Well I thought I'd give an update.
(This is going to be long)
We sat her down and had a long talk with her. We told her our cares and concerns, explained why we were taking the steps we were taking, etc. hubby gave her the list of house rules he had printed up and told her he was taking the day off on Friday to bring her down there and show her exactly how he expected her to do these things. she didn't have much to say...except when I asked if she knew why she didn't feel that she could come to us and talk to us about the problems she was having in school and instead chose to lie, deceive, and manipulate up to the very last second. Her response was...well dad, for 17 yrs you've been just some man I saw in the summers and every other holiday. I didn't talk to you unless I had to. I don't know you and quite frankly ya'll don't know me. I told her...we WANT to know you and we've tried to know you better, but it's hard when you won't allow us to know you. She said I was right that she doesn't allow ANYBODY to know her. Her dad said ok that's a fair enough point but you didn't go to your mom either and you do know her..you've lived with her your whole life. She said that's true and she didn't have an answer to why she didn't talk to her mom about flunking out of school. When the conversation was over, she grabbed the phone and the list and called her mom and cried her eyes out. She then went to bed crying. I felt sorry for her, but I knew she needed to feel whatever she was feeling...some emotion is better than none.
He brought her down there on Friday and she started cleaning. He ended up having to go back down there on Sunday morning to flush one of the tankless hot water heaters that was acting up and he said she was still doing laundry. She had made pretty good progress. He was very encouraged. He had disabled the cable and Internet and had unplugged the DVD player and explained to her why he did those things.
That next Tuesday she came up here for her first therapy appt. He told her she was depressed and has definite issues to work on. Said he was going to do more screenings this week to confirm and suggested he'd likely recommend medication. She made another appt for tomorrow. One of the things we had told her to think about while she was down there cleaning was whether she wanted to continue to live down there or come live with us. She told us she wanted to stay down there. That was no surprise....I knew she didn't want to live with us.
The next morning I talked to her before I left for work (she had spent the night) and I said..,so are you done with all the cleaning? She said yes. I said excellent...your dad showed me a picture of your room. It looks awesome you did a great job. So now you're headed back down to start looking for a job right? She said yes. I said ok do you have a list of places you're going to go to? She said not really...just Rouses (grocery store). I said ok that's one place but you really need to go everywhere. We talked about different places and how to do it, etc. She said she had gone to a furniture store the weekend before that her cousin told her had help wanted signs up but the only two positions they had available she doesn't qualify for so that was out.
Ok so I thought she had a plan. Friday evening we went down there...she knew we were coming and she knew exactly when we were going to arrive. We walk in the house and the first thing I see is a movie playing on the TV. Hubby asked her..,what is that? She said a movie. He said, didn't I unplug the DVD player and she said yep. He said, and you just figured it was ok to plug it back in? She said yep. Ok my head was about to explode at that point. He turned it off and very calmly explained to her why he had unplugged it in the first place blah blah blah....me, I was just pissed. Then he asked her where all in the past two days she had been to look for a job. She said, oh just the furniture store. I said, that was last weekend and you and I talked about that Wednesday and you said that was not an option so why are you even talking about that. When you left our house on Wednesday you were coming back down here to look for a job and you're telling me you've done nothing since then? She said well I was going to go to Rouse's this weekend. Ok so now my head is really about to explode. So I'm looking around and noticing all the cleaning that's NOT been done and I pointed out the ridiculous amount of dust on the bookshelves in the living room and she rolled her eyes at me and said I'll do it next week. I said oh no, you're going to do it tomorrow while we're here. Hubby's aunt and uncle came in then to visit so the conversation ended. After they left hubby told her he wasn't going to fuss anymore that night but that we would be talking about it in the morning. She copped another attitude and said whatever I'm going to bed. The next morning he talked to her again and told her he was t turning the cable and Internet back on and that we were taking the DVD player with us this time since she obviously couldn't follow the rules (which I had told him originally he should take it and not leave her the temptation) and he told her she could not find a job by sitting around the house watching movies all day. So he told her she had to keep a log and that she had to go to a minimum of 12 businesses every day to inquire about a job and put applications in at least 6 of the 12. He told her to bring it with her when she comes here tomorrow so they could review it together and discuss. She started the dusting and when she was done with that she asked if there was anything else and I said yes, the bar in the kitchen hasn't been wiped down at all...probably since you moved in. She copped another attitude and said yes it has. I said, no it hasn't. Come with me. I took everything off the bar and moved it to the kitchen counter and showed her how I could write my name in the dust. I said this kind of dust doesn't accumulate in a week. I told her same goes for fireplace mantle and bathroom countertops. Basically she had done nothing more than what she did while he was there the previous weekend.
We left Saturday afternoon and came home. Sunday morning hubby's sister called us and told us hubby's daughter called her that morning and asked her if she could go live with her for a little while until she could find a job and get her own place. She lives outside of Houston. A couple of hours away from where the daughters mom lives. She told her she just couldn't stay down here anymore. Sister pretty much told her that she couldn't give her an answer without talking to us first but that she didn't really think that was a good idea.
Later that morning hubby called the x-wife to see what daughter had been saying to her. She basically said that we're just all negative and maybe we should try offering some praise instead of harping on the bad stuff and that our rules were a bit unreasonable and couldn't we back off on some of them and that taking the cable and Internet away was punishing and unfair and that making her keep a log of where she goes to look for a job was too much. Ok so my head was about to explode again. He told her no...the rules were not unreasonable and no he wasn't backing off on them and that when there is something praiseworthy, he's the first one to give praise. And he does and he has. He asked her what she had told her about coming back home to live with her and she said she didn't tell her no but told her she'd have to sleep on the couch with three dogs and that they already have a full house and that she could stay maybe three weeks. Ok, but we're the mean ones. She also said she didn't know her daughter had flunked out of that school in high school and that's why she had to go back to the regular high school. WTF? How does a mother not know her kid flunked out of a school??
Anyway....Monday morning hubby called her around 8:30 and woke her up and told her she needed to get dressed and hit the roads to look for a job. That evening he called her to see what she had accomplished and she told him she had gone to the library to use their wifi...that she had decided she was going back to Texas so she was looking online for jobs there. She said she has a place to stay. Said she would tell us more when she comes here tomorrow that she is keeping her appt and then heading to Texas Friday. He told her he couldn't make her stay here and he respects her decision but that if she decided she wants to come back and give school another shot next year she could.
So that's where we are. I'm going to suggest to her that she find a therapist there and really give that a try because she needs it. Bottom line is she doesn't want to live by our rules so she's running away. She's going to learn that no matter where you live or what you do, there are going to be rules. Big sigh.
