Any chance you can get her in to a counselor? At 11 years old, she has to be very confused. If I go, Mom gets hurt and cries. If I don't go Dad get's hurt.
Maybe someone on the outside can help HER chose what is best for HER.
Most 11 y/o need a little help sometimes, making grown-up decisions. This sounds like a child who doesn't want to hurt either parent.
Ask the school social worker, counselor, nurse where to take her. I'm sure they would be more than willing to help.
Good Luck
Judi
DH has asked the ex to get her into counseling, either with family or by herself, many times! She refuses and dh's insurance would even pay for it in its entirety. He has even offered to take her himself, but she won't agree, and unfortunately we only have her (at most) every other weekend. No counselor will agree to Sat/Sun every few weeks to meet.
I don't think many of you understand the irrationality of the mother. When things are in the child's best interest, she will go out of her way to do things the opposite way. Another example is that DH carries insurance on her, but the mother rarely takes her to the doctor or dentist, unless she is severely sick. She has been to the dentist ONE time in her life and she had so many cavities, she left with a mouth full of crowns. She never has physicals which are pd for in full, the last time she went to the dr. she was so sick it took 2-3 weeks of different anti-biotics to get her over her ailment. This is a child who is almost 12. I'm not saying the mother is neglectful, I just don't think she thinks those things are important. She is kept clean and fed and clothed, but just to basic necessities. As I have said in a previous post, we are comfortable financially, but when we take her shopping we have been dictated by the mother, not to buy her "name brand" clothes - "it isn't necessary". -- ? what? I am a bargain shopper and I tend to get clothes on clearance racks, and we have outlet malls, but if you look at my children, they look very well dressed (but at discounted rates). How bad of a "step" mom would I be if I bought my kids nice clothes and bought the "step" kid wall-mart clothes?? So we buy her clothes where we shop, then we get into trouble when we take her home for it. WTH?
Many of you commented that this stress might have been caused by the arrival of our other son... you could absolutely be correct. But then what? What do we do differently to make her feel better? We normally stay home on the weekends that she isn't here and save family outings for when we have her to include her. But we continue with plans if she CHOOSES not to come along. What else are we to do? How are we to change the fact that she might not feel "at home" here? We think we are doing our best, maybe we aren't, but we do everything we can to include her.
We DON'T plan a trip without her, but if she backs out or tells us she isn't going we can't MAKE her go. Who would have thought that a child would refuse to go to Disney and the beach for a vacation, when she has gone on vacation with us every year for 7 years, (WDW or the beach or both)? We were BOTH dumbstruck. So when this Christmas trip was being discussed we immediately told her we were going and asked her to go. We really just didn't think she would go with us, so we were surprised when she said she wanted to. I just have fear that we would book it then last minute she would back out.
I never intended for this to get to this point, I just wanted advice on how to plan to INCLUDE her but with the possibility that she might back out.
To reiterate, I LOVE HER very much, but like every parent/child relationship I do get irritated with things that happens with her. Just like I do with ds 12 when he does something dumb. But because I am a "step" parent I have no "control" to fix things with her.
And I have ALWAYS treated her equal as my kids, but Sorry Miss Jasmine, I do feel different about her than I do my bio kids, as does dh with my child, he cares for/loves him, but he isn't his child and therefore has different feelings for him. Anyone that says they don't feel different about their bio and step kids is lying. Especially when the mother of the step kids creates problems. I can honestly say I have different feelings about my own 2 kids, they are in different stages in life and therefore I have different relationships with each one. Dh is probably closer with ds than I am with dsd, but that is because we all live together and ds's bio-father is not in the picture, so dh treats him as his own. I'm not in that position, because dsd does live with her mom. But at our house we are very mother/daughterly and she does call me mom and I do introduce her as my daughter.
Broken families are NOT easy, but you do the best you know to do. I feel extreme guilt to my own ds 12 for marrying a man who would not take a part of his life, and I acknowledge that to him. I didn't plan to get divorced, nor did I plan my life to include helping to raise someone else's child, but its the cards I've been dealt and I'm extremely proud of my life and my family and wouldn't change any of it for the world. No one is an expert. We are not perfect. I'm not a perfect mom, not to her or to my other kids. I know that, I make mistakes, but I'm doing the best I can and I listen to advice.... hence starting this thread. I thought maybe someone that had gone through the same situation could give me advice that I could use. I never meant to get it to this level.
Thanks to all who have given constructive criticism and good advice, and to those who thought you needed to jump to conclusions, you should put yourself in other's shoes first.
This decision was made 2 weeks before the trip. We had already purchased tix and made ressies for dining. I had to call and make changes to the ressies and in order to do that we were actually given different times. 
