I try very hard to be a positive person and help other people all the time, but right now I feel so overwhelmed and ready to give up. Don't get me wrong, I am not ready to do myself in or anything, but I wonder how much you can give of yourself before there is nothing left? My DH and I are foster parents, (couldn't have our own) we have a 16 and half year old girl and a 13 year old boy. The girl has been with us for just over a year and the plan was for a permanent placement. We have been fostering for 10 years....I know all the cliches, I know that I cannot control when a teenager decides its time to rebel.....but I just feel so used, unappreciated and hurt.
For the past month she has been wanting to move out of the house....which I can accept and I am willing to let her go. I did not want things to end with hard feelings, so I let a lot roll off my back, because it wasn't worth the fight and I knew she just wanted no rules, no responsibilities and to use my home like a hotel. Despite the fact that I have told her that I am not going to hold her back and help her to move on, she changed her mind a number of times and said she wanted to stay and work things out. Bottom line for us, she is more than welcome to stay but only if she were to respect the rules. Every time she says she wants to stay, she purposely does the opposite and openly defies the rules. I have had enough of the games and of feeling manipulated. I am just done. She is spending the night at her boyfriends (which is what she wanted all along)
I can't help feeling negative about her future and I am so sad for the loss of her potential. I don't feel guilty, but I do feel used, and I do feel angry. I do not want to feel this way, but what can I do to change it?