Stepdaughter’s bedroom at Christmas

[Balletbabe]

My 14 year old stepdaughter has an en-suite bedroom at our house which she uses maybe two or three nights a month.. This room is sacrosanct and DH won’t entertain conversations about it.

Essentially she will not allow my mother to use it over Christmas even if she isn’t here.

My sister is with her in-laws.

We either put my daughter in with our youngest two, or bring baby back in with us. Either of these solutions would potentially lead to sleep regression for both the younger kids. Or we travel for just under an hour to my mother’s, taking kids away from their presents and she will then feel the need to host us.

We still have no idea if stepdaughter is even going to be here.

All DH will say is he wouldn’t want anyone in his room either and he is willing to collect her after presents and she could get Uber back.

Well, like I said, I wonder, not what you think but what OP and OP’s DD think.

And for an exact parallel, when it is possible that DD13 will be there, given many posters think DSD should give up the room even if she is there, because it is an en suite.

And that’s fine. I’m have on opinion on whether OP should or shouldn’t leave - that’s entirely up to her. She’s an adult woman responsible for the choices she has made and will make.

If she chooses to say, she does so with the knowledge that he’s not going to offer her the type of blended family she wants. The same knowledge she had when she decided to embark on a relationship with him and introduce more children into it. It’s utterly pointless for her to continue to pick fights she will invariably lose.

She should I think we all told her a few threads back.

i think the best suggestion is your mum sleeps with you and husband can find somewhere to sleep. people are so entitled about rooms and space these days. it's just a room. my kid gives up his room and sleeps with us on an airbed and he's a teenager. it's just not even a question. it is ridiculous that the ensuite is taken out of action when you have a growing family and they need to use bathrooms and shower etc.

where do husband's family stay as if his daughter doesn't have to give up her room then your own children should not have to give up their room for his family. you have a husband problem who doesn't treat all his children equally. why doesn't his daughter stay more often? is the distance too far?

This. OP has chosen this. It's not a relationship of equals. He holds the money and she likes the lifestyle. It looks like it gets hard to handle for her around the holidays when that relationship inequality is made evident to her. She vents here about it and then can go on until the next holiday.

But she chose this. She also has an older daughter whose dad has little to do with her, yet she essentially tries to alienate her SD from her dad by moves like taking over the bedroom for her relative. Time for her to take the L.

Your DH and DSD are being selfish. Let Baby come in with you and DH sees to them if they wake at night. Why does SD get the en suite room? Wouldn’t that normally be your room?

Entirely possible given monies spent on building works that there is more than one en suite.

Yes every Christmas I would have to share db's bedroom when ggm came to stay even when we were teenagers and she had mine. Don't remember ever having a say in it but it was our ggm.

She doesn't have a "main residence" as a such since she is at boarding school for much of the time. The time she spends with her father, during term time at least, is probably roughly equal to the time she spends with her mother.

Agree with this. Lots of posters here are lambasting the husband but it sounds like he has been completely upfront with her about how things were going to be. He doesn't see himself as her daughter's father but he is kind to her and has bonded with her over football. His family likewise don't see her as a granddaughter but are perfectly pleasant when around her. He has been very clear that he wants his daughter to have her own dedicated personal space in his home and he's paid a lot of money to secure that. There is no suggestion that anyone is being treated cruelly by him or his daughter. In fact she's very keen to bond with her younger half-siblings. It's just that neither she nor her father see any reason for her to "blend" with OP's own extended family. This seems pretty reasonable since SD has two involved parents and two involved sets of grandparents and other relatives. She's not rude to OP's family, she's just not especially interested in them.

I think OP needs to just accept that this is how it is. Before long SD will be a young adult and things may look different. But making this bedroom situation into a point of tension could make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone. OP, just accept that SD's room is not available for use as a guest room, no matter how silly or unreasonable you find it, and make alternative arrangements.

This particular bedroom and en suite he had built specifically for his daughter. It was never intended to be used as a spare room, which OP knew.

100% @BeaRightThere

It also seems that DSD might accept having her three year old half sister kip in with her, so the problem could have been pre-empted by switching out the toddler bed for a single earlier

Exactly. The SD is apparently very fond of the three year old and might well have agreed to this.

I also think it's somewhat telling that OP is trying to make this plan for her mother's sleeping arrangements while it is still unknown whether SD will be there.

Boarding schools have long holidays so she still will have a main residence, where she spends an awful lot more time than just 2-3 nights a month

With the background others have given, this just seems so so sad for all the DCs involved - why the fuck do adults do this to their kids. Stay single / living separately until the DCs are grown - poor kids get no choice in any of this.

What lifestyle does she get from it? Is she actually any better off than she would be on her own? Does she own the house, the whole set up just doesn’t seem worth it

Many blended families do work really well but I do feel sorry for OP and the DC to have ended up in this situation, he doesn’t sound like he wanted to establish a true partnership with her

Perhaps but we don't know that as the OP hasn't said. We know she stays over 2-3 times a month. She may also see her father during the week as in the OP's previous thread she said that he would take her out to lunch during the week and would sometimes bring the OP's daughter too.

But it's irrelevant anyway since the husband has made it clear that the daughter's room is not available for use as a guest room. OP needs to just accept that.

Yes accept it and see it as a sign that she needs to reconsider her life with him

Sadly I’ve not known one in real life to work well for the kids involved & nothing I’ve read on Mumsnet over the years makes me think differently. The only positive story I’ve ever heard is from Stacy Soloman (& who knows how true that actually is rather than managed PR).

I don't know that I agree. He doesn't feel any need to force a relationship between his daughter and the OP's family. That seems perfectly fair to me. She's not rude to them. She's just not particularly interested in being included. She's nice to the OP's daughter, she just doesn't see her as a sibling or a potential friend. Perhaps that will come with time, perhaps not. The husband would not stand for his own SD being treated poorly by his family members but by the OP's own admission to that hasn't happened. They are kind to her, they just don't view her as a granddaughter.

The OP doesn't say he treats her badly. He just doesn't share her views on blending families and he never has. He was clear on this. The OP just won't accept it.

I think op stays because apart from the step daughter she has a rather lovely fortunate life with her boyfriend who’s rather wealthy.

The only issue is the step daughter and his family don’t accept her and her older child as family. He is fine with that and hasn’t even proposed to her despite two children together.

Well I would say DH and me have a very happy blended families and I know countless others, sadly not including my own older DCs paternal side and yes have friends where it wasn’t great either so like most first families it tends to be a mixed bag

It seems pretty foolish to break up the family she does have and deprive her three year old and baby of a loving full-time father all because she can't accept a situation she was fully aware of from the very beginning. No one is being treated unkindly here. The OP just isn't getting the exact kind of blended family she wanted

She gets to live in a house she presumably likes living in, and she does benefit from his financial and practical support of the household. If she’s a stay at home mother then that’s something he enables.

She would be worse off by leaving him, at least financially, as even with maintenance (assuming she would even get it) she would not be able to provide herself and her eldest daughter the same standard of living they currently have.