SM doesn’t want me in the house

[Eggandbeans]

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?

I'm sorry, but he hardly put up much of a fight! I disagree that he just had to let it happen because she was a teenager. Hell would freeze over before I moved 200 miles away from my child and I would try continuously to keep my relationship with her strong.
I think he can be very much held accountable for just carrying on with his life!

If he took her to court, OPs feelings would have been taken into account and she was saying she didn't want to go, at her mothers encourgemant. There's no other way to force her other than to put emotional pressure on her, would that have been better? When your child is a teen there is less you can do if they refuse to come. I can see why OP would resent them moving away, but given that it made no difference to how much they were actually going to see her, from an adult's perspective there was clearly no point in them not moving to the area that was practical for their life. And in any case, he was the one that made the decision to move away from his child, not the SM.

I'm sorry, but he hardly put up much of a fight!

He could have hung around outside school or the house to try and catch her and plead with her to spend time with him.

Instead he seems to have respected her decision, probably in the hope that once she was a bit older and not influenced so much by her DM, that she would let him know when she was ready to make contact again. Which is what has happened presumably as they have been in contact for some years.

OP has said that she didn't feel any resentment as a child, she was happy with her time with just DM and only started having feelings of resentment when she was in her mid 20s. Her way of dealing with these feelings was to bully Jenny.

There are clearly issues that need to be dealt with but bullying another woman is not how you do that. Bullying is not ok at any age and they have done the right thing by keeping OP away until it stops.

Whether or not the OP's dad was wrong to move 200 miles away years ago in a way is irrelevant. It could still have worked out without causing the bitterness that the OP is still feeling now. My DSis and her DH faced something similar when her DSS's mum moved away. Her DSS was a similar age to the OP when her dad moved away.

But the adults involved made it work. My DBIL and his ex liaised together and he used to take his DS to a motorway services where the handover would happen and then she would bring him back. Contact was EOW. My DSis was the main carer during the school week, as she was a SAHM with the younger DC that she and her DH had had together. But she's always said that her DSS is as important to her as her 3 younger DC, and I know she means it.

This sort of set up can work, but it needs all the adults involved to want to work together in the child's best interests.

I'm sorry, but he hardly put up much of a fight!

There were you?

Lapetus put it better than me. Some people on here would say the dad didn't put up enough of a fight if they did anything short of camping outside their child's house 24/7 weeping and begging them to come and live with them, except then of course people would also be saying (quite rightly) that they were being emotionally manipulative and distressing.

They respected her decision.

But I can see why it wouldn't happen if the adults concerned weren't interested in working together. We can't know how it was between the OP's parents. There was probably wrong on both sides, but that was a long time ago. The SM got involved 3 years after the break-up, so she can't be held responsible for the acrimonious relationship with each other.

It's a crock of shit to say he respected her decision. These aren't choices you just allow a teen to make. I think it was easier to leave and do what he (and SM) wanted and to tell himself that what he was doing was okay with his daughter. Even if she genuinely thought she was fine at the time, would you really trust a teenager to always know what is in their own best interests?
If he'd pursued proper contact, maybe via court, it's possible the OP would have enjoyed Christmasses with her dad without guilt or stress about her mum, since the decision would have been taken out of her hands. But I suspect this way was more convenient for the dad.
That kind of half arsed parenting is why kids end up so messed up as adults.

I'd like to know how you think he could actually have stopped her from making that decision. There's no reason to think he didn't protest initially but how do you get an unwilling teen from their home and into yours? What should he have done?

It's still not the SMs fault he chose to move, which is after all the focus of this thread. It's possible he was faced with the decision of moving a few hours away with his partner, or losing his relationship with her in order to stay close to the daughter who didn't want to see him (though whether it was as clear cut as this is unclear). But that was his choice, not SMs, and it's not exactly illogical, especially as he then was able to pay for OP to visit as much as her mother would allow, when she decided to. Would OP really have chosen to see him more regularly if he hadn't moved? It doesn't sound that way from any of her posts.

The bottom line remains that OP is misdirecting her retrospective anger on that issue, which should be aimed towards her father.

I think he should have stayed, even if that cost him his relationship because parenting is not something you can do properly from 200 miles away. I think you have to choose your children over your live life. I think that being local and available would have helped strengthen the bond. If necessary I think he should have gone to court to combat parental alienation, if that is what happened. Even if you can't force a teenager to see you, I think the OP did want to see him, she just didn't want to hurt her mum. She needed a dad to take that pressure off. And if he had done all this, she'd be an adult now who knew her dad valued her enough to do everything he could.

I do agree that she is misdirecting her anger. But even so, I think she's not unreasonable in not viewing her sm as 'parental' in any way and therefore not want her to be called granny. Dad has not seen where all this anger has truly originated from or his hand in it.

You sound very bitter. It sounds like your SM has been around for years and you haven’t said anything that I can see (I haven’t read all 39 pages of this thread) to suggest she wasn’t a good SM or that she was a bad person. You are a lot older than the other children. You are annoyed you were excluded from holidays even as an adult. Did you have holidays alone with your DF or DM or any holidays at all?

I think you sound horrid and I wouldn’t want you in my house either if I was her. Maybe think about it from her POV for a second. I have a feeling you’d have difficulty with that.

And if he had done all this, she'd be an adult now who knew her dad valued her enough to do everything he could.

Thing is, OP does think her dad did what he could. But the wicked stepmother stopped him from doing what he actually wanted to do. She forced him to move away. She excluded OP from holidays. She made contact difficult. She made access almost impossible.

Except..

She didn't actually do any of that. It was OP's own parents who did that. SM was good to OP, kind, inclusive, made the effort to contact OP between access when her own father couldn't be bothered.

But, even after all that, OP still thinks SM is 100% at fault, and she's going to have a lovely cosy relationship with father-of-the-year now that SM has finally been put in her place.

OP thinks her Dad values her. He doesn't. And if it wasn't for input and contact from SM OP would have had an awful lot less contact with him and her sisters.

Yes, I do think it's become easier for the OP to blame her sm for everything instead of her parents. I guess from her position, if it wasn't for the SM, the dad would have had no reason to move so far away. And in all fairness, the DM was quite happy to be with a man who was willing to move away from his child when he wasn't forced to. I don't really understand that tbh. So OP is seeing that SM was nice to her but didn't prioritise her either. Now obviously that is the parents' job more than the SMs but it does mean (rightly or wrongly) she feels she doesn't owe SM anything. She isn't seeing that this was her dad's doing because she's still stuck in 13 year old mode. I just think this isn't entirely her fault - ideas formed in childhood can be very hard to shift. People are telling her to grow up and get over like it's a straightforward choice.
The sad thing is that the dad will continue to dismiss his dd's feelings and probably never address with her the root causes so this will never be fixed. If they all talk properly and honestly and if OP gets some outside help, I think there's a good chance to improve things. But I don't see it happening.

Get a therapist. You don’t sound very mature for a woman in your 30s

But her dad moving away didn't need to be damaging to the OP. Her dad and stepmum tried hard to have her visit and to visit her. My DSis's DSS wasn't damaged when his mum moved away with her new partner. But that was because they made it work, meeting at motorway services for him to have contact EOW with his mum.

The reason for the damage is, I suspect, much more to do with the fact that the OP's mum made her resent the move. It's quite blatant actually, she didn't even feel free to spend Christmas with her dad, stepmum and half sisters, which is very sad.

Some of you appear to want it to be the dad and stepmum's fault because it's the default position for a lot of Mumsnet posters.

Regardless, an adult should be able to move beyond being an angry adolescent and be able to see that things are never completely black and white. It also appears as if the OP is trying to compete with her stepmum.

She definitely should get some therapy. What she's doing at the moment is biting off her nose to spite her face, in refusing to apologise.

No, I think the mum definitely had a hand in this too.

Jesus Christ is this thread still going? She’s not been back for days!

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