Is it time to leave?

Husband and I have been married 3 years. We have his 13yo daughter week about and we have an 18mo son. We have a mostly good relationship with mom. I no longer have a good relationship with daughter.

His daughter has ADHD which is medicated in our household but we found out recently no longer medicated at mom’s. Mom also seems to have been letting her skip school and has told her to lie to us about it. Her behaviour presents more like typical male ADHD and she can be violent and destructive impulsively. She can also be dishonest.

I thought we were in a good place but since falling pregnant and then having our son she is obviously struggling to cope with the jealousy and her behaviour is escalating in a really concerning way. We’ve looked for a therapist for her but have had no response from those we’ve contacted.

Something she used to do, mostly before being medicated, was accuse my husband of hurting her. If I hadn’t witnessed it, hearing it from another room would sound like he was. But I watched her more than once do things like throw herself on the floor and then scream that he’d pushed her over.

Light night, I was upstairs when I heard her screaming and coughing like he’d choked her. He came upstairs to say he was going to take her to her mom’s to cool off as she was going wild. He wasn’t allowing her to take balloons full of flour into her bedroom and blocked the doorway with his arm. She fell into it and then accused him of elbowing her in the face.

I offered to try to talk to her calmly but when I went downstairs she completely ignored me and then said she didn’t need to do anything I said. My husband then came downstairs with our toddler and she started screaming again, this time in annoyance because he still wouldn’t let her take the things upstairs.

At this point I stated that I was going to take our son and go to my mom‘s because I didn’t want him to hear this. When I was gathering his things, he decided to definitely take her to her mom’s instead.

We are trying to help her and to make things better. On our weekend with her I’m often leaving for large chunks of time so they get time together. She is welcome to stay up with us after son goes to bed to watch movies or play games. However, we also have boundaries (eg limit on screen time) and expectations (eg set the table) that she doesn’t at her mom’s.

After he dropped her off, my husband came home and cried. This morning, I’m wondering whether I should take our son and stay with my parents for a break. I have no control over what happens but it seems that nothing Is getting better. I don’t want my son to grow up thinking this is normal and feeling the tension that we all feel when she is here.