Like Father, Like Daughter
My Week From Hell With My Covert Narc Step-Daughter
My step-daughter has not figured dominantly in our lives. Now 23, I first met her when she was 11, and she has always been “difficult”. Partly I believe it is because she was weaponised by her Mother to hate her Dad for daring to move on with his life, even though they were well and truly separated when I first met him. That breakup had zero to do with me.
She has never lived with us, apart from staying over a night or two (where she wreaked havoc: think garden hoses spraying through bedroom windows, my shoes thrown in the garden and our cat thrown in the pool while the other kids were trying to stop her). She never wanted to go on holidays with us either, and while her 2 brothers and my 3 kids settled into a semblance of normal step-family life, she turned herself into the outsider, basically only contacting her Dad when she wanted something (usually cash, or a car. Its been 3 cars now, the first two having been wrecked).
Unfortunately, her Dad has always felt guilty about her struggles to accept life moving on, and always made excuses for her poor behaviour instead of trying to firmly (but lovingly) hold her accountable. “But she’s my daughter” he would say, as he insisted the other kids were lying about her throwing the cat in the pool, or that another of the kids must have put the hose…
