Wife won’t make stepdaughter get a job

[Recyc11ng]

So I have a stepdaughter of 20. An adorable good natured human being but is bone idle.

She left college last summer (after having an extra year for failing everything). Despite the extra year she achieved nothing. she is so bright but unmotivated.

Her mum and I agreed that she could have a month or two break before getting into work. Since then she has worked one day in a new job then quit. Since then nothing.

It’s almost a year now and it is driving me nuts, even more so as I have a very strong work ethic and don’t believe life is free.

She spends 7 days a week in her bedroom playing minecraft and other games. She never goes out, eats and makes zero contribution to the house whilst her mum and I work (very long hours)

I keep raising with my wife and nothing is being done - it’s as though my wife would be ok if her daughter was still doing the same thing for another 20years.

Tired of talking with nothing being done, tired of stepdaughter taking the P - now at the point where it’s a constant irritation and I have no idea what to do!!

Help!!

I suspect you go into lecturing mode when talking to your DW about this. Deep down she can't be happy with it either. How about a more supportive strategy with your wife? Your current methods aren't working.

Try getting her to talk and decide on an action plan. Ask her what she future she wants for her daughter and how you can both help her. This only works if you 100% offer no opinion of your own and absolutely no ideas for ways to solve. This will probably be alien to you and extremely difficult. Still worth doing. Your wife needs to own the problem and then she will find a way.

She sounds depressed tbh. For an adult to sit by themselves playing games all day Suggests mental health problems

Change the Wifi and don't tell the wife either.
When it all explodes, say that it's either her or you leaving!

I've known adults that have spent all day gaming, can't be arsed going out, don't like socialising, with no mental health problems.

Well, they didn't start out with them.

Can she at least try to make some money using her gaming skills, for example stream herself playing games on Twitch?

I know it's not the best solution in the long run though.

At least for now she could bring a bit of money in whilst sitting on her arse all day!

Work is fetishized to a ridiculous extent, particularly when so many jobs are inherently pointless - and many more badly underpaid and even dangerous.

Oh FFS. Is eating fetishized as well? Keeping a roof over your head?

Posted obviously by someone who thinks the world owes them.

@PandyCuff I donit think OP DOES pay for everything? I am sure he said somewhere that he and his wife work hard?

OP did mention that, but has also heavily implied that he is the only one paying anything towards the household.

I suspect that she has regrets regarding her parenting pre me and is compensating now (albeit at the detriment of my wallet and core values) - Foresteer23 Fri 26-Apr-19 10:56:18

I also pay for everything - it’s the best free hotel in the world, her mum gives her £100 a month for doing nothing - Foresteer23 Fri 26-Apr-19 11:02:53

Why should I have to bankroll it - Foresteer23 Fri 26-Apr-19 11:48:03

He has also been very rude with regards to his wife's parenting both before and after they met (not sure what insight he would have had before they met) and also towards his stepdaughter. Unfortunately most people have been happy to join in with him, and vilify his step daughter, because MN loves to criticize a lazy child, regardless of age and not many have picked up his passive aggressive tone towards the two women in his life.

@Tensixtysix - Change the Wifi and don't tell the wife either. When it all explodes, say that it's either her or you leaving! Tell you what, I'd say good fucking riddance to man who thought he could treat me like a child. Then I'd change the password back. You are assuming his wife doesn't know it/how to do it.

Why are we infantilising his wife like this? I am sure she knows her own daughter, and perhaps...just fucking perhaps, she has more of an idea as to what is happening with her daughter than a bunch of strangers on the internet who are happily playing a man's game of "let's put down his wife AND her (female) child"

Not to mention that he joined up to post this, and has no posting history. Why are you all happy to play this man's game? You have no idea what is going on, yet you are happy to completely slate this female adult at a man's request. Well done on helping him tear her down.

I was one hot mess at that age...i did work but was depressed and had little direction.I lost jobs by turning up late etc..
Is she depressed op? .it sounds very frustrating.

Oh fgs. I have ASD but I still worked at that age. I was also suffering from bad anxiety. Managed to support myself and fund my studies as there was no other choice. I was in a country with no welfare system or study funding and my parents were poor.
I can guarantee you she'd be capable of a lot more if she had to be.

You don't have to be autistic or depressed to be bone idle.

This, so true.

Op, my mum was your wife until the day she died at 90. My DB dropped out of work at 18, after 2 years, as he didn’t like it. He lived off our mum all her life (he did marry, a foreign lady who wanted a passport. She works but sends most of her money back to her country. Mum bankrolled my DB even when he lived 200 miles away)

He spends all day in his house apart from walking the dog. He is a very intelligent person, grammar school boy, just very entitled and has said on many occasions “why should I work when others can give me money.” He is definitely bone idle and entitled.

He is now pushing 60 and lives off his inheritance, not a massive amount, so no idea what will happen when that has gone. His wife is intending going back to her own country when she retires, he won’t go.

We are very LC with him, and he knows I won’t bankroll him, DH and I have worked hard all our lives whilst he has chosen not to.

I don’t know the answer Op, if your wife is like my mum, she will never see that what she is doing is wrong. She will just see that her “child” needs keeping. My mum could never have been persuaded that he was lazy and entitled and she was facilitating that.

Having spoke to older relatives a lot since mum died, they think his entitlement was of her making, she treated him like an entitled prince since the day he was born. She was an elderly mum for her generation, had had miscarriages, so when he came along, nothing he could do was wrong - ever.

I cant help but think if this was a 20 year old boy then the answers would be very different.

1. Ask if she may feel that she could be depressed and if so get her to the drs

2. change wi fi password and stop doing jobs for her.

She's lazy. You and your wallet are a handy addition to the family.

'Depressed'..that's the most some people can come up with to excuse bad parenting leading to lack of motivation and basic life skills. My brother is 52 only really got going with work when he was 30. Still lives with mum, has fleeting relationships isn't really bothered as he has very cheap accommodation and free housekeeping - & a nice home all to himself when mum goes. This is how far it can go - never leaving home.

When DD was in Uni Halls I was shocked at the number of young people who couldn't even cook the most basic meal.

It's emotional neglect, all of it.

Turn off the wi-fi. Have an evening out with your wife and talk to her about this, don't let the topic be diverted. Be direct. She knows what the issues are. In your shoes I'd find this whole set up unappealing, couldn't live with it.

Hope you get it resolved

Tell your wife you are no longer prepared to financially support her unless she gets a job within the next month so she will have to move out or she can continue she's is but she will have to fund 2/3rds of the household costs for herself and her grown up child.

Of course you get a say, you're funding it. It sound s like both take advantage by that comment.

My dd (19) was like this last year then she decided she was moving out. I got a text from her a month ago saying she realises she was lazy and how much hard work she must have been. They can transform but she won’t whilst she is under your roof.

I know someone like this... he's 27 now, the only difference is, his parents have bought him an expensive flat to live in. He says he's an entrepreneur but he actually does nothing but play golf (subs paid by his parents), go to the gym, (funded by parents) and talk bollocks. I have never come across a more entitled twat in my life. He's never going to work for anyone, he wants to be his own boss. He's never had a job.
They always indulged him, he's the youngest, and he can do no wrong.

Oh, and he's got no issues or problems at all. He got a good degree at Uni and enjoys life as a wannabe Richard Branson.

Classic mumsnet, a bone idle 20 year old is now portrayed by some as the victim in this scenario. I assume most of her friends either work or are still in some kind of training or education. To claim she does not know any better is nonsense. She is on a good thing at the moment and is happy to ride that wave as long as possible.

Honestly this was me up to the age of about 23. I flopped college, so I would just get short temp jobs and then have long stretches in-between work. The rest of the time I was just faffing about on my computer or playstation.

What happened eventually was I simply got bored. I would sit at my computer and realise I had absolutely nothing else to fill my day with after a couple of hours browsing the internet.

I have now moved out and I'm in full time employment while making plans to do open uni. So not all hope it's lost.

Roussette - Most entitled twats are helped in that direction by one or both parents in some way!

We have friends with two very bright kids, eldest finishing 2nd yr at uni, is very arrogant, and his parents think he will walk into a top placement job and then a graduate job. Yet he has not worked a day in his life so far, and spends all his spare time online gaming it seems.

Each winter/spring, his mum makes numerous comments about how she wants him to get a summer internship related to his degree, but when that doesn’t happen (I’m not sure he even applies!) she doesn’t seem too bothered whether he gets a normal summer job.

She has made many bitchy comments about my DC doing retail work (pre/at uni for eldest and in gap year for youngest) and has openly said that her boys are too good for retail jobs 😳. She doesn’t seem to see that any job proves you have a work ethic, can work in a team, time keep, looks good on a CV etc etc, never mind the benefit of earning your own money.

I can see our friends’ eldest ending up like the 27yo, except his parents are as tight as they come and I know wouldn’t bankroll him at all.

Oh for goodness sakes. So many mental health diagnoses. She’s a lazy 20 year old. Not depressed or autistic or “struggling” 🙄

Sophiesdog I think we know the same family! (almost)

This wannabe entrepreneur 'plays the stock market' and had a notion of walking into a job as a hedge fund manager. But as he refuses to work for anyone, I'm not sure how that bright idea is gonna work! He has never worked at anything and his parents bankroll him and his stupid ideas.

Oh, and he won't do the NHS. Insists on going private and his parents pay for this
I have a DC the same age and she has been working and forging a career since she left Uni (and had jobs in 6th form and Uni) and is doing really well but I suppose a good work ethic is for mugs isn't it, when you're going to be an 'entrepreneur'...

It's really complex and I do think a discussion needs to be had between all 3 of you. Ultimately it's reasonable for you not to want to fund lazy SDs lifestyle. If it's a deal breaker then you're probably better off out there.

My parents weren't quite like this but they made me quite a helpless adult. Mam is quite emotionally manipulative and controlling so I think she saw anything that meant o didn't rely on her, bad. Hence when I was going to uni she wouldn't show me how to do a load of washing or even boil some pasta. It was humiliating.

I agree that this current lifestyle isn't doing SDD any favours. I also disagree that it is automatically depression. I know plenty of people from my year in school who don't work, who sit home all day (because their friends are all at work, also some friends get pissed off or fed up having such a lazy friend). In their cases they're relying on benefits as parents not well off. Mid twenties, relying on benefits, smoking weed and playing games. It's hardly a productive life.

And yes dw is massively disadvantaging her. You two won't be about forever. You probably won't be able to afford to fund her forever. No one goes to work flr the thrill of it. They go to be able to move out and get their own privacy, to afford nice things and the pride of buying yourself not asking for money. For the social side of things. There's so much more to work than just earning money.

20s are a time when youre not always sure what career you want. You can pick jobs you fancy and move around the country to different areas trying new things. You can progress in s career of you choose one, you can fall in love with a city or area. Your sdd will miss all this.

And when she does look for a job, the lack of job history will not appeal to employers. No work at 20 isn't unusual if you're attending uni, but people usually have at least 1 or two volunteering placements under their belt. If she's literally left school at 18 and never had s reliable job since, that will not so well for her.

Also gobsmacked at the 'fetish' of working. It's been mentioned a few times on here and it screams entitlement. You work to pay your way. Anyone who doesn't work or doesn't look for work and instead chooses to sponge off family or the state, and there is no disability hindering their working, is just a CF who should cop on

So differentnameforthis, probably worth me providing some clarity around the comments you have cherry picked - my insight regarding DW having regrets relating to historic parenting is factual and is directly from a discussion with DW. My point now and during the same chat was that we cannot just ignore the situation. We agreed that plans should be made to address and improve the status quo. Unfortunately nothing was actually done about it by DW or SD and I am left frustrated and let down.
I think your responses are somehow drifting towards misoginism which is pretty rough if it is the case.
My role in this family has been to provide love, warmth and security without condition. I have cleared £50 k worth of debt, managed violent ex husbands, and supported my step kids in everything that they want and need. I have created a true democracy in our home where everybody has a voice and we talk about everything. My only issue here is that we had a plan to get SD on a journey to independence (however long that takes) but it hasn’t been fulfilled. I think it’s unfair and unhealthy to just keep doing nothing.

I am interested to understand what your issue with my plight or indeed me is, as you clearly have a problem ?

@PanGalaticGargleBlaster Are you kidding?? A whole bunch of strangers have laid into this person because her stepfather wanted them to. A first time poster who changed his name after his first post, odd, don't you think?

@Foresteer23 Amazing drip feed there.

I don't hate men, far from it.

My problem is that I'll not join in with someone who wants everyone to vilify his wife and stepchild on his say so. You keep claiming that pay for everything, that you are bankrolling the family, yet your wife works.