wife and daughter battle all the time

[RobbiePringle]

I don't want to go too much into the details, as it would take forever and I am doing my best not to get despondent about it, but my wife and my 12 year old daughter argue night and day and there's no peace at home.

What I will say is my daughter most certainly is work and has an attitude most of the time, but she is essentially good and does well at school.

What grates me more is how my wife can't let little things lie and sees it her part to bring her in line, usually doing so with a raised voice, which in turn causes my daughter to raise her voice to deafening levels and before you know it it is world war 3!

Then there's the snipe I'm not backing her up, that I must back her up.

I don't want to sound self-absorbed here, as nothing would please me more than they just got along, but I work long hours six days a week and really want peace and some time to myself, as well as quality time with them and our other two daughters.

I do my best to give them my time, and often feel like a bad dad when tiredness takes me and I have to slip away to seek the rest I desire, but time for myself is pretty much always a delicate thing and strained by the din of a battle outbreaking below.

Certainly I'm not soft on my daughter, and battle with her myself now and again as the need arises, but it doesn't go far: I certainly don't go running to my wife for her aid or shout the house down...it's driving me crazy.

This has been going on now for a very long time.

Not sure I am wanting advice, more empathy and a heartfelt assurance that this will eventually end...it will end, won't it?

[Marund]

Did you try family counseling?

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by RobbiePringle

What I will say is my daughter most certainly is work and has an attitude most of the time, but she is essentially good and does well at school.

What grates me more is how my wife can't let little things lie and sees it her part to bring her in line, usually doing so with a raised voice, which in turn causes my daughter to raise her voice to deafening levels and before you know it it is world war 3!

Certainly I'm not soft on my daughter, and battle with her myself now and again as the need arises, but it doesn't go far: I certainly don't go running to my wife for her aid or shout the house down...it's driving me crazy.

Not sure I am wanting advice, more empathy and a heartfelt assurance that this will eventually end...it will end, won't it?

Well, yes, I can assure you on one point, it will end, though it might take till your daughter moves out of home. Pre-puberty and puberty is a terribly difficult time though, and mothers and daughters do tend to especially fight.

I'm interested to know what you mean when you say your daughter 'is work' and 'has an attitude'.

I guess she's asserting her independence and trying to make boundaries 'You can't tell me what to do', etc. You feel like she won't listen to you anymore, which is frustrating, and leads to yelling - as though a louder voice will somehow make the message get through?

Have you considered the idea that your daughter needs to feel listened too as well? Instead of yelling at her (which just leads to escalation), your wife probably needs to sit down and genuinely try to hear what the problem is. Talk to her as though you're both trying to find a solution, not just 'It's our house, so we make the rules!'

[RobbiePringle]

Originally Posted by Indiana

Well, yes, I can assure you on one point, it will end, though it might take till your daughter moves out of home. Pre-puberty and puberty is a terribly difficult time though, and mothers and daughters do tend to especially fight.

I'm interested to know what you mean when you say your daughter 'is work' and 'has an attitude'.

I guess she's asserting her independence and trying to make boundaries 'You can't tell me what to do', etc. You feel like she won't listen to you anymore, which is frustrating, and leads to yelling - as though a louder voice will somehow make the message get through?

Have you considered the idea that your daughter needs to feel listened too as well? Instead of yelling at her (which just leads to escalation), your wife probably needs to sit down and genuinely try to hear what the problem is. Talk to her as though you're both trying to find a solution, not just 'It's our house, so we make the rules!'

I hear what you're saying, and agree, but I don't know, it's not like we haven't tried, there's never a problem she'll admit to, and probing for one usually leads to her raising her voice, as is most often the case before we raise ours.

"work" and "attitude" might be explained by the fact that being nice to her doesn't mean she'll be nice to us, and she's usually not, but we do try, there's good moments and times when she's "normal and fine", if there's such a thing as normal and fine.

A lot of it kicks off before I get home, so often I come in to it late, when the reasoning option has flown out the window.

Certainly she's always been independant, from a very early age you couldn't help her with a thing, she'd always want to do it for herself, and she's pretty clever and capable, no doubt about that.

My guess is we've got to give her her space, she gets her retaliation in first, if you like, because she's sure who she is, and doesn't like being told what she can and cannot do. So she "pushes away"; I'm a bit like that myself, I don't like being bossed around either, so I'm more likely to attempt gentle persuasion with her, which I feel works for the most part, excepting that her mother has usually rattled her cage before I come home.

I don't know, the story usually goes that she's "had it for hours", meaning our three girls and their squabbling etc. so that by the time I come home her nerves are quite frazzled. It all mounts up. I most certainly appreciate this, as I feel that also when I've had them for hours all to myself. I love them to bits, but you know, it's never plain sailing...

For my part, however, it's never going to get any better until my wife learns to relax, the best that she can, struggle's getting her nowhere, as what we're experiencing with our daughter has solidified over quite a long time... and someone's got to soften, haven't they? I've said this to her time and again, but it's not getting through. For her it is all about our daughter's behaviour, never her own.

The harder you push, the harder someone pushes back...that's the dynamic here, right? And how to get in between them? How to make people listen that don't want to listen? How to change habits of rambunctious behaviour?