Dreading step-daughter coming home

[AquaAnsie]

DH and I have been together for 7 years, married for 3. He has one DD, she's 24. I have 4 DC, DS is 26 then DDs who are 25, 23, and 20.
My two middle DC have autism, they have always really struggled with socialising and my 23 and 20 year olds live at home, my 25 year old lives 5 minute walk away.
My children and DSD went to school together, she was a year below my eldest DD and a year above my middle DD. My DD's really struggled in school, which wasn't made any better by bullying. DSD was part of the group who did a lot of the bullying (all very sporty, very pretty, middle class girls picking on those who hadn't quite settled, were from lower income families). DSD claims she was never the one doing the bullying but my DDs really struggle when she is around.

My 23 year old really struggles with her autism, she hates it when DSD is here, basically never leaves her room, she is very intimidated by DSD. DD also struggles with routine changes massively and is easily overstimulated.
When DSD is here, she plays music all the time, goes out with her friends and comes back at 2/3 am (she isn't loud but DD is a light sleeper and this will wake DD up and scare her to the point she won't sleep again). My DS also puts on an act when she is here, tries to buddy up with her BF and basically ignores his sisters and says they have to grow up.

Over the years there has been a lot of back and forth. We went out a walk one year and my eldest DD was complaining she was tired and DSD loudly muttered "if you lost weight you wouldn't be tired", she apologised but DD is very insecure so this has stuck with her (DD is a size 14/16 so not exactly big or anything, but DSD is a size 6 and very judgy of any overweight). In an argument about 2 years ago she also shouted at my DD's "You need to grow up, get a real job and stop getting my dad to fund your life". This obviously left sour taste but she again apologised.

DSD has a bit of a superiority complex, she is an Oxbridge grad, now doing her training contract for a law firm in London making crazy money for a grad (she's a couple years behind other her age on average as she did a gap year then a year abroad at uni). She looks down on my family as my DDs didn't go to uni (well DS did and he is the only one she actually gets on with).

On Sunday she and her boyfriend are coming back for a few days, they've only been dating since spring and her dad has met him but none of the rest of us have. As if DSD being home won't cause my girls enough stress, a total stranger in the house will make it 10x worse.

I just know their will be an argument, my DDs will get upset, DS will side with DSD as he thinks it makes him look smart.

DH never has any input, he thinks his DD can do no wrong, total princess in his eyes. He never outright agrees with her but he never tells her to say sorry or calls her out.

AIBU to be absolutely dreading her coming back even if it is just for 3/4 days? I find her so hard to be around at times!

Frankly I am amazed that if the DD's noise sensitivity is as bad as the OP suggests, that she needed this people on this thread to suggest the flipping obvious, that noise cancelling headphones might be a good idea. That just tells me that the DD's sensory issues have been grossly exaggerated in order to elicit sympathy and get the DH to agree that his DD should tiptoe around her, literally and metaphorically.

Any autistic person who is scared or over-stimulated that easily by music or simple things like doors opening and closing at night almost certainly already has headphones/ear defenders. These girls were in mainstream school remember.

Well done for taking on board the comments and being open to a different perspective OP, hopefully you’ll all rub along better going forwards!

@AquaAnsie - if you are still reading ( and this isn’t a wind up), do you think given 3 of your dcs are autistic, that you might be as well? Because you seem to have only thought about how your step daughter made you feel and how she negatively affected your children, but until it was pointed out to you, you haven’t considered how you and your children have negatively affected her. You haven’t considered you might be seen by outsiders as a gold digger. That your children’s financial support from your dh is effectively taking from step-daughter’s inheritance.

you hadn’t thought about her as a young woman who’s lost her mother and might need you to have a mothering role as she navigates adulthood but you just haven’t made an effort to do that.

It also hasn’t occurred to her that the dsd might be hurt by the regular accusations of being a bully. (She says that the dsd might be “always says” implying that this is regularly brought up.)

Or that the two times (in 7 years!) that the Op was able to drag up where the dsd said something rather unkind (and then immediately apologised) were from complete frustration. The Op says that when her daughter is uncomfortable then she makes everyone miserable. And that the dsd’s mere existence makes her dd uncomfortable. So the dsd is never able to visit her dad in her childhood home without the dd making everyone miserable.

Well I think that 99.99% of people would agree that it's definitely his daughter's business, and the other 0.01% would be wrong.

It's as if you haven't read the thread!

Blimey OP, have you got your DDs on mumsnet too, now?

It's really not hard to see which posters are second wives who hate and resent their stepchildren, is it.

Thankfully the majority of us are on the DD side, stepmothers included.

Oh this in spades.

It's absolutely vile and extremely calculating.

Funny, I was just thinking it was easy to see who the stepparent haters are! and possibly who the bullies are as well

Love the hypocrisy of precious daughter being paranoid they were chatting behind her back in another language but it’s perfectly acceptable to be absolutely vile about step daughter on a public internet forum

I'm not who the majority is you're referring to, certainly not posters on this thread.

Yeah she's for real.

Because only a simpleton would let OP and her scrounging children abuse his own daughter like this. A daughter who lost her mother at 4.

I have an ND child. And his condition means he's often impulsive, can be withdrawn, angry, emotional, all manner of things depending on the day. Do you know it doesn't mean? That I'm a calculating money grabbing mother who capitalises on his condition so I can pretend he's not just lazier and more entitled than someone else as an excuse to get bankrolled by that person's parent. Now times that by 3 or 4 because that's how many sponges OP has planted in this home.

Yet the DH falls for that too. Simpleton is indeed the right word here. Most likely through sex because this horrendous cuckoos nest OP has orchestrated, no normal person would ever entertain. Especially not at the expense of their already motherless child.

@TwigletsAndRadishes

Spot on. DSD is everything that OP's daughter isn't.

Have you actually read this whole thread from page 1? OP has been slammed by the vast majority. 73% voted her unreasonable.

@G5000 I think there have been crossed wires here. When I said DD I was referring to the DH daughter, should have said SD.

I think you sound a bit jealous, she's clearly done very well and you seem to resent that. Maybe her nasty comments come from insecurity in what was once her home that everyone else lives in now.
I understand your dd struggles but as an adult she should be accepting of your dhs dd when she's hone and hiding away may make sd feel uncomfortable too.
It's a difficult situation but you created it marrying a man whose dd you accuse of bullying your own so you need to manage your jealousy and talk to your own dd about her rudeness and hiding away

Yes I was confused if we are reading the same thread, I agree that majority of posters are on SD's side.

I feel similar. It's just too similar to the actual story of Cinderella to convince me it can be real! I bet the Wicked Stepmother would have claimed her daughters were being bullied by Cinderella/autistic too! (And as an adult with ADHD, I know alllll about how hard it can be to function in every day life if you're ND, but what you don't do is use it as an excuse to leech off someone else's inheritance). I'm also a stepchild though and although mine weren't as horrific as the OP, they weren't great either. I'm well aware that any inheritance will be funnelled to their own kids and I'll be left with nothing (I factored that in long ago). So part of me thinks it could be true. And if so, how on EARTH is the DSD's dad such an absolute drip? Why do seemingly decent parents invite such blatant spongers into their home and let them treat their own biological children like this?

So hopeful that DH has a friend or relative that recognises this and he can see OP for what she truly is. His daughter deserves a relationship with her father and this will never happen with evil sponging stepmother on the scene

I'm a step mum and I'm firmly on the sd side.

To avoid confusion, I did not want to imply all step-parents hate their stepkids. Just that it's quite obvious which ones here do.

I'd be tempted to think this was a writer testing out a film script for a modern version of Cinderella, but no way would you get away with casting the entitled, lazy and faintly stupid Ugly Sisters as autistic, so it must be true, sadly.

It's just surprising that the dsd tolerates this. Surely she'd tell her df that she needs to feel welcome and comfortable in her own home, surely such a successful, well educated and popular person would handle this better.
It just seems so extreme. I mean why would anyone mind a bf speaking in his actual first language, or music being played etc.

It is all very bizarre.