To be riled by my stepdaughter?

[NanaRoyle]

Hi everyone, hope you had a good Christmas.
We did, but - just wanted to run this by you the AIBU jury...

SD, who is 25, has been here for Christmas. In fairness, she is now very pleasant to me and even helped me clean the kitchen in the run up to xmas, which would have been unheard of a few years back.
However - Boxing Day afternoon, she announced she "might go to London tomorrow" to see her boyfriend. Good, I said, can you take ds (who is 8) and hand him over to his dad, my ex-p. (We have a complicated family set up.)
SD: Oh - ah - well, I might not go actually, is just an idea(her v expressive face registering one thought and one thought only ie: Oh shit
Then this morning, she was sculling round the house keeping a low profile, watched me get ds ready to go and see his dad, watched me and dh drive off to the station with my mum, who had kindly agreed to take ds all the way to London on the train (it's three hours each way), said nothing.
Dh and I got back, having seen ds off, complete with spending £60 in train fares, to find sd flying round the house like a bat out of heell, frantically stuffing her car with bags, heading off to London.
DH: "wow she was in a hurry, she must really be crazy about this new fella"
ME: Hmmmmmm.....
So, did she change her mind twice, purely coincidentally, or is she not a terribly helpful person: you decide!
And no - the fact that I've just knocked myself out to lay on a great xmas for her and her siblings my other stepkids (we even had her grandparents round - ie dh's first wife's parents, cos I am such a saint), spent a fortune, knackered myself out, etc etc, house now a bombsite, doesn't make me feel annoyed one little bit, Oh no, of course not. Grrrrr....

YABU - maybe she didn't want to spend 2 and a half hours in a car with a child who is not her responsibility, whose PARENTS couldn't be bothered making the journey themselves!!

The OP uses the words complicated and awkward to describe the situation, you also have to take into account the fact that the ex here expects the kid to travel to him at the OP's expense instead of coming to get his son himself. Not something I would choose to get involved in if it was at all avoidable.

Also what does she know of your ex? Could she have felt she could be put in a situation she didn't know how to handle? Also I don't understand why you or the father are not traveling with him.

I think it's quite telling of your relationship that she didn't feel comfortable saying no and was evasive until the situation had resolved itself and she could escape.
Are you a hard person to say no to OP? Do you argue the point? Is it easier for others to not tell you the plain truth?
Why didn't you or your OH accompany your son?

The step daughter concerned is 25! Since when has that been a teenager?

I think there is a long history of the OP not being happy about the SD when she was a teenager, and that is now impacting on the SD's response now she is 25.

sgm pop by and tell my mother that will you?

YABU. Yes it would have been lovely if your DSD would drive your DS (possibly out of her way) to see his dad, but for whatever reason she didn't want to. her choice.

There's an element of "after all I've done for her, this is how she repays me!" in your posts OP which imo is uncalled for. But then I don't much care for martyrs.

Nana you said your DSD had recently moved to London for work. We lived in London for 8 years and wouldn't have known how to drive to a central station as we always got the tube.

I suspect she just wanted to see her boyfriend and didn't feel comfortable saying she'd rather not take your 8yo DS. Not only 3hrs in the car but at least another hour locating a suitable station (what if XP says 'not that station, drive to this one?'). All with an 8yo navigating if she doesn't have SatNav. Her 3hr journey could be doubled depending on where she has to drop him and how long she waits for XP to arrive, plus driving back to the boyfriend's.

I think that's too much to ask.

Find it laughable that neither one of this poor kids parents could be arsed to make the journey with him but expect a 25yr old singleton to do it for them and get all high and mighty about the parenting they recieved as a child, like it should be 'paid back' in some way? actually its quite sad op that you couldnt be arsed to travel and neither could your ex, i really dont think the step daughter is the problem here...

Nana I do not think you were unreasonable to ask your DSD, but yes, unreasonable to get so upset because she said no. I suspect, like others, that she was not going to London at all, but somewhere else and really did not want to have to tell her plans to all and sundry.

I understand there is a backgroun, so you feel hurt, and that is colouring it, but people have the right to say no to any favour asked of them. She clearly felt too anxious to say no to you. Seriously, just let it go. I have to say also, that I am 40, and I would be terribly anxious about taking an 8 year old somewhere.... especially if I were driving, as I am not so confident about my driving. I lived in London for a short time, and just would be incapable of negotiating my way into new places in London.

Do let it go. I think you are going to hold a grudge, please do not. I know that people get stuck into the grooves of learned behaviour from the past. (Like I said, i am 40, but i revert to a truculent sulky teenager around my mother, and she is lovely to everyone else, but always pissed off with me over something, and about how I disappoint her. She is still talking about how I did not show enough gratitude to a present her sister gave me when i was 12 FFS. It still comes up.) Let it go. I really think she was not going to London, but wanted a bit of privavcy about her own plans. You said she has been great this Xmas... let that be the memory you hang on to.

If she doesn't like confrontation maybe she had a problem with the handing over bit - what with her knowing your difficult relations with his father and her being the daughter of your current husband.

Not sure if YABU.

To me it depends on the distance.

If her BF is in Ealing, and your XP is in wimbledon, it would not just be "on the way" but quite a roundtrip! London is HUGE.

Depending on how far her BF lives away from your XP, it might have added a lot of time to her trip.

Still, it would have been nice if she'd offered.

So Yanbu to be disappointed, but Yabu for feeling she owes you.

(you should get your XP involved in organising transport if he wants to see his son)

On the other hand she may be desperate to get to her new man that she may currently be infatuated with it is a new relationship and get away from the family set up as soon as possible! If she was rushing around then it sounds pretty spontaneous and exciting; transporting an 8 year old would get in the way of that fun. Maybe she is not as straight laced as you think. A lot of people can and do put on a front to their family especially if they see their 'fun' as recreational. I really don't think you're going to know if this is the case.

YABU. Your DS is yours and your Ex's responsibility.
YOU should have taken him to London or even better your Ex should have come to pick him up.

(we even had her grandparents round - ie dh's first wife's parents, cos I am such a saint)

I have just read the OP and seen that. FFS their daughter died, it isnt like she could have them round is it?! You really do sound very pleased with yourself for "allowing" your SCs grandparents houseroom! I am really beginning to see why your SD didnt want to disagree with you!

Good point Bogeyface except OP isn't that much of a saint as she thinks she is because a true saint (or truly nice person) wouldn't throw all this back at someone like that. They'd have simply invited the GPs and made them welcome and left it at that. Not added on the "after all I've done for DSDs and this is the thanks I get!" list.

I'm actually glad my own stepmum treats me and my sister with a cool indifference. Much prefer our relationship to the one this woman has with her stepmum.

Maybe she didn't feel confident driving across London to 'some central station' when she was planning on travelling direct to her bfs house which she knows the way to?

Driving across London is stressful at the best of times, let alone with an 8 year old child, to a destination you aren't familiar with.

Find it laughable that neither one of this poor kids parents could be arsed to make the journey with him but expect a 25yr old singleton to do it for them and get all high and mighty about the parenting they recieved as a child, like it should be 'paid back' in some way? actually its quite sad op that you couldnt be arsed to travel and neither could your ex, i really dont think the step daughter is the problem here...

100% agree with this.

OP's anger/resentment should be directed at ex-P (the father of this child) and his inability to come and collect his offspring/pay towards transport/etc.

It really isn't the responsibility of your SD to ferry your child - you were asking a favour of her, and it's interesting that she had to basically avoid you rather than confront it with a simple "no, really sorry, i have plans/don't want to babysit for 3 hrs/don't want to drive into London with kid" etc

I think OP's refusal to accept reasons why she might be the one out of line here says a lot, really.

I'm with seeker on this one. She is 25! That's a fully grow adult. The boy is 8?what on earth do your 8 year olds do in cars that make them such terrible company?

Yanbu for feeling a bit miffed. I'd let it go though, not worth feeling bad about.

I've read much of this and my feeling is......

I'm 42, I drive. Be it family or not, if I said I was going somewhere & somebody said to me 'oh, you can take x with you and drop them off' I'd be like 'cheeky buggar, ask not assume!' and go the other way not to.

Ok, so I drive - I'm not an unpaid taxi for whoever might need it!

OP - I see no evidence of you having ASKED SD if she would LIKE to do this, or offered her a bit of the £60 fare you'd save for her trouble?

Taking her for granted then getting the hump when things don't pan out to your way of thinking is my impression. Not her who's selfish is it..............

No, she doesn't have to take your Ds anywhere if she doesn't want to. He is your DS, not hers. YABU.

Also - Did you stick your 8yr old ds on the train by himself? Surely not!!

"what on earth do your 8 year olds do in cars that make them such terrible company?"

Asking questions like this is missing the point. The issue isn't whether the child is a joy or revolting to be around. The 3 issues, at least IMHO, is the feeling the OP shows that the SD 'owes' her X amount of favours because she was raised as a child by the OP, and/or the acceptability of expecting a favour to be granted, and/or the SD's inability to say honestly "no i'd rather not", potentially due to the OP's confrontational "the world owes me something" attitude.

So it's a bit more than whether the child is a nice one or not...