Maybe here

I think I'm going to try to write here. I can't trust Livejournal any more. I've had malicious virus reports on my work computer after visiting Livejournal.  I think Brent still reads it on occasion.  Scarlett is a "friend" there, and while I have a filter that leaves her off, I just don't trust LJ not to screw with my home computer.

So here I am. It took me almost a week to figure out where this was - I'm a member at WordPress but I think you have to have a sponsor in order to blog there, at least that was how the instructions appeared. I don't want a sponsor. I just need a place to dump once in a while. I remembered that an old friend from church blogs here, so I found it through her Facebook page.  I knew you were here, too, Ruthie, but I couldn't find a link to Pentimento anywhere.

So here's my current reason for dumping:  Scarlett has left.  She's practically living with mom and my stepdad, and I don't want her to come home.  She left right after she graduated because she was being punished for allowing her boyfriend to come over while we were at work. It was the second time she'd been caught at it, and despite having EVERYTHING (laptop, phones, DS, computer time) taken away for almost a month, she did it again almost immediately after getting her phone back. She decided she was going to go stay with mom because she didn't "feel at home" here, with me. She said she never felt like it was her home, and she hated Brent and couldn't live with him anymore.  Now mind you, I am the one who took everything away. Both times. But he backed me up and helped me hold my ground when she started trying to get me to return her things to her early. If he hadn't, I know I would have given in, because that has been my pattern most of her life.  That's been my parents pattern as well, but they refuse to stand firm because it means arguing with her, and neither of them can bear the stress of fighting with her.  They won't allow me to discipline her when she's at their home.  So she called mom and mom came and got her.  I kept all her electronic devices. Gave them back to her once she'd been there a month.

She came to visit last weekend, and left early because she and I got into a fight. I laid down three ground rules when I picked her up - she had to turn off the computer at midnight; she had to get up before ten a.m., and she had to be cordial to Brent.  She refused to turn off the computer the second night, and was up talking loud on skype until almost three a.m.  But she couldn't wrap her mind around why I was angry.  She said she would never return to live with me. And I was glad.

Since then she's told me that she said some things she didn't mean. But she hasn't apologized for the way she spoke to me, or the way she treated me.  And until she does apologize, she's not welcome here.  That's made her angry at me again.  And I don't care.

I'm so tired of her manipulation and bullshit. So So Tired.  So tired that I'm packing the things she's left here, and have hopes to move my own things into her room once I get hers out. She's not even 18, and I'm relieved that she's living elsewhere.  Maybe it's just easier to be a bad mother from a distance.