To be so pissed off?

[OkStepmum]

Full context I've been with my DH for seven years and my DSD is 12. We've always had a few problems because she has used my stuff (an iPad a few years ago) and now my makeup without asking. I've always been clear she can use it if she asks, not just take it without permission.

This year I noticed my makeup started to disappear. Some bits are worthless but many have sentimental value (for example I still have a few bits I bought 20+ years ago and believe it or not still use them!)

I told my DH to have a chat with her. He did a few of them. Maybe about a month ago I saw she took one of those precious bits of makeup and she completely destroyed it. So I had enough and told him he had to discipline her. Up to that point we thought the matter was solved.

Until yesterday... When I found even more makeup and some newish eyeliners, including the empty box of my engagement ring. She claimed she didn't know how they appeared in her room. I knew she took them. DH wanted a clean slate, I asked him to go through her drawers and voila! More of my missing makeup. He doesn't necessarily think I'm over reacting but I hate being portrayed as the evil step mum when it's my stuff!

We have bought her tons of her own makeup. Some even came in very nice cases and she just ends up destroying it all. We actually don't know why, but she paints on the walls/paper/her bed with it.

After this last episode I'm worried she might take my jewellery too.

Perhaps take her to buy her own make up. Perhaps it’s a cry she wants you to help her.

She has her own make up

OP says in her OP that her DSD has loads of her own makeup.

No real advice OP as I can't imagine how to improve such behaviour.
But I wanted to address the shock at using old makeup.
I also have a couple of very sentimental makeup as well! A beautiful Dior eyeshadow palette well over 20 years old. Still fine to use and I don't share it with anyone. I use it very rarely to keep it as long as I can. I love the packaging and the colours and quality.
Bought on my first trip to Italy with my own money when I was sooo young. Made me feel so accomplished when I made that purchase and it was special to me: something expensive and of good quality for my age at the time and bought all on my own as such a young woman.
The other one is a Chanel lipstick which belonged to my grandmother. A truly beautiful piece, very old, mostly used already by her, the pigment is still incredibly vivid and lasts forever on application, but I never used it on my lips as it's probably not safe and the colour doesn't suit me.
I still have the expensive (to me at the time) nail polish and lipstick from my wedding day. Beautiful and understated and I sometimes still use, but I want to keep them as a memory.
The first bottle of perfume from DH, the classic Chanel. I dislike the smell but how was he to know, it's so old now as well although the scent doesn't appear to have changed. It was a disappointment to receive it at the time because I thought wtf is my fiancé doing giving me a huge bottle of expensive perfume for old women which I don't even like the smell of. But I was gracious about it and it is special to me even now.

Of course it’s potentially dangerous: eye infections, shared skin disease, sepsis.

OP is a hoarder: old wrappers, unopened cheetos, 20 year old makeup.

Dsd still wrong but OP is not merely eccentric.

But then, I’ve seen several people end up dead, or with missing limbs, or in life threatening situations with damage causing life long consequences where the best guess has been maybe via old make up.

That's your BEST guess??

Not sure whether to 🤣 or 😳

I used to do this to my mother when I was young (although I didn't purposefully break anything, that bit might well be accidental).

She got a lock, I learnt to pick it.
In hindsight I think the best thing to make me stop would have been randomly taking and using things that were important to me. I might have stopped as a truce.

Everything else builds resentment. A ring camera indoors is far more fucked up than a child stealing makeup, imo.

ALL 👏 BEHAVIOUR 👏 IS 👏 COMMUNICATION 👏

Maybe you should have some quality time with her? She's obviously struggling and needs one on one time, either with you or DP. Why is your stuff more important than her wellbeing?

👆

Make up lasts 12 m maximum once opened. Let her have it and buy some new stuff. The bacteria!

As an aside the amount of bacteria and germs in a palette of 20 years old does not bear thinking about - the reason they have ‘use within 6 months’ of opening on the box is to stop infections developing from make up that has been used multiple times, with multiple brushes etc - all of which harbour germs!

So, here's the wishy-washy perspective:

Try talking to your DSD?

Not disciplining, not getting DH to do it - you're pissed off because you don't know what's going on, you've tried to make an intervention through DH, and it hasn't worked, and you're confused about why. You don't understand what DSD is up to, i.e. taking make up when she has her own, daubing it on the walls etc, and it's frustrating

So ask her - preferably in a nice setting, where you can really listen to her answer. It will also give you a chance to explain to her why the items are important to you, how the situation makes you feel, and get a firm commitment from her not to do it again. If she goes back on that, you'll at least know that she knows what she's doing is wrong, by her own standards.

As for the OP question 'Am I being unreasonable' - no, not really, not at this stage. Taking the commitment to making a family, navigating the feelings involved, learning to live together etc, these things are all super difficult, for you and for her. Janky situations are always going to pop up. There's a reasonable slice of the posts above that boil down to 'I'd get cross and leave' and that's fine, we all get to choose our path, but that ultimately represents (literally) an inability to live together.

Based on the ages of your respective kids, and the fact that you've still got make up from back-when, this is quite possibly the first time you've tried to navigate a living situation like this. It's normal and reasonable to feel frustrated.

But you're an adult, you've taken on a responsibility to live with and provide care for a child. If you strive to treat all the kids equally, then think how you would address it in the first instance if it was your DD doing this. And no it may be that your DD would never take anything without asking, but believe me, there is some janky, baffling unexpected behaviour coming down the track from DD too. If there's any part of your brain that harbours doubts that DSD is just different, because she's not like you, because she's not related by blood, you need to address that pronto because that's not a fair way to treat a child.

No doubt your property needs to be respected, and definitely there's some parenting involved in fixing that, but it's also worth reflecting on whether the situation might offer the opportunity for growth for you too.

Anyway - hope it all turns out for the best whatever you choose ✌️

i have some Biba pots with eye make up and powder in them from the 70s. They were my mum's and while i don't use the make up, if some teen girl in my house took them without permission - and especially if she then smeared it on the walls - there would be payback. Consequences. I would be taking and using her stuff that she regards just as highly.

I would not be locking things away in my own bloody house. DSD needs to learn that just because things are not locked away, she can't just take them. From a throwaway comment OP made maybe DSDs mum is also on board?

😂😂😂Same! Honestly, my first thought was that 20-year-old make up is grim! But I'd be shocked to hear that people are losing limbs by double dipping their make up brush. And the poster has seen not just one, but SEVERAL people who have lost limbs from this?! 😂😂😂

Someone needs to tell Panorama 😬

Considering the OP's stepdaughter is only 12, the problems are deeper than stealing make up.

So… several people around you have died in mysterious circumstances. You’ve floated the idea that they must have been tragically accidentally poisoned by old makeup. And everyone else has agreed that there’s no other possible explanation and you all moved on?

Just one more question….?

She can probably sense you don’t love her, you didn’t even say you like her just you don’t dislike her, that must be horrible for her

well yes, but that is for her father and mother to handle. In the meantime, in OPs shoes, i would be trashing something of DSDs every time she did the same to me.

OPs DD isn't behaving like that, so there's no comparison, but OP has already said that she wouldn't put up with it from her either.

I can sense an entire Netflix miniseries out of that comment alone, not just a one off episode of Columbo. One person is surrounded by amputees and dead people and the only thing they have in common is a shared Rimmel lipgloss 😂

You'd go tit for tat with a 12 year old..?

But then, I’ve seen several people end up dead, or with missing limbs, or in life threatening situations with damage causing life long consequences where the best guess has been maybe via old make up. Please tell your DD not to do this as she’s literally taking her life in her hands.

Theres an infection risk with some things but this is a bit scaremongery! Are there really death certificates with “used a 15 year old blusher” as cause of death?!

No, the death certificate would state the actual end game of infection e.g. systemic sepsis. However, quite a few cases that’s what’s been determined as the likely culprit. That’s why most make up should/does have an expiry on the packaging in pictorial form, such as use within 12mths of opening/throw out after 12mths from opening. Most people throw the packaging obviously. It’s meant to be on the product if there is room though but most manufacturers don’t if on outer packaging.

I'm a bit concerned about the OP's comment about hoarding chocolate wrappers and old packets of crisps - maybe the house is so full of 'stuff' the stepdaughter can't differentiate between what is valuable and what is rubbish. If the house is a tip, then maybe the child doesn't think drawing on the walls really matters.

I still have the eye make up pallette I used for my wedding make up 20 years ago. There’s a shade in there I have never found again so I’m keeping to use for special occasions!