs you. All of you. She needs you to be on her side. She needs to spend lots of time with you and know that you love her. As it is she knows that your love and loyalty is divided between her and your new man.
She may also be feeling that you are being unfaithful to her father, especially if the divorce isn't final. She's still in confusion and having pain over your breakup with her father.

She feels that there is no place for her in this new relationship. She knows that she's being disrespectful to both of you but she's too angry to deal with it. How can she heal when she also has to deal with this man who also, seems to me, is being disrespectful of her and her place in your life. Both have put you in the middle. You need to regain control of your life and the only way I know of doing this is thru counseling. Intensive counseling.

I also sense that perhaps this new man is more important to you than your daughter. I can understand why that would be since she's being hateful towards you. It is your responsibility as her mother to set that relationship right before focusing on another one with the fiance.

You didn't say how old your sons are. If they are old enought to ask to live with their father I suspect that their father will gain custody given the ongoing stress in your home.

The fact that he also has a new relationship doesn't count in a custody battle if the woman is a responsible person who takes good care of your sons and the home is stable and reasonable harmonious.

Because you mention that he also has a new relationship I wonder if you and/or him are doing the tit for tat game. "If you can do it, so can I." The children lose in this sort of situation.

Yes, your daughter is out of line. So is your new man. He needs to be doing everything possible to show your daughter that he accepts her, along with all the difficulties that go along with you and her father being separated and fighting for custody. That means he never says anything to her in an angry voice and leaves all discipline and rule setting to you.

I agree that he shouldn't be living with you. Living with you and your daughter puts all three of you in a no win situation. If he isn't patient enough to stay our of your daughter's life at this point then he isn't the right man for you at this point. Your first responsibility is to your daughter. Even tho it doesn't feel like it she is crying out for your love and understanding. Allowing her to be disrespectful to yourself only makes her angrier. How to change that around so that both of your treat each other with respect requires some insights and training on how to set and enforce limits.

Sounds like your new man doesn't know about boundaries and limits either. Sounds like he just gets angry. I believe that if you continue living together and do not learn new ways of parenting that you will lose your daughter; perhaps to the streets. Is she going to school, getting passing grades, have plans for her future? If not it is your responsibility to help her succeed in that manner. How do you even have time for a new man?

Life is difficult. Seems to me you've added another layer of difficulty when you and your new man decided to live together. As I said, if he can't accept that your daughter needs you without being involved with him then he's not the right man.

If you can't live without a man then you have more than a problem with your daughter. Find out how to face life on your own. Set it up so that you and your daughter are in this together. Find out how to give her love and boundaries.

by the way, no one wins in a custody battle, especially the children. Would you consider letting go of that battle? Tell your sons that because you love them very much you are going to stop the fight and allow their father to have custody. Have regular times with them; time that is not shared with anyone else. Find out the interests of all your children and spend time doing those things with them.

There is a possibility of healing over time if peace is what you want. If fighting is more satisfactory then you will be fighting all your life.

I wish you and your children well. Remember their needs come first. Go to a counselor to find out what those basic needs are and how you can provide them.

I just went back and read your profile. You said one of the hardest things for you as a parent is to see your children in pain. Pain is a necessary part of life. Setting rules and providing consequences will cause your daughter pain. If you don't do that now she will know more pain as an adult. I'm guessing that you and I have that in commong. I wasn't consistent in setting boundaries with my daughter because I didn't want to face her pain. I learned while I was growing up that it was my responsibility to make my mother happy. (just the opposite of your daughter) Both ways of looking at happiness is not helpful. I allowed my daughter to be disrespectful much of the time. It just seemed easier to argue with her but still let her get away with her disrespect. I would tell her to be respectful to the point that I was yelling at her. I didn't give her a consequence for being disrespectful and I ended up being disrespectful of both of us. We both felt more pain.

I have spent many years reading and in family therapy and personal therapy to learn what to do. Now that my daughter is an adult I leave anytime I feel myself getting angry. This upsets her. She feels abandoned. But we have been getting along much better since I started doing that.

You can't leave. She's a child. But you can send her to her room until she can come back out and say she's sorry. That is what my daughter does with her children and it is working.
I doubt that this will work for a 17 yo but you can take away favorite things, not give her what she wants the next time she asks. Be as calm and decisive as possible. It takes time to learn how to control one's own emotions and not cave to their emotions. Just keep doing it. YOu'll get better.

Does her behavior bother you? Please help your fiance realize that she is your child and your responsibility. He does not need to disipline her but rather come to you when issues come up.
You will need to consider if he has a point. You may need to deal with your daughter.
Make a clear line as to how much you expect your daughter to listen and how much you expect your fiance to tell. You need to find a balance between respect for them and harmony in the house.

Understandably, she is ajusting too. You are also dealing with a teenager. That sounds like the norm, but you don't have to put up with it. Just remember to reward her for good behavior. If she says something to you in a bad way, tell her you will be glad to listen to what she has to say when she isn't so angry. If she wants respect,she has to give it. If she isn't threatening to go live with her father, then you have more room to be strict on this. Your new person may not understand teenagers and yes, it looks awful when they act like that. There has to be privileges taken away for bad behavior until they are out of the house. Arguing does not work. She will scream until she wins so keep calm, but stick to your guns! "I'm sorry you choose to act that way, it only makes you mad when we have to punish you." Always be open for converation. Do you know why she doesn't like this new person? He is right when he says that she shouldn't talk to you that way, but you need to be the one to put a stop to that.

I'd put your fiance on the back burner and focus more on the parenting than on the love life. Since you're calling him a fiance, I'm guessing that means you live with him. That's not something I recommend for my clients - especially if they're fighting over custody. See your boyfriend when your children are visiting with their father/on a sleep over, etc. You only have one more year before your daughter is 18 and it sounds as though she's pretty angry . . . probably over dealing with the fall out from your love life. (I'm guessing that she has a different father than your two boys.) You've got less than one year before your daughter is up and out of the house. Your daughter darn sure should NOT be "dealing with" your boyfriend. And your boyfriend should not be "fighting" with or dealing with your teenage daughter. She's YOUR daughter. You need to be her mother.

Additionally, the new guy in your life will almost certainly make your fight for custody that much more difficult. In the last divorce I worked on, I was able to get primary custody awarded to the father - in large (but not exclusive) part because a private detective I hired found some stuff in the new boyfriend's background and because the kids were very unhappy about the relationship. Additionally, the number of relationships mom cycles in and out of and how the children are impacted by the relationships can play a big role in custody battles.

Parents who put their children first are parents who protect their children from their love lives.

C.:

I need some clarification. So your daughter isn't part of the custody battle but has the same father? Is this because of her age?

Having a teenager is difficult at any time whether you are in a relationship or not. My kids each had their own set of problems. Believe it or not my youngest who is now 26 years old and is physically and mentally handicapped was actually in many ways the easiest of my children to raise. Teenagers hormones are rageing and they are trying to establish their own independence along with everything else so it is a trying time for us as well as for them. My daughter, who is now 38 years old and the mother of 4 herself (a boy 20, a girl 18, a girl 11, and a boy 8) was probably my most difficult child. She was sassy, skipped school and eventually dropped out but got her GED several months before she would have graduated. She got in to drugs, ran away from home several times and was a general pain in the .... for several years but when she turned 18 and was pregnant with her first child I couldn't get rid of her. She didn't like all my rules but she decided that she did want to stay home in a good safe place. She knew the rules and knew that she needed to follow them or I could have legally booted her from my home but she decided to follow my rules then. It took her awhile to straighten out but she did and now she is doing pretty darned well. I just learned the other day that she is getting A's in her college classes that she is now taking and she is working full time at a job that she loves.

Several years ago, when she was living in Bend with her husband and two oldest children she was always asking me to babysit them which of course I didn't mind doing. I asked her why she always wanted me to be the kids babysitter when she knew that my rules had not changed and I would expect the same kind of behavior out of my grandchildren that I had expected out of her and her brothers. Her reply to me was that I actually knew what I was doing and she knew that her kids would be safe with me since I would be keeping an eye on everything they were doing. You could have knocked me over with a feather when she said that to me but I sure felt good. I was finally getting "smart" after all these years. It seems to be that when your kids get to be about 30 years old you start getting smart. I am enjoyng being smart again.

I might add that I was not with my kids dad at that time either. I have been married 3 times and all 3 of my kids have different dads. My 3rd marriage has lasted for over 27 years now. My 3rd husband was the man that both of my older kids had more to do with then they did their own fathers who would hardly bother with them. They still misbehaved, as kids will, and did not always want to pay attention to my 3rd husband all of the time until they realized that we intended our relationship to last as long as it possibly could. Both of my older kids used to play my 3rd husband and I against each other until we wised up to what they were doing. When we wised up to them and they would ask one of us something and then go to the other one if they didn't get an answer they liked out of the first one we developed the strategy of telling them that we would have to both talk about it and then a decision would be made. When they realized that they could no longer play us against each other that eventually stopped.

Yes, my 3rd husband and I did eventually seperate for a little over 6+ years due to his drug use and drinking but we eventually got back together and have been back together ever since so I did spend several years again raising all 3 of my kids alone. I made it plain to my kids that none of my divorces nor my seperation from my 3rd husband was in anyway their fault. They had enough problems without the added burden of thinking that they had caused any problems in any of my marriages.

I guess that I should say a little about my older boy also. He had his difficulties including some trouble with the law and ended up going to a group home for 2 years but he really straigtened out while he was there. He graduated from High School because he said that he didn't want to be like his sister and other members on his dads side of the family and not graduate from High School. He also never got in to drugs or alcohol because he saw what it did to his dad, his sister and his step dad and several friends and that completely turned him off of them. He is now married and the father of a 4 year old boy and step father to two other boys ages 10 & 7.

My 26 year old boy is now living in a group home in Bend and is doing pretty darned well himself. It is taking him a long time to "grow up" and he will never completely succeed at that but he is growing up as much as he can and we are sure proud of the progress that he has made. Placing him in a group home in November of 2005 ended up being one of the best things we could do for him.

I'm pretty proud of how my kids have turned out inspite of all the problems that each of them has had.

Good luck getting the custody of your two boys. I hope all goes well for all of you.

dear C., do you remeber being 17? it is a very difficult time in a young girls life, im sure the only reason she acts out is because she trust that you will not stay mad at her forever for it. she is trying to establish her own sence of the world,trying to set boundries may be hard but it is very important that she understands she is respected. i know it sounds a little funny htat you should show this young girl respect when she obvoiously is showing none to you by the sound of it, but in the mind of a 17 year old it really is a fight for your trust that she does make that right choices and actoins for herself. in time and lots of patience she will come around, it is just a faze, she will realize how much her soon to be father in law does for her and will learn to appreciate him but he has to be the adult and make the first move.