Thank you to all of you that haven taken the time to respond positively to my post😊I have been overwhelmed at the number of responses!😁 It has been really helpful and cemented my gut feel on this.
Relations have been strained from the outset, as they have always been with SD and OH's family. She has severed all contact with them and refers to her GPs by their first name.
18 months before I met OH, SD and her Mum had moved in to OH's house to get her into the catchment school (having always lived in their own house out of catchment until then sitting empty). She then refused to move out. Agreeing only to leave if OH paid rent for 6 months which he foolishly did to keep the peace.
SD always wanted her Mum and Dad to get back together, as I'm sure I did when my own parents divorced.
Things got worse when we had our first child together and moved back into OHs house (we each had our own place when we met). Funny phone calls from SD and her friends, never ending requests from her mother for money, although OH was paying more than he needed to in maintenance and contributions to school trips, tech, etc. A far cry from the deprived upbringing she portrays. Emotionally maybe, financially most definitely not.
It was 18 months before I met SD. She would come for dinner once a week and things would be OK, even normal for a while, before her Mum started interfering. Some water under the bridge and fleeting moments of normality later, we no longer had to go through her mother for financial matters, we would go through SD. Sad truth was it was hard to tell the difference!
When she was a student, OH would credit her account every month to help her. My inlaws acted as guarantor for her student lodgings when her own mother wouldn't. She never returned the deposit to them!!! They even gave SD an old second hand car for free to help out and all they ever did was complain that it needed service and repairs! When things started to go well again and we felt we were turning a corner, we gave them money for flights to visit his family only for it to be p*ed up the wall which is when I started to wisen up.
I have always got them presents for birthdays and Christmas. The last Christmas they came here, empty handed, not even a 99p selection box for the kids, complaining we weren't going out for food, criticising our house! I have never given to receive, however think it is widely considered good manners to bring a bottle as a guest!
I have to point out I have no direct contact with SD. In the past I have sent messages from OH's phone to put her straight which only added fuel to the fire. I have appealed to her better nature over the years, saying life is too short (having lost my Dad when I was younger than her), unhealthy to keep blaming her Dad for everything and should move on with her life. She doesn't reciprocate his contact or remember birthdays or Father's Day. When he doesn't answer instantly he is a villain! He makes the 1.5 hour journey to see her even though he works long days and commutes 1.5 hours each way to work! There you go!
He rarely confronts her behaviour outright and is strangely stricter towards our own children which causes conflict of its own. Quite rightly, OH does need to grow a pair as I am tiring of all this conflict. She will not even refer to me by name, always 'your wife!'
Sadly she does not share her Dad's ethos to work. After meeting her boyfriend she dropped out of university and has drifted from dead end job to dead end job.
Has to have all latest tech, designer pets, etc. They have a newer, bigger car than me and our pets were rescue. Champagne tastes! I too grew up in a single parent household, only we were 4 kids on FSM, my Dad was long term unemployed then disabled. I did not expect the earth and certainly didn't expect my parents to provide it, they couldn't afford to. Then I left home at 18 and didn't look back, working hard to get on the property ladder.
I know this is an unusual and bizarre situation. I really struggle with the conflict in values. I have friends younger than him with 2 or 3 kids at home. We also know people younger than them who have got on the property ladder by sheer hard work and determination. Where there is the will...
OH is yet to break news. We are technically 30 mins closer to the job than the shared house which is paid for by his boss, allowing them to save for a deposit for a house. She wants to reach all the milestones, however not on her own merit, never quite unerstanding we make our own luck in this life,