AIBU to have NC with DSD?

[Frazzled2024]

Would love some advice on this situation please, with the start of a new year it’s making me reflect on things and wondering if I should offer an olive branch.

I’m autistic so I’m very black and white when it comes to relationships- you’re either on my team, someone I can trust, or you’re not and I’ll keep my distance.

I went NC with young adult DSD several months ago due to her disrespect towards DH and I.

I don’t want to go in to the ins and outs of she said / he said as I don’t feel it’s relevant but she let us down and disrespected us on numerous occasions and despite previously admitting she was in the wrong she still refuses to apologise to anybody she’s hurt.

The disrespectful behaviour has gone on for years but escalated more in the last two years, I could forgive it when she was a child but I’m struggling with it now that she’s an adult.
I don’t like drama or conflict so after the last episode of drama I blocked contact with her to protect my mental health.
DH still has contact with her but still no apology from her.

I have mixed feelings about the situation- part of me feels like well she’s family, we love her warts and all and life is too short for falling out. TBF her behaviour possibly isn’t all her fault, she’s learnt it from her mum as she’s grown up seeing her mum behaving the same way…but how long can someone use that as an excuse for?
I also don’t want to be the cause of DH losing contact with his DD, he still sees her but things aren’t like they used to be.
But another part of me feels that no I wouldn’t tolerate that level of disrespect from a friend so why should I tolerate it from DSD? I just need peace in my life, I need people around me who I can trust, I can’t trust her and that makes me feel unsafe (emotionally) in my own home.
I worry that if we make up the same behaviour will just continue and I’m not willing to live the rest of my life with a toxic person in it.

YABU = you should make up with DSD
YANBU = remain NC for your own sanity

Did she steal the car?

She committed a crime involving the car which to me says maybe vandalism but kept vague to sound worse

Well given the stepdaughter blamed OP and her husband for living rural so uber wasn't an option, and said it was their fault because they should have hid their car keys from her - I'd hazard a guess it does involve motor vehicle theft.

Pathetic attitude for a women in her 20s, for stealing a car if you ask me. My Dad didn't hide the car keys from me..

Weird that she's not allowed to use their car or couldn't ask. I suspect this all grew out of a weird family dynamic. Op seems very self centered, and I don't mean due to being autistic, u have lots of neurodivergent friends and family, my husband has suspected ASD and I have suspected ADHD as do our son it's more that everything she says about the story omits just enough detail to spin it to her benefit.

I'm fascinated how other people's brain works.
There's nothing in OPs posts that suggest any weird family dynamic, of any kind?

What I read, is a woman who's committed a crime, I.e the stepdaughter, and people are bending over backwards to blame OP, accusing her of banning the woman from the house/keeping the Dad away, amongst other tosh, and are being quite vicious about it.

It's a shame this is someone life, otherwise it would be quite entertaining.

Really?

She wants to go non contact and alludes to having found her stepdaughter difficult for years, having met her when she was around 5/6. Always a spoilt princess etc. who is jealous of a 5 yr old like that?

How is it weird that she couldn’t use our car? Are you insured to drive your parents cars?
She wasn’t insured, there’s no reason for her to be as she has her own car.
She was drunk, we’d had a party for DH’s birthday and in the middle of the night whilst we were in bed got up and took our car to go and see a guy, then crashed it and ran off and tried to deny any involvement.
Her own car was on the drive but she couldn’t find her keys so just took ours instead.
But sure, yeh it must be the family dynamic that’s to blame 🙄

Sounds like she's troubled and needs help.

Were you the other woman? When she was what, 5?

And at 21/22 probably would have been insured on my parents cars but didn't own my own car as lived in a city, would have been welcome to use theirs visiting rurally.

Nope, if you read up thread I explained DH’s ex left him for another woman.
I didn’t meet DH until after they were divorced.
typical MN response - SM must be the other woman 🥱

Would you have been welcome to use their car if uninsured and you were legless?

There has never been a need for her to be insured on our car as she’s always had her own. But even if she was insured I don’t think it covers people driving whilst drunk.

Obviously, my point was simply I'd have expected to be able to use the car and imagined a similar situation.

@WickDittington I agree. The OP seems to be waving the neurodivergence flag as a get out clause. How useful. But her rejection and judgement of her stepdaughter is based on a viewpoint, not neurodiversity. She could just as easily have adopted the viewpoint that families stick together especially during crises and been rigidly adhered to that notion.

There also seems to be a theme of assuming that being supportive = low standards. Bizarre attitude. Being supportive is just that, helping a person in their time of need to navigate their way to a better space.

Yes, this, my parents while they had their faults would have given us a certain amount of grace. My mum especially. Nothing was ever unfixable for that wonderful woman. A child needs that certainty I think

OP you're still not getting it. What DD did is, undoubedtly, stupid, selfish and wreckless, and could have had disasterous consequences but your job as a loving parent is to forgive and support her and help her make better choices in the future.

That's your job whether she is 12 or 112. Whether she drives drunk or whether she murders a dozen people. You don't have to like what she does or support her choices but you do have to support her.

She is telling you that she thinks her upbringing has caused her to make poor life choices and given your reaction to this issue I'd be inclined to believe her. A loving parent would not cut off their child because of this.

She left in the middle of the night to meet a man for sex, again this supports her idea that she was lacking something emotionally as a child. Children who grow up with the love and support of all of their parents do not tend to grow into adults who are so desperate for male attention that they will risk their own lives for sex.

That's not to say the DD should not take responsibility. She should and she will. The courts will see to that but what she needs from you and her father is forgiveness and support and probably therapy for all of you.

She isn’t a parent to her. She’s stepparent, which simply means she’s married to a parent. It isn’t her job or her responsibility to take on the role a mother would, as if every mother even would.

I do not get this attitude at all. "simply being married to her parent" is perhaps the legal definition and probably why the step parenting board is so busy. Are people really that self involved or stupid to think that when you marry a parent you are a simple satellite, nothing more. Hell, I care for my neighbour's children more than that.

I am remarrying, and one of the reasons I actually considered it was due to my DP's commitment to my children and his extended family. Of course, he will never love them like I do, but he does love them amd they love him. If, he took this attitude, I would divorce him. Easily.

Great observation. I agree. There are some unpleasant opinions being held as standards.

I hope the girl's father has the emotional strength to support his daughter properly in these circumstances, despite his wife's disregard.

Obviously I don't know what she's done but it sounds to me like she needs a decent role model in her life. Young adults are still working it all out.

Try reading all of OPs posts, but I'll summarise it for you:

OPs adult stepdaughter, stole her car, crashed said car because she was drunk, run away from the scene of the accident, tried to blame OP and her own father and implicated them, which they had to prove it wasn't, causing untold stress.

Stepdaughter still refuses to own her behaviour, and blames OP/her Dad for leaving their car keys where she could find them, and all OP wants is an apology, which SD refuses to give.

Everyone else still blaming OP/excusing a drunk diver, you're either trolling, or you're just very, very, thick.

That is literally just the definition, anything beyond that is up to the individuals involved. Plenty of people wouldn’t choose to get involved with a parent expecting them to take on a parental role, and would prefer divorce if their spouse took that attitude.

People can and do decide what works best for them. A prospective stepparent not being willing to take on a parental role may not work for you, and that’s fine. No one said it had to. It’s up to a parent, the one actually responsible for their child/ren, to choose not to date/marry someone if their beliefs in this are incompatible. Given that her husband isn’t threatening to leave OP over her decision, and is respecting it, he doesn’t appear to think it’s a dealbreaker.