Bullying - step daughter and work colliding

[DearHelper]

My husband has a young adult daughter. I’ve been in her life since she was 10 but due to many reasons we’ve never had a successful step mother /daughter relationship. Mostly due to poor boundary setting from both of her parents. I did try very hard to have a relationship with her but after years of being treated appallingly by the child, her mother and in part her father I gave up.

I’ll call the daughter Mary, not her real name, has a history of bullying at school. I’ve witnessed this in our own home when she’s retelling stories of events that happened and afterwards asked DH to address this. Due to the same boundary issues nothing was ever said and she continued.

I work with a parent of a child Mary has bullied. Mary and this child used to be very good friends. The parent of the bullied child has spoken to me about the bullying and knows my situation in that I’m a non-involved stepparent and her behaviour is nothing to do with me. We haven’t discussed it again.

At our Christmas party partners were invited. My DH couldn’t make it so I went alone. The other parent of the bullied child made it very obvious she feels I am to blame for Mary’s behaviour and made the whole evening difficult.

I am appalled by Mary’s behaviour as I would be by any bully but she’s not my responsibility and I’m angry to be blamed for it. Who is being unreasonable (apart from Mary).

If she an adult I would not get involved.

Well your husband doesn't sound like man of the year for a start. I wouldn't be accepting any blame or responsibility for her behaviour but I do wonder why you have stayed in the relationship for so long if he is treating you badly.

I’m not involved with Mary in anyway anymore. She is an adult and I haven’t seen her for a year. Her father has a relationship with her separately.

My husband isn’t treating me badly. He is a Disney dad who tried to have a wonderful relationship with his daughter and wouldn’t reprimand or discipline her.

Tricky really, you know you are not involved in bringing Mary up however for the parent of the bullied child you were the only 'related' adult available at the time so they took their anger/frustration out on you.
Perhaps they think that even if you don't directly deal with Mary you will at least nudge her father into sorting her out, in their situation they just want Mary to stop.
I vote Mary is clearly the most unreasonable followed closely by her parents.

Sorry, I didn't realise they are now adults!

I think you need to go to HR with this one. You are not this young woman’s parent. You don’t have any kind of parental relationship with this young woman and have no influence on her life choices. You don’t disagree that her behaviour has been appalling, but you are in no position to change it. This woman has to be accountable for her behaviour in the workplace and at work events and while under no obligation to like you, she is obliged to behave in a courteous, respectful and professional manner. (I assume you behaved in this way?)

You literally said in your OP, "...after years of being treated appallingly by the child, her mother and, in part, her father..."

In part her father meaning, he tolerated the behaviour from Mary and her mother. He doesn’t treat me badly.

Not that it makes a difference but is this historical bullying? As Mary is now an adult so no longer at school / able to bullying the other girl?

She is the wife of a colleague, she doesn’t work with me.
I am in HR and this is not a HR issue.
I did behave respectfully to her - I have no issue with her and understand her upset.

Who is being unreasonable?

1. Mary (for being a bully)
2. Your dh (for not parenting and thus creating a bully, can't believe you're attracted to this)

Who is not being unreasonable?

1. You (based on what you said, how could you be, you've only detailed that you've done nothing wrong)

The bullying happened about two years ago. The father is my work colleague and we discussed at the time.

I’ve only seen his wife a couple of times since, but she’d had a little to drink at our Christmas party.

As an aside - he does treat you badly op.
He allowed his daughter to treat you appallingly. That is treating you badly.

Her mother is also a factor - I believe Mary learned her bullying from her mother. DH is not blameless but let’s not leave it all at his door.

Fine. Just going off what you wrote in your op.

Even though you don’t parent Mary, I think that the other parent isn’t unreasonable to think that you have some sway with how your partner parents. This is because living with a bully would be unbearable for you so you’d need some sort of buffer/action from him sometimes. I think that a lot of people would be turned off by a man who didn’t parent, especially if they had their own kids who they didn’t want exposed to Mary.

Yanbu to say that she should speak to Mary’s parents because they are ultimately responsible. Stepparents have at most very limited effect on adult kids.

He’s at least 50% responsible.

Agreed - but not 100%

If you see her again and she says anything, just say “I just wanted you to know that I’m very sorry about what Mary did to your DD. I personally think it’s disgusting behaviour and I tried to raise it with her parents but, as a step parent, that’s about all I could have done unfortunately. I know that doesn’t make up for it but I wanted you to know that i understand”.

She might just throw it back in your face but most reasonable people would appreciate that and wouldn’t try to blame you. At that age, I doubt a biological parent could really ensure the bullying stops either.

I suspect Mary will carry on with poor behaviour throughout her adult life. Very sad as, probably with some stricter parenting she could have learned the error of her ways.

As an aside I am bullied at work by my boss (looking for a new job). I know his parent and can see how it moves into adulthood if not addressed.

can you not speak to your dh about her bullying?

I did at the time. It had no effect. He denied it was happening but I could see it in her behaviour at our home and 100% believe my colleague.

I agree. Most bullies grow up to be bullies as adults and will have children who will pick up on that behaviour.

So true, bullies bring up bullies.