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.

The other daughter gets to be with the little ones 24/7. I don't see why the SD shouldn't get some time alone with them to bond. She doesn't dislike the other daughter and is kind to her. She just wants to spend some time now and then with her siblings.

That's what happens when 2 families join together. She doesn't need exclusive access to be able to bond. Wanting to exclude her is most certainly not kind. She gets to spend time with her siblings. Again, this post is not about that.

So if I want to spend time with my brother.

Am I excluding his gf and my husband?

Or am I simply spending time with my sibling.

If I see my mum without my dad and I just spending time with mum or am I excluding dad?

She didn't exclude her as such. Her father wanted to take her and three year old to stay with their grandparents. That seems fine to me. They're not the OP's daughter's grandparents.

Anyway you're right this thread is not about that, we can agree to disagree.

The OP’s DD is the sibling of the SD’s siblings. I wonder what would happen if the younger ones made it clear that they want their sibling, the OP’s DD, to be included in outings etc. A situation their father doesn’t seem to have considered, but the OP has.

It’s a shame. The dad and his SD are going to end up not seeing much of the younger children at all at this rate.

Where are you getting the impression that the OP's daughter is left out? She lives with her mother, stepfather and siblings full time. She has her mother's family too. Occasionally her stepfather takes his daughter out for lunch and sometimes he brings her, sometimes not. Sometimes he takes his daughter and one of the younger ones to visit relatives the other child presumably does not know well if at all. Why is any of this a problem or exclusionary?

Part of the problem seems to be that OP and her daughter have placed the SD on a sort of pedestal. They want her to be close to the daughter, to see her as a sibling or very close friend. But the two girls may have absolutely nothing in common. Why is it not enough that the SD is friendly and kind?

At such a point the fathers older child would have to decide what she wanted to do.

However most sibling groups don’t do everything together one or two go off and do things. Much like the father’s two older daughters going to his parents for a holiday.

I’m sure as adults there will be various versions of the different siblings even ops three doing things in different groups or couplings.

Op needs to be careful however not to make the stepdaughter an outcast and the blame getting laid at her eldest feet as has happened and posted here by other mothers who want their first Borns to be included or prioritised at every point to the detriment of the half sibling from the fathers side and the younger shared children’s relationship with their fathers side full stop.

It’s a very very careful line that must be tread when two adults with existing children decide to have more when the families are not actually blended and happy.

Even my own three children with the same parents go off together in different groupings.

Some times it’s the oldest and youngest, the older two of the younger two. I don’t make they all do everything together or accuse them of excluding one.

It’s mix and match.

Well not on this thread… can’t understand the posters who think backstories should be ignored!

So you’re wondering what would happen if the younger siblings suddenly said to their dads parents, who aren’t related to the ops dd.. “you must include our other sister in your family events or we won’t come”…?
Id be thinking that was driven/planted by their mum!

They aren’t actually married, and it is indeed just his house.

It’s a room he had built specifically for his daughter, and not an available guest room.

Who mentioned their dad’s parents?

They might well say to their dad and sister ( the SD) that they’d like their other sister to come along too. Why wouldn’t they? Both these girls are their sisters.

He does sometimes take the other daughter out with his stepdaughter.

You are talking as if he ignores her entire existence and encourages everyone else to do so too. That's not the case. The OP herself has said he would not tolerate any rudeness to her daughter, but no one has ever been rude.

Op on other threads, drama and sobbing because her dd not invited to family things by dsds grandparents.

DH (hubby? Yikes) has said: 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.

So DH’s solution is not that OP’s DD gives up her room but that he sorts transport for his MIL.

But that wouldn’t meet ops agenda of showing dsd that she’s of no importance and op and her dd ars better than her

He is also building a very unhealthy dynamic

Exactly. The man’s stance is I wouldn’t give up my bed and room so why should a child.

His answer to his partners mother visiting is I’ll drive / uber her back and forth since it’s close enough.

His not going oh no not my daughter! His saying nobody.

Maybe this isn’t even about bedrooms for him. Maybe he just doesn’t want her mother staying overnight.

It doesn't have to be if the OP could simply accept the situation as it is and as it was always made clear to her.

But even if so, it's his daughter and his choice to make.

I actually think the OP's focus on trying to chip away at the arrangements her partner has made for his daughter are unhealthy . I think she has turned this bedroom into a battleground when she knows she won't win.

It's actually for several days isn't it? I think OP said from 24-27.

It feels a little like revenge, i.e. if the daughter won't blend in the exact way the OP wants then she has to be pushed out

Here’s the solution:
Your mum moves into 13yo DD’s bed.
Your 13yo DD moves into your bed.
Your DH figures out where he wants to sleep. If he prefers the sofa to a bed with an en suite, that’s on him.

The general situation is ridiculous btw. Does DH carry a lot of guilt from splitting up from SD’s mum? But I think you lost the battle when you moved in and gave her the best room. You can renegotiate when she’s 18, it’s only another few years.

She wasn’t given the best room. Her father had that bedroom and en suite specifically built for his daughter. OP wanted her to have to share with her daughter, and so resents the fact that her partner made sure his daughter had an exclusive space in her own father’s house.

OP knew before she even asked that this space wasn’t a guest room, and is off limits. She doesn’t know that the stepdaughter won’t need it over Christmas (and if she does, presumably Op thinks that she’d just have to share a room with aforementioned daughter). There’s nothing for OP to negotiate, it’s not her house or her space to claim

I honestly can't imagine that two teenage girls wouldn't both prefer their own space over sharing, even if they were sisters. Study, privacy, choice of music and bedtime without imposing on the other...

This is the opposite of what OP has said?

“She did not live here before me but still got the best room at her father’s insistence. We now have an extension to accommodate youngest ones.”