Sick of him dragging my child down

[gooddayturnedshit]

I have three children from my previous marriage, aged 12, 9 and 7. DP and I have an 18 month old together and we all now live together as a family of 6.
So today DP calls me on his way back from golf and says he wants to take us all out for lunch. 12 year old is away with a friend the other side of the country, so it'll be the 5 of us.
He gets in the house and asks me if I've heard from DD. I say yes, she called me earlier to ask me to send some money as she's going to a big shopping centre. He says that he missed a call from her and guessed it was about money so called her back. Apparently she declined his call, so he commented that he then knew she must have been sorted out with some spending money. A reasonable thing to say and I thought the conversation would then move on. But no, as usual he wants to talk about how rude she is. I said 'yes, I know. She is rude sometimes but I'm hoping she'll outgrow it'. Then he just starts ranting on at me as per usual about how he thinks she might be a psychopath! I carry on pottering about half listening to this bollocks, and then at some point I comment that all 12 year old girls seem to be a bit rude and entitled at times and mine is no different. She'll realise that she can't get away with it for much longer when it starts hindering her progress in life, blah blah blah. We just need to keep correcting her.
But he won't shut up about how awful she is. He does this all the time, always taking issue with what he perceives to be my lack of discipline. The underlying message seems to be that he thinks I'm a bad mother.

Anyway. I reiterate that all kids can be knobs at times and point out that his nephew is rude to me. He's only 11 but rarely says please or thank you and is pretty entitled. DP shouts at me 'It's not a competition!' I say that I know this, I'm just pointing out that kids are all thoughtless at times and that his nephew was really rude about the last present we bought for him. 'Well maybe he just doesn't like you' he says.

At this point I leave the room. He's an idiot and I can't argue with someone like that. I get myself a cup of tea and go upstairs to try and snap out of the bad mood he's put me in. Ten minutes later he marches in, says am I coming out for lunch or what. I reply that I'm not really feeling like it now, sorry. Then he tells me I'm being horrible to him and asks me if I'm drunk. 🤷‍♀️ Of course I'm not drunk, ffs.
Before he storms off he slags my daughter off again and says something like 'so that's it then, is it? No intervention needed? Because if our little boy ever behaves like she does you better believe I'd do something about it'

I'm so tired of him sweeping in to the house and ranting at me about things, particularly my children not being good enough.

Did I overreact?

all 12 year old girls seem to be a bit rude and entitled at times

Not true

Yes. Yes she does. He's disgusted me by talking about my child like that.

I'm not reknitting anything. I'm just sharing the facts, and I'm sorry if they don't fit your agenda.

I don't have an agenda. I'm just watching you scramble to achieve an equilibrium in which you tally the benefits of him in your dds life, while he encourages her mother to believe that she is a psychopath.

Maybe he has a different definition of psychopath to the rest of us.

I think there is a difference between writing a child off and being concerned about how to improve their behaviour. I broke off a long-standing friendship because my friend was criticising my child in a way that suggested I should just give up on her.

He shouts at you. That alone is a dealbreaker for me. I don't want ranting and shouting in my or my children's home. OK, we can all behave like dicks sometimes, but your posts suggest shouting and ranting is a frequent occurance from this man. That does not make for a calm and stable home environment.

So your partner is rude about her and she is rude to him.

Think about that.

She doesn't like him because he makes her feel miserable and uncomfortable because he's not shy about saying how shit she is.

And yet you say the kids will be devastated if he moves out? Really?

He blames YOU for her behaviour.

This is a man who says you are a bad parent but chose to have a child with you. Yeah ok. Or is it just about putting you down?

Think about it.

Is this good for you? Is it good for your kids?

Did you chose him at the expense of your kids, because your love life and happiness was more important than considering whether he was the right fit for all of you? Your kids didn't really get a say nor do they really know anything different.

Sounds like he's playing divide and conquer then, by being nice to the kids to their faces while slagging them off to you behind their backs. Wonder if he says not- nice stuff about you to them behind your back?

Did you chose him at the expense of your kids, because your love life and happiness was more important than considering whether he was the right fit for all of you? Your kids didn't really get a say nor do they really know anything different.

Good for calling the op out. I'm sick of these threads where women choose to bring men into their children's lives and the poor children have no choice in it. But of course op then tries to justify how wonderful is he too. Typical.

So you come on here to moan about how he speaks about your daughter, we all telling you to LTB, he is not a nice man, and now you are defending him?

Put your kids first

Psychology and how children act towards parents (or step parents) can be strange and ditto the reverse. A parent (or even a partner) who is emotionally abusive can be/act generously at times. and the child (or partner) will excuse them citing how good they are - and yet they say or do something cruel.The insecurity of the emotional bond means that they need to idolise this person even though they are on shaky ground. I have seen this behaviour in children in care.
It can happen with divorced or separated parents - where the part time Disney partner is idolised and the anger the child feels is expressed to the full time partner because the full time one isn't going away.
I hope I am wrong, but the comment your partner made is worrying unless there is something else going on outside of the family in work for instance or health. You really need to talk to him

Id be concerned about the threats he's made towards your youngest if s/he doesn't behave the way he feels is appropriate.

But she wasn’t rude! Declining a call is completely normal if you are not able to talk at that point. It would have been much more rude to take it if she was, say, buying a coffee or paying for something else.

OP there is no way I would put up with someone I lived with calling my child a psycho. No way. And this is only going to get worse. It’s not just ranting, it’s bullying, belittling abuse. And the comment about drinking- totally mad.

I think you have got to put a stop to this. I’d move out and maybe consider family counselling if genuinely there’s anything to save. But I strongly suspect your older kids would be massively relieved, they are probably playing nice with him for your sake rather than anything else.

I mean, calling her a psychopath is obviously completely out of order. I am on my own here but surely unless he’s treating her badly & coming out with this sort of stuff daily then why is this an ‘end the relationship immediately’ type situation.

He otherwise treats her very well, they love each other so tell him to have some respect for you & her & you will let it go this time but he’s been n shaky ground & you won’t have it again?

She didn't seem to actually do much to warrant being called a psychopath. Think very carefully about the future with this man if he is behaving like this towards his step children

I'd be worried that this will get worse as your kids age and I'd be really worried about the effect on them. He clearly thinks she is rude and that you don't discipline her properly. I don't think it makes any odd if he is good man in other respects - I can't see how you can ignore this problem.

Some 12 year olds can be rude but plenty aren't. What happens if your daughter is tricky as she gets older. Your husband is always going to resent her and you.

Op he does NOT love your dd, he can barely hide his true feelings and openly calls her a psychopath.

Your dd doesn’t like him
either, senses his hostility and judgement and that is why she declined his call.

You can dress this up however you like, but your prick of a dp is damaging your kids. They might forgive you if you bail out now and stop this before it gets worse. Trust me by the time dd is 15 you are going to be in for the roughest ride, with your next two dc next in line.

Stand up for your dc op

Your daughter clearly doesn’t adore him.

Oh your poor poor daughter..how awful for her to have to live with him.
i despair,on here , so many women just can’t wait till their kids are older to move some fucker in.
so selfish .
well ,I guess like most do ,your dd will move out as soon as she is able ,hope she has more contact with u ,than I do with my mother

He shouldn't of called her a psychopath but she shouldn't of cut his call of like that and I hope you make it clear to her that she can't be rude to people. Ignore people on here their being so dramatic he's not abusing and traumatising your kids and actually sounds a good step parent. It's very annoying to be around someone who doesn't discipline their kids. And if he sees you as a soft touch he has every right to say when his son gets older he won't be letting him get away with what your kids do.

Because calling children names and emotionally abusing them is damaging, extremely damaging to them.

Its been proven over and again in large scale studies that teenagers tend to replicate their own childhood experiences in future relationships, which basically for op’s dd will mean abandonment issues from her biological father and emotional abuse from her stepfather and a mother an entirely passive bystander.

You don’t need to have a masters in psychology to understand that op is condemning her dd to a future that looks even worse than this one. If she was a good role model she could offer an alternative by leaving that would give the child a sense of self esteem and strength, therefore teaching her by example that we do not allow men to call us names, judge us unfairly, call us psychopathic for no good reason and emotionally abuse us.

She’s going to become aware of this at some point, so will the younger ones as they grow up.

He didn’t say it to her? He said it to mum & I can’t see where it has said he’s been emotionally abusive? (Infact it seems like he has an otherwise good relationship) He’s said something in the heat of the moment (something which is awful & should get an ultimatum for) but not something imo on its own to split up over.

To be fair she clearly likes him enough to phone asking for money!

I think your dh needs to read up a bit about adolescence and the challenges of the teenage years, @gooddayturnedshit.

According to the author, Charlie Taylor, in his book Divas and Doorslammers, teenagers brains are actually retiring during adolescence - actual structural change (if I recall correctly - I read this when ds3 was a teen, and he has just turned 26) - and this can lead to the temporary loss of some abilities - empathy, impulse control, temper control, sense of perspective (realising you aren’t the centre of the universe) - he calls it a form of temporary brain damage - but the key word is temporary, but it explains why teens can seem rude, stroppy, self centred etc.

Once the changes have happened and settled down, generally most, if not all of these abilities come back.

Ds3 was a bit of a nightmare as a teen - definitely worse than his two older brothers, so I don’t think it was purely down to our parenting - but things did improve as he got older. It was quite sudden, in fact - within the space of a few weeks he went from stroppy, argumentative and short tempered, resisting doing his homework or tidying his room to doing the homework and tidying without being nagged, and offering me an unsolicited hug - it was a real corner turned, and things didn’t look back from then.

The teen years are difficult for all concerned, but as parents I think we can handle it better when we understand what’s happening, and handle them the right way. It looks as if you understand this and your dh doesn’t - which isn’t surprising, if he’s never parented a teen - but he does need to get on the right page now, for the sake of your three children and the child you share, otherwise life will be very difficult for your kids and you.