To be annoyed with step daughter-2nd pregnancy.

[simplesusan]

Hi there.

I am prepared to be flamed for this and know there are bigger problems in the world but I need to get it off my chest.

DSd is 18. She has a baby under 1 year old, it was a mistake she claims. She told her dad that the pill she was taking failed and that her partner used a condom and that ripped too.

She is no longer with the baby s dad and has a very volatile relationship with him played out for all to see on social media.
She was 16 when she got pregnant and had not been with her boyfriend long.

Neither of them work.

She is always asking her dad for money to buy things and will not consider or entertain the possibility of buying used things for herself or the baby. Everything has to be expensive and new.

She owes her dad money and promised when he lent it to her that she would pay it back at x amount per week. She now says she cannot afford it and quote ' has had to go into her overdraft to buy cigarettes.'

Well now to the problem. Within the space of 4 months she split with the baby's dad( not the first time they have split),met a boy who she claimed on social media was the 'love of her life'. Ended the relationship with this boy and got back with the baby's father. Got engaged to the baby's father, her father and I found out through social media. Booked a wedding, telling us to save the date. Split with him, met someone else and got pregnant to him within a matter of weeks rather than months.

Again she has told the entire world all about it.
She has now lost the baby and is 'devastated' although she told her father it was another mistake as the pill had, yet again failed.

She will no doubt get pregnant again , I'm certain of that.

On the day that she told her father she was pregnant again, she asked us to collect her from the latest boyfriends and take her to boyfriend number one to collect her baby.

Here is the thing.

The last thing we knew she was involving the courts to try and stop boyfriend number one from having access to the baby yet now he is a convenient babysitter, she dumps the baby there overnight do that she can spend time with her latest boyfriend.
The reason I am angry with her Is that she called her dad in tears screaming and crying thst boyfriend one would not let her in the house to gave be baby back saying she was an unfit mother and he wanted to look after the child.

Her dad had to leave work early to go and help her and got a serious rollicking from his boss over it.

Now she dumps the child with the so called unfit first boyfriend to basically spend the night with botpyfriend number 3!

Sorry thst this is long.

I have told dp to have a serious word with her.

How on earth can she bring another child into this situation .

She hardly knows the latest boyfriend whom I should add already has a child and is quite a bit older than her.

She refuses to let us meet him claiming that we won't like him.

How will she support another child?

She has asked us to contribute to an expensive item for her baby's first birthday and I have said no.

I worked 6 days a week when my dd was born and her father worked full time too and we made do with 2nD hand items

Her dad has admitted to me that he daren't say anything to upset her.
Ever time he voices his opinion she stops all contact and that includes with our grandson and my dp adores
Him

I don't know what I'm asking and wonder if I'm just an old fashioned fuddy duddy, but it all seems so wrong to me.

I haven't asked my friends as quite frankly we are both embarrassed by her behaviour.

Why did he have to ask her to remove photos? Yes some people do live there life on facebook ect. So? It's the way it is for lots of ppl now.
Your coming across as really quite snobby.

Lazy, you are so wrong!

I was the DD in this situation.

I had DS when I was 17 and I was too young to be a mother, I simply wasnt mentally or emotionally capable of being a mother at that time in my life. I loved him, but without my mother filling the gaping holes in my parenting then I dread to think where I would be now. My mother used to wake up when I was doing the night feeds and help me, she would take over them completely 2 nights a week so I could sleep. I didnt appreciate it.

But although she did that for him, she was not kind to me and made me grow up, forced me to. On the one hand I was a young, very very troubled (ironically, thanks to my mother) 17 year old who wanted to have the life my friends had. On the other, I was a mother with a child who relied on me and needed me, and the demands a baby makes on a mother was something I simply didnt know how to cope with.

She chucked us out when he was a toddler. She told me fairly recently that she didnt want to and had struggled for months over it, but it was the best thing she did. She would buy food and nappies for him until I got budgeting sorted out, she would babysit once a month so I could go out but made it clear that unless there was an emergency, it would only ever be once a month. She made me stand on my own two feet.

It was hard, it was really fucking hard, for her and me. I see now how hard it must have been for her to say "Enough. You made the decision to keep him*, take responsibility", but she knew she had to do it in order to drive home to me what I needed to do. She would have stepped in if I had not been able to cope to the point where DS was suffering (something I also see now but didnt see then, which is good because I would probably have let her if I had known), but she would not sacrifice her life for my decision and she was right to do that.

My mother hated my guts for the first......5 years of my sons life because of how my reckless "it'll be fine.....stop having a go at me....I need/want....." attitude affected her and mainly my son. She loved me as her daughter but she hated me as this chaos causing nightmare that didnt see what I was doing to everyone. What I read in the OP is what I remember of my mother at that time. She did resent me and she had every reason to, as does my sister who suffered horribly throughout it all (she was 14) and yet somehow has forgiven me and is now my best friend.

When someone is on a collision course with hell and wont be stopped, but still expects you to be their support system, its very hard to NOT be resentful and angry. Tbh, I think the OP has been very restrained.

The mother and the DH need a fucking talking to though, as does the DSD.

*I found out about my pregnancy when I was 30 ish weeks as my periods didnt stop so I decided to have him adopted, I changed my mind the second I saw him.

"I dread to think where I would be now"

Self obsessed much?! I meant where he would be now.

• put devastated in inverted commas because that was what she wrote along with saying how unfair life is, why are other women able to have children. Telling people to stop talking about their kids as she is pissed off with it all. Asking how come every other fucker can get pregnant and why don't they miscarry. Saying she will never ever get over this death that it is worse than the recent passing of a family member. Calling her ex a cunt. Calling those who didn't congratulate her on her engagement spiteful fuckers.

Telling those who say well you are lucky to have a healthy baby to fuck themselves and die.*

She probably did feel like life was unfair after she lost her baby. Anyone who goes through that thinks "why me". All shes done is say outloud what many woman think when theyve lost a baby. Its not the do e thing, but shes young and upset. Alo, beig told "at least you have a healthy baby" does make you want to abuse people. Its very offensive.

Why dont you just not get involved anymore? Leave your dp amd his daughter to it. This is obviously causing you anger and resentment. Leave them to it.

Again, you dont sound very nice

As I said I am not her friend on fb ( my choice) neither are several other famy members due to the incessant talk of every single aspect of daily life

So you and a few others deleted her off facebook amd obviously spoke to each other about that, you can tell by that sentance.

You just sound nasty. It actually sound like you dislike her and you want others to dislike her aswell.

Leave her alone and butt out of what goes on with her and her dad. If he tells you about it say you dont want to know because it causes you too much stress.

But your not going to do that because you enjoy looking down your nose at her too much.

It's all very well posters saying "oh poor girl, horrible step mum, she needs support not being hated" etc but there's a baby involved here who seems to be living a chaotic life with no primary carer but rather shunted to anyone who will look after him so this girl can have a social life. My concerns are for the baby not the 18 year old and maybe social service intervention is needed so she understands that unless she starts getting her act together she will lose the baby.

Being a step mum is hard and I feel for the op who is quite obviously running out of patience with her dsd. I know parents who have run out of patience with their kids and have had to be tough to get their teens or young adults to grow up and start acting more responsibly but this is a situation with a baby, a baby she's quite clearly not able to cope with but seems hellbent on bringing another one into the world? If I was the op I'd be annoyed too. And she seems to be the only adult to actually want to stop dsd turning her life into a car crash.

Believe it or not Dingdang, the liberal bollocks of placating complete fucking nightmares and enabling the destruction of not only their own lives, but those of their children too, is not a good thing.

She needs to grow the fuck up and her parents (all of them, bio or otherwise) need to be the ones to help her do that. The constant excuse making and placating isnt working and will never work.

Its attitudes like yours that cause young women like the DSD to behave as they do. Its ok, because someone else will clear up their messes for them so they can carry on with their Jeremy Kyle-esque lives. Well it isnt ok, and its about time the DSD learned that as I and many others have had to do.

You need to learn that there is a small but significant difference between supporting and enabling.

Ding you are very wrong .

I have not deleted her off fb- I chose never to ask her to be my friend.

I have never once started a conversation about her fb habits, other family have told me and she herself has told me of the many family members who no longer wish to have
her as a friend.

Nobody has posted that she is lucky to have a baby, nobody. She herself has written that entire comment.

There is no excuse for some of the things she has written. A family member has passed and what she has said can never be unsaid.

We have advised her many times to think before she posts but yet again to no avail.

I do think if I had posted this was my own dd that I would have received different replies but hey ho, some if you seem to think it is all my fault and maybe I have caused 2 unwanted pregnancies myself. Fair enough.

Coffee and bogey your posts are very intelligent, thank you.

BogeyFace, Im struggling to understand what you think it is ive said? I havnt said i agree with the way the step daughter goes about things nor have i said anything about supporting or enabling her. You've assusmed a lot from one of two paragraphs ive posted ( mostly of which questions the way the op is about a misscarrige )

Its obviously stressing OP out, so why doesnt she just leave them to it.

Your paragraph to me makes no sense in what i replied to the OP. You've literally made up and then had a rant about it?!

Who on earth has said it is your fault and you caused the pregnancies? Overreacting doesn't help.

I understand it's a frustrating/difficult situation but I just can't understand why the reaction is anger and not worry. I would be concerned if I had a stepchild in this situation. I wouldn't be blaming and going on about facebook. It doesn't even matter.

I think i would of been even more horrified if you said this about your own daughter. As it happens ts quite common for step parents to dislike their step children.

but hey ho, some if you seem to think it is all my fault and maybe I have caused 2 unwanted pregnancies myself. Fair enough

Yes, i think its completely your fault another person got themselves pregnant

What a bizarre thing to say, your just reallg not coming acrosswellw

So you and a few others deleted her off facebook amd obviously spoke to each other about that, you can tell by that sentance.

You just sound nasty. It actually sound like you dislike her and you want others to dislike her aswell.

But your not going to do that because you enjoy looking down your nose at her too much.

Your focus is on the OP hating her DSD, you assume a lot too. I admit my rant did lose its focus and was not based on what you wrote, but on others postings too and for that I apologise. I got a bit carried away and mushed your post into others I had read.

But the fact is that the OP can resent her DSD, feel angry at her, talk about her to her friends, without actually being nasty, disliking her or looking down her nose at her. I know that my mother ranted about me to her friends, and I dont blame her! She needed to deal with the terrible situation I was causing, which was so difficult for her because she adored (and still does some 25 years later!) her grandson and yet hated the way I was behaving as a direct result of him being born.

Apolgy accepted,

I cant get over the OP being so cold about her step daughters miscarrige. I have got the impression that the OP doesnt like her step daugbter. Its mostly negative, not muxh about actually helping.

Somtimes best thing to do is remove yourself as much as you can from somthing o stressful.

The step daughter isnt going to listen. Nobody does. We all think we know what we're doing

Stop buying her anything other than a Christmas present and birthday present. Don't buy anything else and don't lend her money, she is not spending it wisely.
Don't give her lifts or do anything other than see your gc.
If she gets arsey don't back down to her she is using her child to manipulate those who care.
Leave her to it it is her life to ruin sad as it is.
She will have to deal with the bad decisions she us making.
You can't stop her btw contraception is widely available but she is choosing not to use it.

If it was my sd I would be furious with her as well.

Sorry but I don't know why people are jumping on the op so much here. Yes the dsd is young, a mum, come from a divorced household ect, there are millions of young girls in that situation across the UK and they don't all behave like this.

Her behaviour is unacceptable, the way she is treating her baby baby's father is unacceptable. People making excuses for her like 'shes from a broken home' or 'product of her upbringing' is just giving her free pass to keep doing this.

She needs firm guidance, she's an adult, a mother, she needs to drop the teenage dramas and grow up a bit. 'shes only doing it for attention'- thats something you would say about a 2 year old.

I actually think you and your DH need to keep the distance. She won't listen to you anyway, so why bother? Just make sure that her mum will let you know if SS will try to take the baby off her (which will happen if she won't stop behaving like that).

She is an adult. Adult enough to get pregnant and have a baby, therefore she needs to be adult enough to take responsibility for her own life and that of her baby who didn't ask to be born into this car crash.

I think that bogie has it spot on - far too many people encouraging this girl to be enabled to live her car crash life style which takes account of herself and where an innocent baby is being passed from pillar to post without so much as a second thought on her part. She needs a short sharp shock. Cut her off financially, involve social services if need be and then maybe she will grow the fuck up and get her act together.

and perhaps she's upset about the miscarriage but let's face it another baby shouldn't be being born into this mess right now, so while the mc is upsetting for her, all round it's the best thing that could have happened. I'd imagine she isn't using contraception if she's said she'll be having another baby soon. All you can do is hope that she doesn't get pregnant again any time soon.

while the mc is upsetting for her, all round it's the best thing that could have happened

This thread is truly disturbing stuff. OP has presented one vitriolic side of a complicated story. No point adding any fuel to that fire.

Thank goodness there is some family support for this young mother trying to find her feet. Calling SS would be beyond ridiculous, it is clearly stated that there is a stable home and back up parenting support provided by a grandmother who obviously disagrees strongly with the OP's twisted assessment of the situation.

OP like a previous poster said you need to get some professionals involved and as soon as possible!

For all those saying that being left to it worked for them or someone they know there would be all the others that could tell you how they know someone,who's childs life was lost because no one stepped in!

I've seen it personally,a girl I went to school with,not a great homelife,she had one young child with an evil bastard,her Mum and Dad stepped in and helped all the time,she was actually a really good Mum despite being only 16.She fell pregnant again with his child,the abuse she was suffering at his hands had got a lot worse,she broke up with him and ended contact.

One day he convinced her to meet up with him alone,told her he'd changed ect(all bullshit)she was about 5-6 months pregnant.That poor little girl never got to go home,that baby never got to be born and her first born little girl was orphaned of her Mum that night.

He's still in prison for the 2 murders and they've said they'll never release him thankgod.

I've also seen the fall out professionaly,it's an ugly state of affairs to have to witness!

If you ever think the LO she has is in danger or the LO she's carrying please get intouch with the services.Believe me when something like what I described happens to someone you care about you never forget it,that was 23 years ago for all of us,but it still affects all of us that knew that girl!

ohthe

You are confusing 2 very seperate issues there.

The girl had support, you said that yourself, and was a very good mother so she wasnt murdered because no one stepped in. She was murdered because she was/had been in a relationship with a dangerous abuser, and that has nothing to do with her home situation. The man that killed her would have been as dangerous to her and her child no matter what her age was.

I can understand that this would affect you for the rest of your life, but dont try and say that the OPs DSD is the same, it isnt. In that case, if anyone is being abusive it is the DSD who seems to have no care about the welfare of the child and uses it as a weapon against anyone who dares to speak up to her.

This thread is truly disturbing stuff. OP has presented one vitriolic side of a complicated story. No point adding any fuel to that fire.

Thank goodness there is some family support for this young mother trying to find her feet. Calling SS would be beyond ridiculous, it is clearly stated that there is a stable home and back up parenting support provided by a grandmother who obviously disagrees strongly with the OP's twisted assessment of the situation.

Where is the vitriol? I see frustration, disappointment and anger, but no vitriol.

Calling SS is not beyond ridiculous. The child is living a very chaotic life which will affect it, if not now then soon. The father sounds like he is trying to do his best for the baby, he seems to have the DSD pretty well pegged, but she alternates between slagging him off and using him for free babysitting so she can go out. How is that in any way a "young mother finding her feet"? Its a young mother who doesnt actually want to live the life that being a mother entails, she doesnt want to make the sacrifices that must be made, or to put herself second.

There will come a time when she will have no choice to step up or she will lose her baby, either officially through SS/ex gaining residency or unofficially through the grandmother taking over care. I dont see that as an ideal end result for her, do you?

And yes, as horrible as it is (being the veteran of mc in double figures) the mc probably was for the best, she cant/wont cope with one child, bringing another into the situation is a recipe for disaster. That doesnt mean that no one understands her devastation but it does mean that for the moment at least, there is a little relief from the worry of another child being treated in the way her first one is.

Yep bogey you are spot on.

I am going to take a step back and treat her like an adult even though she doesn't always behave like one.

We are not lending her any money again.

Dp will not babysit for her unless she gets s job.
Turns out she lied to boyfriend 1 telling him she had an interview so could he look after the baby,when infact she was with boyfriend 3.

I'm not asking about her either, infact we are both leaving her to her own devices.
Dp and I are not going to ask about boyfriend 3, we will leave it to her to introduce him to us when she feels the time is right.

Bogey I'm coming at this from a similar position. I had DD at 15. I lived with my Dad at the time.

It was made very clear to me that I had made my bed and now I should lie in it. No one babysat for me until DD was around 4, not even for a couple of hours. Originally I was supposed to go back to school but my DF got pissed off about paying nursery fees and yelled at me about it one day. So I took DD and moved in with my boyfriend.

It didn't end well for me and I will honestly never forgive my DF for not being more supportive. He put his damaged pride for not having a perfect child and irritation over the possibility of spending time and money on my mistake ahead of noticing that his DD really needed help.

OP your step DD is just a kid really, an idiot kid who's making stupid selfish choices as teenagers quite often do. I genuinely (as the parent of a teenager!) understand your frustration with her but please don't compare her to your other 'good' children, it doesn't help, she can only be her, with her issues.

And please please think really carefully about cutting off support for her, just consider carefully how she might already be feeling - jumping from one relationship to another, quick enagements, falling pregnant carelessly - they aren't indicative of someone who feels happy and secure and well loved generally, I would be concerned that she might end up feeling more rejected and that might cause things to get worse rather than better.

mandatory I don't think OP is planning on cutting off support-just stepping back and no longer enabling the behaviour.

Op for what its worth I think your doing the right thing

She sounds a bit out of control and with a strong sense of entitlement, wanting to get pregnant again and hoping others will look after her children as and when she needs them to, not accepting secondhand items for the baby etc and that's coming from someone who was once a 18yr old young mum!

I hope the childs father gets some legal advice and sorts out proper contact with the child otherwise I fear she will use the child as a pawn against him whenever she sees fit, withdrawing contact whenever she doesn't get her own way.

Mnadatory I think that you are confusing support with enablement (sp?). My parents supported me but they didnt enable my behaviour. They helped me, they cared for my son but they didnt allow me to get away with behaving like an arse, which I did do at the beginning.

Your father was frustrated and angry that your life choices were costing him a lot of money, dont you see that? You stormed off after one, one pissed off rant. Do you really still blame him for that?!

Tbh, looking back, bearing in mind my DS is now 24, I am amazed that they had the patience they did! I am shocked that you cant look back and think that actually a single pissed off rant from your father about how you made his life more difficult and a hell of a lot more expensive is forgivable.

It's hard to tell whether you're being unreasonable, because it's not clear at all whether your main emotion is worry for your stepdaughter's child (which would be reasonable) or embarrassment/outrage that someone is not conforming to your social expectations (which is not reasonable). On balance, given the lack of empathy in your tone (refusing to believe someone is in fact devastated by the loss of a pregnancy, regardless whether planned, is pretty horrific), I think YABU. You certainly don't seem like the right person to help your stepdaughter get into a more stable situation, anyway, so you'd probably best leave that to her dad and social services (I assume you've contacted them if you have even a fragment of genuine concern for the child).