I have read so many web sites and so many of everyone's stories on this site that it has put my mind at ease that I am not the bad one and I'm certainly not the crazy one. I have known my husband and his daughter for 14 years. My husband has been a great husband, and a wonderful stepfather to my 15 year old daughter. In the past 14 years he has spent weekends and summers with his daughter, and we've always been happy to see her come, up until around the age of 12. She is 16 years old now but has always shown odd behavior. It's hard to explain but she would separate herself from all the other kids all the time. She would say strange things or do strange things and because my husband didn't have her often he wouldn't say too much. When she was 8 she got into trouble at school for writing some very bad things in her note books, such as curse words. When she was 10 her mother called my husband very upset because she was almost kicked off of aol because her daughter had been on a children’s message board cursing. I didn't until recently find out she typed on the message board that her cat was a "B" and That "F"ing cat must die......Three weeks later the cat was dead. Coincidence I don't know, but scary yes. Anytime I brought up any kind of abnormal behavior my in-laws and husband would say it was all her mother's fault. Her mom didn't give her enough attention and love, and I honestly bought into that for 14 years. About a year and a half ago her mother called us very upset, her daughter had gone to school and said her step dad had sexually molested her. She claimed there was no penetration so there was no way to prove he did this to her so they just took her word for it. What happened was, her mom didn't believe her and there were more children in the house, so they removed the child and the step dad. My stepdaughter has been here ever since. I was very scared to have her here because of her past and in my heart I didn't believe what she said. I wanted to give her the benefit of doubt and give her a chance. When she got here and told the story of what she says happened to her, it was so unbelievable because the whole thing just didn't make sense. I would have never said that to her. I told her we believed her and wanted to help her get whole. A few weeks after she got here and I was driving her back and forth to school she asked if I could pick her up an hour later one day and I asked her why. She then told me that a boy at school was sexually harassing her. I had a long talk with her about saying that if it wasn't going on and how devastating that could be to a person. She seemed so indifferent to anything I said. I would go out of my way to have the same mother-daughter talks I had with my own child and she would look at me with this blank look on her face that she either didn't get it or she didn't care. I was so worried to have her here because I was so worried about the lies she would come up about us. The whole time she was here she lied about such stupid things. I would bring it up to my husband and he would act like I was the one with the problem. Anytime I would bring up any abnormal behavior he would say I was blowing out of proportion or I was worrying too much. I'm on pain management from a back surgery that went very wrong, and he would blame things on my medication. He really made me believe that I was going crazy and the problem was with me. After the allegation about her classmate I made an appointment with a physiologist. Before the appointment my step daughter decided to tell me she was bisexual. I talked to her about it and I was real open about it. Well, when my husband and I went to the doctor's appointment she told me that I not only had to worry about her saying my husband sexually molested her now I had to worry about her saying that about me. So, for a year now I've been telling my husband that every time she leaves to go to school and the phone rings I'm scared to death it a social worker. Again, I was all gloom and doom and I was worrying about nothing. We bought her a cat that almost died, it had ingested something that was hard and poked a hole in the cat's stomach lining and the cat almost died. I told her what the vet said and the vet said that the cat wasn't going to live. She just shrugged her shoulders and didn't even blink an eye. I told her she could stay home from school the next day if she felt sad. She said no and went to school. When she got home she told me it was a good thing she went and I said why expecting to hear of a big test or something, she told me that she got all of her friends sympathy when she cried they all patted her on the back. Well I found that quite disturbing because she didn't cry a tear at home. She didn't act like she even cared. She almost destroyed 14 years of marriage in a year and a half of living with us. She finally did it. One morning I took away her cell phone for lying to me, again about something real stupid, and that day she called an old friend of her mother's and told her that I beat her and she was afraid for her life, and also, my daughter and her friends were ganging up on her and threaten to beat her up. All such a fabrication. I have never hit her or my daughter....if you knew me that would even be laughable, because I am so emotional about things. I cry before I hit. My family makes fun of me because when we are watching a movie with a sad scene in it, they all turn to look at me because they know I have tears in my eyes. The first thing that bothered me and we had to get my stepdaughter from doing it was staring. She would stare at all of us in this uneasy way. She would actually scare me. When she moved here I put key locks on all of our bedroom doors. I told her it was for everyone's privacy, but it was for my daughter's safety. My daughter always forgets to lock her door at night, so I couldn't tell you how many times I had a bad dream and got up to lock her door. My daughter would wake up and find her step sister standing in the hall staring at her. This whole time she has been here I have honestly tried to love her, but she won't allow it. She says she love you but you know and feel she doesn't. I used to look up and see her looking at me in a very scary way. When I was crying at those movies I could see her out of the corner of my eye looking at me. She looked honestly confused at why I was crying. She would say, she cried but tears just didn't come out as hard as she would try there were just no tears. I knew something was going to happen and the denial coming from my husband almost made me crazy and almost made us divorce. Now her grandparents have her, my husbands parents. They are in such denial it isn't even funny. Even after she has made these claims about me they are still convinced her mother made her this way. They think they are going to have some talks with her and take her to counseling and everything is going to be ok.... I don't know... I just see her trying to ruin their family next. For all those people out there that have a feeling that something might happen, please, please listen to your gut... This could have been much worse for me and my family. If she would have went to school and said I sexually molested her, I would be in the same shoes her step dad is in. He still isn't able to see his own two children or live with his own wife because of the mess this child has created. If the child would have made a mark or bruise on herself I would have been taken away in hand cuffs and then what would my husband been saying to me? " sorry " Sorry is a little too late and too little once you are behind bars. I would have been behind bars and this child would have been in my home enjoying all the amenities... We tried to do the right thing and were kicked in the head for it...

My biggest question for anyone out there that can answer it for me is; all this just happened just days ago and she has been at her grandparents house for only a week or so... Will this be the end or is this really just the beginning. I've been reading a lot of stories about adults, and she is only 16 with lots of years in front of her. I believe she has been cruel to animals but I just can't prove what she did, should I worry she is going to hurt her grandparents physically or emotionally? Also, there were times when my niece brought her 4 year old son over and my step daughter was sooooo interested in this child. Every time she picked this kid up the hair on the back of my neck would stand up. The last time I talked to her grandparents they were telling me all the things they were going to do different with her to make her better and one of those things was to let her volunteer with children because my step daughter voices a lot of interest in little children. She says she wants to be a school teacher so my mother in law thinks it's a good idea. It sends a lot of red lights for me, but my mother in law still thinks that there is nothing wrong with this child other than she needs attention and love. Attention she got here, I'm home all the time because of my back problems and she won't get close to everyone. I wasn't easily manipulated by her so she really had no use for me... I should also say my mother in law doesn't know this child anymore than we did when she moved in with us. Should I even still try to be involved or should I just wash my hands of it and say " I tried" ?