Step Daughter no inclination to make her way

[Miffed1233]

I’ll try and state this factually & unemotionally

1. SD has a professional career ahead of her and earns around 30k as a newbie. She studied hard to get qualified. Probably has the most disposable income in our household

2. reluctantly (& rarely on time) pays towards household utility bills. Each month is a manual payment. Has avoided setting up a sto and has to be asked, frequently nagged and in some cases has been more than 10 days late paying. Comes across as avoidant

3. I earn a lot more than my DP so pay all bills / mortgage (except food, which she pays). I haven’t minded doing this previously when children were young, but….

4. sd clearly not saving towards a house and whenever her mum brings it up says she wont be in a position to buy a house for at least 5 years or unless she meets a man. (Her dating rarely goes beyond 3-5 dates before she is dumped)

She spends her income on frippery…Botox and overpriced beauty products / shoes / clothes (did I mention shoes?)

5. Has now announced she is taking a year off to go travelling (for the 2nd time)

For info I’m mid 50’s and have reached a point where I’m finding it immoral that I’m having to continue to put a roof over her head whilst she has a “lifestyle”.
On current course will be in my 60’s before she “grows up”. I feel like this isn’t what I signed up for, life is too short etc

I’m normally the first to leap to the defence of youngsters today and the pressure of social media / house prices etc they face compared to my generation but feel this is not taking responsibility. I oscillate between wanting to downsize…so she gets the message (we live in a big house & she has a very nice room) and realising this isn’t something I’d actually want to do if I didn’t have this resentment. AIBU?

Talking with her mother about it is difficult. She agrees she should be saving for a house but is powerless to make her do so and meantime does everything for her (cooking, washing, cleaning her room). She defaults to defending her daughter and sees me as “attacking” her all the time. Love my DP to bits….what should I do? I feel my life is zooming by and I’ll have spent the majority of it providing for my children and hers and will be doing so well into my retirement. Surely this isn’t the natural order of life?

Putting aside my frustration it’s also sad that she is very capable and has more capacity than most but isn’t seizing or recognising the opportunity and good position she is interested

AIBU

Step-daughter or biological daughter, my answer would be the same.
You and your DP have not taught your children to wise up financially.
You and partner need to visit the accountant together and discuss the positive ways you could organise your affairs that encourage your children to be financially independent and saving savvy.

My path would include .. adult child over 25 pays full market rent on time each month. Have her pay her cost of utilities and food because she needs to learn the cost of living.
Set aside the rent payment, without her knowledge, to give you options to assist, such as paying her an amount, one pound for every two of her saved pounds, to match her savings when she moves out to purchase a home, or similarly repaying the rent amount. Set her a solid moving out of home date such as her 30th birthday.

This gives her reason to save and no excuse but to grow up.
It doesn't change how she has splurged to date nor have her owing a debt to you.

Be firm about your boundaries and rules. You and DP need to be on the same page.

Book another accountant appointment, once your rules are in place for just your SD and your DP, with the aim for SD to learn how to manage her payments, saving gaols and strategies, and how and where best to buy her first home.

So, take a step back and let the professionals treat her like an adult and you and DP treat her like the income earning adult that she is.

Your kids can always move out and do their own thing and come home for Sunday roasts, like most kids do.

Share these great posts with your partner.

In your culture, 25 year olds expect their mothers to clean their room snd do washing while giving nothing back? They go travel the world, and use money on botox and lifestyle, while parents subsidise? If not, then stop using Op's post as an excuse to tell us how better your culture is comparec to British. You must really feel so strong to wrote 2 long posts irrelevant to Op.

No culture is perfect.

I also grew up in a multi generation household where my mother was treated like a slave by her husband and in laws, it is not always good to live in such set up.

Op, you subsidise SD's lifestyle, pay for mortgage and most bills and your wife accuses you of attacking her Dd when you tell her to not enable her, you are not the unreasonable one here.

I am not defending the behavior, I am just saying in response to PP who wouldn't want their kids at home is that it would be a more common phenomenon.

Think thanks have reported that in the UK it is the people in the income bracket of £35-60k who face falling into poverty. I would say that is probably the vast majority of people unless they get parental help.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/20/uk-middle-classes-jobs-housing-costs-abrdn-financial-fairness-trust

Some people will take the piss with the help, others wouldn't. Like it or not this is our new reality and if there is no helps for kids between 35k to 60k income bracket and they don't manage to get a partner who earns above that income /has generational wealth, then we can probably expect them to seek help in their 30s (far worse cos they are older) or I suppose they will just struggle in poverty. Would probably get worse too, I suspect it would be people in our income class (£120k combined who would be the new working poor our only saving grace which protects us is our mortgage is currently only 2.3x income but that was facilitated by my MIL letting us stay).

I've nothing much to add to the advice that you need to get your wife on board except this:
Just so that you have an idea of reasonable figures, I calculated about a year ago that it cost about £350 pm to have adult DS living here, taking into account energy bills and food. That didn't include a rent element. He pays monthly, although not by standing order. If I need to remind him, I do it once and he transfers the money immediately- mobile banking makes all this very easy. I think if you are asking for different contributions to a variety of bills, it's just more admin and reminders- agree a figure, be clear on what it includes, and stick to it.
Obviously she should be cleaning her room, doing her washing and contributing equally to household chores, but if your wife is choosing to do these things for her, it puts you in a difficult position.
Has your wife said why she is continuing to do these things rather helping DD become a fully functioning adult?
If DD was paying her way, it would be her business what she spends her money on. It's only relevant in so far as she is presumably pleading poverty so as not to pay her share.
I think you need to have a long talk with your wife. Obviously you don't want to be saying that you as the higher earner you have the biggest say, but you could do a spreadsheet showing all costs and everyone else's contribution as a start. Presumably DW has always worked part time to facilitate childcare and running the house; you probably need to discuss whether this will remain the case going forward now that there are no children that need looking after, and what your spending priorities as a household are.

And mine too but if they struggle to manage it, or never achieve it for whatever reason, I will be there. It is my duty as the person who chose to bring them into this world to do what I can.

your superiority is misplaced as my children are incredibly independent, resilient, go-getting and confident. As I have raised them to be.

Mine are younger. Raised an older step child though who I was very involved with.
This country is twisted in its bizarre desire to separate families and make it strange to support each other inter generationally, in my opinion. You can create contented, strong, independent adults who are also close to their family and can rely on them when times get tough.

That’s not what I said. At all. If your daughter is expecting other people to fund things like Botox then no you don’t need to choose to. However if she has mental health problems and is struggling in life it’s your duty to be there 100% to help her figure it out.

Why does mental health problems always get thrown in? Nowhere in the OP does it refer to any mental health problems. Just a grown adult who refuses to plan for her future and pisses all her money away on Botox and shoes.

Yes, apparently all of Gen Z have mental health problems if you read these boards.
I won't ever be charging my DC rent as it's not part of my culture, and I can afford to have them stay for free ( no judgement of those who do).I will expect them to save to move out eventually, and help with the house though.

It's probably from the sheer horror of being forced to pay rent when they could be spending that money on fillers to go with the Botox 🙄

I did an online calculator. At £30k her monthly take home is close to £2k depending on how much she is putting towards her pension. That should be more than enough to give the OP £200-300 per month, and still have at least £1500 disposable income per month.

DH and I are both higher rate earners and we each have £500 a month sole money to pay for holidays, clothes and meals out. It feels like a very generous amount and covers my solo ski trips as well as everything else.

It's ridiculous that DSD is ploughing her way through so much on completely unnecessary procedures- why does a 25 year old need Botox, it will make her look worse not betterwhereas at my age perhaps I should be considering it, but am too mean to pay the hundreds it costs ?

I think some people are seeing this as being solely a financial issue. It's not. Apparently she's not helping to clean or do other household chores.

The combination of these two aspects is probably what makes OP think his DS is being selfish. Perhaps one day he wants to retire alongside DP without running a full time all-inclusive hotel for the adult children.

The question though is whether she is refusing to do it or whether her mum is just automatically doing it. If the second then it’s not really the sd’s fault.

Move whilst she's away and don't tell her where

You can create contented, strong, independent adults who are also close to their family and can rely on them when times get tough

However that is not the case here, so why are you bringing it up?

At no point has the OP or anyone else on this thread suggested abandoning adult children in their hour of need.

I think the OP's DP is the biological mother of DS- that's how I read it.

My first thought was that, if DP is happy for DD to remain living in the family home without contributing/ having to be constantly reminded to pay their way, the DP needs to take over that portion of the bill paying so that the OP is not out of pocket or aggravated at her loss of disposable income. That is DP's choice and should not be imposed on OP, who is clearly very unhappy about the situation. If it is hitting the DP in the pocket so they have little to no disposable income themselves, it might change DP's mind about the overall situation. It seems that everyone is happy with the set-up except the person losing out financially so that balance needs to change.

Yes, this. She can't expect this easy ride to continue.

You have a marriage problem. If you're in a relationship with her mother, but paying all the bills and the mortgage, then clearly you need to sort your marriage out. You've decided to be angry with step-daughter directly, instead of being angry with your partner or sitting down with her to discuss your concerns. Why is this? What does your partner/her mum think? What does your partner bring to the relationship/ household? Do you even like SD? Are you both competing for your partner/her mum's attention?

£120 is 'working poor'? Really........?

@breadandroses1992 that's ridiculous sorry. £120k 'working poor'?

I think she sounds like a typical young person .

I wish you’d tell my parents this. My sister left uni 5 years ago and she and her boyfriend live with my parents. They earn £150k between them. They don’t give my parents a bean. Thy get their meals served, their heating bills paid (they walk around the house in T-shirts with the heating on full blast). My parents don’t ask for a contribution because they’re saving for a house. 🤯

I agree that it’s ultimately a marital problem, @OldPerson , because his DP says that she’s “powerless” to address the situation with her DD, which is ridiculous!

It sounds as if the OP is viewed as the family cash cow who’ll pay the bills that no one else wants to! Some PP’s have suggested that he’s picking on his step-daughter because she’s not his biological child….I wonder whether the OP is actually the unloved one, just a convenient source of money for everyone?

That is pretty shocking to say the least 😳
.... Or could it be that your parents are playing the long game, they know that your sister and her boyfriend will get complacent, never actually save enough money and then they'll be trapped there forever and will have to be their carers in old age 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Gloriosaford that is a very long game 😂