My 19 Yr Old Step Daughter Has a Baby and Smokes Pot . Refuses To Obey House Rules

by W
(San Diego)

19 yr old female returned home with baby after boyfriend physically beat her. Now boyfriend has returned and she sneaks him in house after parents are asleep. When every one is at school or at work they smoke pot in house and eat all the food in the house.

They smoke pot in her room and think we do not know. They refuse to obey house rules. My wife chooses to ignore the issue as it brings her too much stress to confront the 19 yr old girl as she get aggressive and belligerent. They do not contribute any thing to the house hold and only use and abuse.

They have a baby and parents pay for most expenses. How do we get her out? They met in rehab 2 yrs ago and now the situation is almost back to where it was before rehab. They are back to same patterns of using and not contributing. It is putting a lot of pressure on our marriage.

We also have another 14 yr old that is watching all this and learning that she can manipulate the parents. Also another daughter returned home (21 yr old) and she abuses alcohol and is financially irresponsible. My wife thinks it is her fault as a single parent so she enables their behaviors and chooses to not be proactive as she is afraid of them.

Alcoholism-and-Drug-Addiction-Help.com Answer

There need to be set boundaries put in place with clear consequences for breaking them. An effective way of doing so is drawing up a contract, listing all the rules/expectations - and then what the consequences are for breaking them, e.g. will have to move out. Everyone signs it and then there can be no disagreement if expectations are not met.

But that's something you and your wife need to buy into and agree to. It's no point putting something in place to deal with your step-daughter's pot smoking and irresponsible behavior, if you're not both prepared to follow through.

So you need to get your wife onside. Explain to her that if your step-daughter is old enough to have a baby, she's old enough to start learning about taking responsibility for her life. But unless you two are both in agreement and prepared to enforce consequences, you're wasting your time.

19 years olds can be hard to deal with at the best of times, so your expectations need to be fair and reasonable. She still needs to have a certain amount of freedom and independence to find her way, but having that within clearly defined boundaries so she learns about responsibility and values will hopefully help. There is unfortunately no easy way of handling this, but the most important thing is for you and your wife to come to an agreement on the best way forward.

Best of Luck

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