16 year old has been blanking me for years, what should I do?

[Thesesleeplessnightsarethelong]

Would you tolerate your 16 year old DD completely blanking you?

I ask this of mum's. I'm a stepmum, we're not really given much slack on here, but hear me out.

16 year old DSD visits her dad and I under the agreement made by her parents when they split 10 years ago. Slightly under 50/50, five or six nights in every 14.

Mostly her and her dad spend 1 on 1 time together, while I do my own thing, but we occasionally have evenings together and we always sleeps under the same roof.

Unless I speak to her directly she doesn't speak to me AT ALL. When I do try to make conversation, it's usually through a closed door (to her bedroom) or on the rare occasion its face to face she doesn't make eye contact with me. I have tried everything over the years, she's always been a bit distant with me.

After another evening last night of this I'm a little bit at my wits end. Her dad has spoken to her about this, but doesn't want to push it as he doesn't want to upset her. I think he's teaching her that being rude is acceptable.

She has no special needs, is not autistic and has normal healthy relationships with lots of friends.

If this was your own daughter how would you handle this? I'm not her mum, she has a good mum, but even if I was a stranger, this sort of behaviour is not acceptable.

I don't understand, this girl is 16. How long does she get to carry on acting this way and treating OP so badly even when they're living together?!

Does she get to just carry on behaving like this into her adulthood with nobody trying to resolve it because she 'should be allowed to feel how she feels'? It's not on.

Treating her badly? Where?

She answers her. She doesn’t ignore her.
She spends time in her bed room with the door shut (shock)
She doesn’t make eye contact ( lots of adults and teenagers don’t)

Yeah she’s being really unreasonable ...

This is because she is a child albeit an older one and an older adult is demanding respect. The op wants to be careful she doesn’t back herself in to a corner

Only on here is it demanded that step children do the step parents bidding, yet the same posters are the first to yell LTB if they don't get on with their spouse, go grey rock or NC with their siblings or in laws that they don't see eye to eye with, 'no is a complete sentence' etc.
You can't demand respect and from what I see she isn't really being disrespectful. She answers when spoken too. You cannot and should not force a friendship that isn't there to start with. So much hypocrisy.

I hope your dh does 100% of everything regarding her op.
He has imo raised a brat.

This girl doesnt have one, she is just rude

Oh do you know her personally?

She's always been distant but when she was little there are a great many reasons why that could be and while it was hurtful I was the adult and said nothing

So there are a great many reasons why this girl is distant. Like what? What happened? What are those reasons? Yet OP hadn’t bothered to list them.

There is a back story here. And yet posters are pulling this 16 year old to pieces for not wanting to best mates with her step mum.

She does need to be careful if she wants to stay with her husband. As he well may choose to not force his daughter in to doing some thing she doesn’t want to do and telling Op it’s better if they split.

Strange dynamics from the offset 10 years ago? Good that birth parents have agreed almost 50/50 with each parent. Of the six days per fortnight SD is living with you, you talk of her spending majority of time with her 1:1 with her Dad. You are doing other things. That seems to me to be an awful lot of time for you and your OH not to be together to be honest, and perhaps it’s a routine strayed into for whatever reason that has just gone on for years, until now she is a teenager, doing the simple moody teenager thing. Have you never for example been on holiday all together? After 10 years, I simply would just do as I said earlier. There might come a time when she lightens up, perhaps needs a bit of help in some way from you, or you might find a good moment to open up in a friendly way. If you don’t spend a lot of time with her in your OHs company, is he actually aware of how uncommunicative she is with you?
Either way, she’s almost an adult and perhaps isn’t going to be around as much in a couple of years time. So long as she remains polite, doesn’t try and harm the relationship between you and your OH, I would be tempted to just ignore her sulks and let her get on with her bitterness. Spend more time with your OH as well, let her see that she doesn’t have soul rights.

YANBU. I would stop bothering with her. Just be polite and leave DH to it.

if there was a legitimate reason i'm sure op or her dad would've discovered it by now
Maybe she's tried to communicate the reason and she wasn't listened to. It wouldn't be the first case of a child trying to communicate something to adults who are too absorbed in themselves to get the message.

With what the OP has shared, it is impossible to know whether this 16yo is acting as best as she can or being a brat. We have no idea what type of stepmom OP is to her. So yes, background is quite important to form an idea.

CherryPavlova
You have a great imagination as nothing in your post could possibly be taken from the Opening Post. I'm assuming you're either a step child or your child has a step mother who you detest.

Smartanimal
Don’t bother. It is not your fault. She is weird and rude, there’s nothing you can do about it. You tried your best, it wasn’t good enough. Blank her and only communicate when it is absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t suck up to a sulky brat.

I agree 100% Please ignore all the suggestions of pandering to her, she is old enough to know better. Who I would really blame is your DH who is obviously scared of saying anything to her in case she stops living with you part time but what about you? He should also be aware of how you are feeling and I would think less of a man who didn't have my interests at heart, the same way as I had his.

I would be having words with your DH and as far as your SDD is concerned, I would give up making any effort and not speak to her unless she spoke to me.

Good luck OP

She's got two parents who seem to be doing a good job. She sees you as surplus. My DD is 16 and can hardly bring herself to be civil to me, if we weren't related then I would be completely invisible to her. She doesn't need you for anything - money, lifts, meals, clothes - she has her Dad for that. Sorry to be harsh but this is her choice, it has been ten years after all. Ten years is a long, long time, your roles are set in place now and it probably won't change. As far as she is concerned she has everything she needs and that doesn't include you.

On the plus side you are free of any obligation to her besides basic care and politeness, so don't worry about it. You tried your best, no one can say you didn't, so just give her what she wants. Sometimes I wish I was stepmother to my kids.

What do you communicate to someone when you do not look at them during an interaction? Would you hire someone who wouldn’t look you in the eyes during an interview? What impression would it give you of them?

I have worked with many people who have cognitive or cultural reasons for not making eye contact. It's completely normal and fine. What do you do when you encounter someone who can't or doesn't make eye contact? Aboriginal people? People with ASD? Shy people FGS!

I'm 'that' parent who crossed out that part of my DD's school code of conduct before we signed.

DD does actually choose to make eye contact to 'prove' she's listening because she has ADHD. I would never force her. I do encourage pleases, thank yous, and her manners are impeccable and frequently commented on. So no, people who don't expect eye contact aren't raising arseholes. People who insist on it sound like them sometimes.

I don’t understand posters saying she blanks her. She doesn’t

I agree that there may be previous difficulties that have happened here as the OP has alluded to them but won’t share. There may be two sides to this.

If a relationship was damaged years ago just because it’s a lot further down the line doesn’t matter. Kids can harbour hurt and angry too.

And I agree with the other poster she actually might find you irrelevant. My dd1 was a bit like this with dh for about 8 years and now I think she prefers him to me!

As long as she is civil I don’t know what else you can force.

However, if you’ve already spoken to dh about it and nothing’s changed then you know where you stand 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's completely missing the point to compare this situation to rudeness towards a teacher, colleague etc. It is so not the same!

The dynamic, the conflicting emotions of jealousy and resentment between a daughter and her father, borne from an unwanted third party interloper like a step mother, is 000's times more powerful than any other comparator.

I'll bet anything the DSD is experiencing conflicting emotions that run so deep and instinctively that even she cannot fully grasp it. She just has a visceral dislike to the person. She may even like the OP, but equally hates her for who she represents, someone who is between her and the first man in her life, her father. Therein lies the conflict.

How do I know this? That's exactly how I felt towards my DSM for years, despite her trying so hard to build bridges. Years later, a family tragedy brought us together and we couldn't be closer now, it took the maturity of years to make me see the light. It doesn't always happen like that, every situation is unique, but trying to equate this situation to a problem to be "fixed" fails to recognise it's the circumstance creating this, and it may take the DSD years of growing up, living life and seeing the situation in a different perspective for it to change. And maybe it never will.... it definitely isn't about sitting her down and pointing out she needs to be more polite. Ha! If the 15yo mardy me was told to do that, it would have made me lock down even more.

Do you think perhaps that by letting them do their own thing you are sending her a message that you're not bothered in investing in this relationship?

I can see that it can be interpreted that way, by a 6yo and also by a teen.

Start small, find one thing that links you together - baking perhaps, where there is no focus on either of you and you can kee bysy whikst making shall talk?

You are the adult in this scene ario abd you shoukd be making efforts to help her feel included and part if a cohesive bleded family.

I say this as both a step parent and parent.

Good luck OP

excuse typos... I think you can get the jist of what I mean

Haven't RTFT but this stood out to me: so I open up a conversation about school, or friends, or 'what did you do over half term

^ You clearly are willfully ignoring her very clear signals, if these are the topics you lead with? Why would a 16yo who doesn't even want to talk to you, talk about their friends and schoolwork to you? Probably the two most emotive topics available at that age!

All the successful step parent situations I've seen have involved the step parent treating the step child like a cordial but not close friend, they tend to have their own topics that are safe and not too intimate. My dp chats to my DS for hours on end about video games and a couple of other niche topics.

Follow your DSD lead, just as you would with an adult. She is uncomfortable around you and isn't fond of you - so stay out of her way, kindly.

I completely disagree that she is blanking you. She answers you when you speak to her and avoids eye contact, that is respectful but allows her some autonomy and a sense that she can stay within boundaries that work for her. FFS don't take away the only control she has by forcing her to look at you. Human beings are allowed to choose what they do with their own bodies... there's something "camp commandant" ish about demanding eye contact from someone who has much less power and control in the situation than you do...

I'm even confused about you thinking that this is something you should "do something" about. Not everyone is going to like you. Your DSD has a right to not like you much, as long as she speaks when spoken to and gives you space to live your life etc. Leave her to it, don't hang onto a fantasy of how she ought to treat you. It won't help anyone. If you give her space and let her be when she is 16, you have a chance of a respectful friendship when she is much older

SilverySurfer No, I’m afraid were quite boring. I was a child of parents who remained married until my father died. My children were all born inside a stable and happy marriage.
The term visiting suggests an outsider in a home. Our children are grown with homes of their own but still don’t ‘visit’, they come home for a few days.

It’s poor behaviour. She’s old enough to know better. We can’t adore everyone we meet, but we can be cordial and show interest in them.

Given that this frostiness wasn’t nipped in the bud kindly but firmly 8-9 years ago, I’d leave it OP. It’s too late. It won’t be like this for much longer, you’ll probably have a warmer relationship when you see each other less due to university or the arrival of a boyfriend or whatever.

It's not whether it's OK or not. It's completely understandable.

If the OP did it back, as an adult, a parental figure and presumably someone who isn't a dickhead, of course it would be petty and unacceptable.