Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

SM doesn’t want me in the house

999 replies

Eggandbeans · 29/02/2020 11:16

I am nearly 30 and I’ve had a SM since I was 13. She wasn’t the OW and we always got on pretty well. I have 3 half sisters who I love but I don’t feel much for my SM. She’s always been good to me but as with any family there are things that I’ve resented, like when they go on a family holiday and I don’t get an invite. I’ve not rocked the boat but being honest I have maybe made a few subtle shots at her for it. I’d have liked to be closer to my DD and DSs but they moved to Cornwall before my DSs were born and I live in Kent near my DM and her family. I used to enjoy the “holidays” down to stay with them but as I got older I felt pushed aside and that I ultimately missed out because of the geography of it all.

Now my SM and I have had a little spat - she says it’s my fault and I don’t see it as overly important but she is very upset with me. My DD is trying to mediate but has now said that I can’t stay in the house anymore and he will have to meet up with me elsewhere. This has shocked me because I thought that whatever went on with me and SM wouldn’t have any bearing on my relationship with my Dd and DSs. Aibu?

OP posts:
xGAIAx · 01/03/2020 23:02

@itsallthedramaMickiloveit you have a point there. The OP says she still hated the SM who must have known. I'm not sure I would invite another woman on holiday who felt that way about me.

babypossum · 01/03/2020 23:03

I didn't get my DS to call my dad's partner anything other than her name. He's now passed however as she wasn't particularly kind to myself and my DB, I can entirely understand how you feel OP. I also understand the hurt you feel at your DF siding with her on many things. It's something I don't think I'll ever get over.

LittleDragonGirl · 01/03/2020 23:07

Hmmm..

I think sometimes just because a step parent may not have been exactly a "parent" to you growing up, (and teens is a awkward age and often step parents never truly gain the role of parent due to entering the childs life later), they can still be amazing grandparents, as their grandchildren will grow up not knowing anything different.

I never called my stepdad dad, and always used his first name (he met my mum when I was 5, we NEVER saw eye to eye for a majority of my childhood, and I am nc with my bio dad), but he is a grandad and a brilliant one at that to my dc, and our relationship is much better now I am a adult.

If you already have Granny and grandad or whatever you choose already picked out then nana (or other unused phraseing) Jenny etc is easy way to distinguish between grandparents etc

Littlebluetruck · 01/03/2020 23:07

@itsallthedramaMickiloveit, absolutely. It seems like it was the first proper holiday they were able to afford to take the younger children on. Why would they pay all that money to have the holiday ruined by the OP, who thinks she is entitled to take “shots” at her SM whenever the feeling arises.

Ferret27 · 01/03/2020 23:16

I may be wrong but I think the Op is saying she has been felt left out ...she was a teenager and a lot of big changes in her life ...give her some slack ...maybe the SM wasn’t so perfect in all this too...
I hope you don’t lose the closeness you have with your half sisters.... and yes your dad should not let either of you dictate who can stay in what is also his home ...

atomicblonde30 · 01/03/2020 23:18

I would eat a big slice of humble pie here OP and look to fix what you broke.

If not for yourself but for your prospective future child/ren, won’t you want your half-sisters to be involved aunties in their lives? Cos I can guarantee they’ll know what you’ve been doing to their mum and stand by her 100% please don’t think they will take your side because they won’t.

You having yet another juvenile temper tantrum only serves to cut out a huge side of your future children’s family before they’ve even been conceived, that’s really a poor show of behaviour.

Think about others and the bigger picture and not just yourself for once honestly.

JugglingJuggles · 01/03/2020 23:19

I am really close to my niece, much closer than many step mothers who have posted on this thread. Yet I will not insist on being called granny to her children

How is this comparable in any way, shape or form?

Your niece doesn't call you her granny because you're her auntie... Confused

I think it's fairly obvious why someone married to a child's grandfather, who's been in said child's life since the day they were born, may assume the name granny/nana/nan whatever, at some point.

Anyway, it's not about the SM having to be 'granny', it's about OPs attitude and the fact she's used this hypothetical situation as another way to take a dig at her SM. Unfairly, most of us agree I think.

JugglingJuggles · 01/03/2020 23:22

maybe the SM wasn’t so perfect in all this too...

Perhaps not but to be honest I don't feel like OP has actually given us any examples in her entire posts of her SM being awful to her.

It seems this woman hasn't actually done anything wrong considering OPs own posts.

Which makes me think this is probably a reverse. Surely no one would be so honest about how reasonable their SM had been throughout their life and expect everyone to agree with them about how much they hate her?

Thehappygardener · 01/03/2020 23:37

Dear Eggandbeans, I think you don’t understand how hurtful you have been to your stepmum. I’m a stepmum, my husbands first wife died two years before I met him, and when his daughter had a baby (I had known her for 15 years by then) I asked her what she wanted me to be called and she said Nana HappyGardner. Which I have been very happy to be called. I hope that I don’t ever overstep any boundaries, and I never refer to myself as mum or nana.

Being a stepmom is fraught with difficulties, I’m not sure that I would recommend it to anyone frankly, although I l love all of my stepchildren and their families. People often think you are a gold-digger and that you are likely to be mean, absolutely not true in my case! Incidentally, the people who have been nastiest to me are my stepchildrens in-laws, I’m not sure why.

I do hope that you are able to mend bridges, and that you get back onto good terms with your stepmom 🌺

Doubletrouble99 · 01/03/2020 23:41

I'm a SM. and have been since my SCs were 11 and 13. when my SS had children they have 4 grandparents on SS's side I'm Nanny Jane, DH is Grandad Chris, DH's Ex is Nanny Linda and her DH is Grandad John. simples.

FontSnob · 01/03/2020 23:42

How very sad for your SM to take the brunt of the anger that should be directed at your parents behaviour. It sounds like she did her best throughout to maintain a relationship with you and your words must have been very painful. You sound like you don’t care though, especially if you can’t even apologise for causing her pain. She’s not asking you to change your mind, just to recognise how much you hurt her and apologise for that. You seem to be more bothered that you’ll miss out on your trip to Cornwall. You need to grow up. I would also highly recommend therapy. Your father is right to protect his wife in her own home, he’s still going to see you.

Ferret27 · 01/03/2020 23:47

I feel for the Op ... I think you need to have a long weekend with your dad and discuss how you both feel about the past , present & future... You had no control of events in your life at 13 ...but now you do... If you can’t move on happily with your old family set up ...then focus on the one you are hoping to build ....
As always this stems from adults putting there own wants and needs first ... and they no doubt thought the 13 year old you could handle it .... I imagine no one ever asked you how you felt or what you wanted...

IUsedToKnowThat · 01/03/2020 23:49

What you’ve done is thoughtless and she’s reacted. You’re both shooting from the hip. You shouldn’t have said those things so matter of factly and she should have reacted in a more mature way, and demonstrated how a mother/grandmother should (in my opinion) behave, in order to teach you. How does your mum feel about what you’ve said? I’d be pretty appalled.

Mittens030869 · 01/03/2020 23:52

Which makes me think this is probably a reverse. Surely no one would be so honest about how reasonable their SM had been throughout their life and expect everyone to agree with them about how much they hate her?

I suspect that the OP is incapable of seeing herself as being in the wrong where her SM is concerned, because her DM has done such a good job of portraying the woman as the villain of the piece.

Mafrid2 · 02/03/2020 00:29

I don't mean to be harsh... But I'm a step mum and one of my granddaughters is step but I'm still her grandma and she's still my granddaughter. I would be really upset if I thought my step son thought otherwise xxx

Kilper · 02/03/2020 05:34

I think you should buy your sm. a big bunch of flowers.
Apologise and move on.
Life really is to short to keep falling out with people.

BlimeyCalmDown · 02/03/2020 06:19

I did the same re SM and felt very strongly about it. However it was probably best not to have a conversation about it before baby is even here. Re the holiday to Florida (sorry if you have already addressed this not NRTWT) but of course they can't keep paying for yuo once they are an adult, especially when they have 2 x school aged kids to pay for and don't have a lot of money. For the sake of moving things on I think you should apologise if she was hurt by your plans and in hindsight you should have kept it to yourself. That way you have apologised but not for the plan as such just for hurting her feelings publicly.

Guavaf1sh · 02/03/2020 07:09

The latest update makes Jenny sound like an ideal step mother but you a spoiled brat so I’m not so sure if this is entirely as it seems any more...

Bluntness100 · 02/03/2020 07:30

You can see how this arose though.

The op talking about her IVF, Jenny saying something like I can’t wait to be a granny, and the op responding with well you won’t be, you’ll just be Jenny. And whatever else she said.

Because whatever was said, it’s clearly bad, for them to take this route.it was not done with kindness. The op calls it a “spat” which means there was an argument.

The fact she says the father has been trying to mediate, indicates it is an argument that went on, not something where the op said, sorry, I wasn’t trying to hurt you immediately.

She also says she has “ maybe taken some subtle shots at her” I think we can all guess, there is no maybe about it, and none of them were subtle. An under statement, like the “spat”.

Her AIBU is whatever goes on with her and the step mum, read, whatever she does to her, shouldn’t impact the relationship with the dad and half siblings, which shows that that’s what’s been happening for the last seventeen years. Whatever she did, it didn’t impact. So she felt free to bully or belittle her.

Most decent parents would eventually stand up and say that’s enough now. You can’t just treat people badly and expect everyone else to keep saying nothing and forgive you.

One thing for them to do it when you’re a child and struggling, it’s a whole other ballgame when you’re w thirty year old woman.

Noodlenosefraggle · 02/03/2020 07:57

I'm not sure I would invite another woman on holiday who felt that way about me
This. Taking 3vteenagers to Florida after years on camping holidays would have been a holiday of a lifetime and very expensive. Why would they want one of their party to be treated like dirt by an adult they had invited along? People are desperate for nothing to go wrong on holidays like that because of the money they spent.

Aderyn19 · 02/03/2020 08:05

Did the parents offer to let the OP go with them to Florida if she contributed to the costs? Iirc up thread the OP says this wasn't presented as an option. I can see why she felt excluded.
People seem to think that this is all on the dad, but so many women seem happy to marry men who have children and then move to the other side of the country etc, so their step children have lives that they would never want for their own DC. Would SM have happily accepted a situation where her children's father only saw them in school holidays? This is what OP was expected to put up with.
There's also a lot of blame for OPs mum and I'm sure she was happy to see the back of the dad but the dad still allowed this situation to happen by choosing to move. There's no evidence that he and dm were subjected to abuse from the mum - the recipient of the mum's bitterness seems to have been the OP, the dad buggered off and left her to it and now people are surprised that she is still resentful and stuck in 13 year old mode.

If my husband was okay with moving 200 miles from his child, I would think a hell of a lot less of him, not happily trot off to Cornwall and have more babies with him.
I don't think SM has been great - I think she's done the basics.

OhLookHeKickedTheBall · 02/03/2020 08:08

This thread and the half siblings thread has made me think a lot about what happened with my for the sake of explaining it here half sister. She's my fathers daughter. He and his first wife went through a very contentious divorce, though my sister was much younger than op. They split because her mother had an affair, though she was lead to believe my father had one with my mother. My father worked away a lot, and when he settled down with my mother had moved to the next town over and started a new family. She never got alone time with my father as his time home even with us was little. My mother on the surface was perfectly decent to her and polite and did the bulk of the childcare when she was around. As time went on and more incidents between her mother and my father which often played out in court, my sister eventually decided that she didn't really want much to do with my father which her mother heartily encouraged. My father then said he just wanted her to have a relationship with myself and my sister, which he can't see must have really hurt her after years of probably feeling very pushed out. Like with op we would have all these holidays but there was never a suggestion she should or could come with us. My mother, if truth be told, was pretty happy she didn't have to deal with my half sister and encouraged him to do nothing to rectify the situation.

In reality all the parental figures were to blame. Some through malice, some through inertia and mainly all blind to the affects it had on the child in the situation. I know she holds a lot of blame for the situation on my mother, some fair and some not. Maybe she got all that could be expected from my mother, but my mother certainly wasn't a mother figure to her nor wanted to be. If my sister had stuck around though I'm sure something similar would have occurred and my mother would similarly be very upset without really the right to have be seen in that light. As it turns out my mother hasn't been capable of being a good grandmother to the ones she does have so maybe that clouds my own judgement here.

JugglingJuggles · 02/03/2020 08:12

I can see why she felt excluded

It's not exclusion to not take your late twenties child to Florida. It really isn't. It's this sort of thing that makes people as entitled as the OP.

My Dad went to Aruba the other month. I'll make sure to phone him tonight and let him know what an awful Dad he is, excluding me so. Never mind the fact I'm a grown woman with a family of her own.

reginafelangee · 02/03/2020 08:12

You've told her you don't regard her as family. Even after decades. So she's returning the favour by no longer welcoming you to her home.

You've hurt her terribly.

JugglingJuggles · 02/03/2020 08:14

Agreed Regina, and something tells me that OP will still expect her SM to treat her hypothetical child like family, despite insisting that she's 'nothing to her'.

Swipe left for the next trending thread