AIBU to stop unannounced visits after overhearing cruel comments in my garden?

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Dh has 2 dd from his previous marriage. They are 16 and 18. I’ve always thought I got on well with both.
He sees them very regularly and they often just pop round whenever they fancy as well as the arranged times when they stay.

It’s relevant to include that dsd2 is in recovery for an eating disorder.

It’s been hot and I’ve been relaxing in the garden some days in a bikini (recently lost weight in jabs so was feeling quite confident). Yesterday they came over (not planned) and I heard them laughing at me from the kitchen and saying maybe it’s not a good thing I’ve lost weight if I’m going to start dressing differently and showing off loose skin. I don’t think they realised I could hear ?

Anyway I got up and went inside , said nothing and was thinking to myself how funny it’ll be when they are my age and look like this they’ll probably remember making bitchy comments. Dsd2 said hello and I said hi back, she said they were going to sit outside with a drink did I want anything I said no thanks I’m just going to put a dress on , cover up these wobbly bits and loose skin and smirked. She looked a bit shocked probably realising I’d heard her.

Next thing I know as I’m getting changed the door slams , I went down and nobody was there . Half an hour later dh calls me to ask why the hell i was talking about weight and smirking at dsd2 and apparently looking her up and down ???!!!

I told him what had happened and he said he will have to get their side of the story. Well of course I know dsd1 will back up what dsd2 is saying. I’m just really disappointed with them and I didn’t do anything wrong! AIBU to say to dh that there are no more unannounced visits after this - I should be able to sit in my garden in a bikini and not feel laughed at?

Spiteful.

YANBU. At that age they are old enough to face the consequences for their words.

That's part of her illness. She's in recovery. That just means the most acute part has passed, but there is still disordered thinking there. She's a teen with disordered thinking about eating and OP made a comment about loose skin into a major big deal. Now she wants to ban both girls from her home because of a teen comment coming out of a diagnosed illness and the thought processes teen has because of that.

She could easily have addressed it with a I heard what you said and I don't appreciate it. Please don't do it again. No harm would be done.

I think they're also running up against the fact that it was OP's home before she moved the husband in and he came with kids, one who has a chronic condition, and she's feeling a bit put out here. She had a dent put into her new found body confidence and she's sharing a home with multiple people and sometimes they're just going to grind her gears. Overreacting and going nuclear is not going to make for harmony in the home though.

Immature teens should get a telling off - not a ban from the house.

your DH should be backing you up

If my teens were unkind like this they'd be in big trouble whether it be a step mother or the lady next door.

Then not sure why you thinks it’s OP’s fault when op was the one being made fun of for her loose skin.
I think body shaming is not okay unless you are a 5 year old.

Oh God, OP. They were stupid and immature, but they are teens, what’s your excuse.

Teenage girls were caught out being bitchy and went running to Daddy. They got off pretty lightly in my view.

I wouldn't ban them, but I'd expect their father to have a word about making mean remarks, and expect an apology.

Excuse. Maybe she finds rudeness unacceptable.

Especially as they are not young girls, and one is an adult.

Even then I would be teaching a 5 year old that making fun of people for how they look is wrong.
Scary that so many on Mumsnet wouldn't.

I am astounded by the support those horrible little madams are receiving.

Luckily, they were not in my house. Eating disorder or not, I would have told them to behave themselves, alongside their attitude not being welcomed in my space.

She's upset because she was caught out and responded to.

FWIW I think the OP's reaction was a good one. It was the sort of thing that would be completely unexpected so it will have hit home. Whereas I suspect a calm conversation about it being hurtful would just have had her (both of them?) rolling her eyes.

I wouldn't ban them from the house but I would clarify to the girls directly that you overheard them, that your comment was directed at yourself and that you won't tolerate being made fun of in your own home. If they choose to reduce their unannounced visits (which I suspect they might) then that's on them.

They went running to their dad so they could frontload his opinion before you told him what happened, because they know what they did was wrong. Which is also why they only told him half the story and made it sound like you were a villain.

You should feel free to enjoy your garden and home dressed however you like OP

Absolutely! It starts with toddlers, doesn't it? You teach them not to be personal and rude.

God this is all just so pathetic.

everyone has said something about someone at some point which they shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t want them to hear.

Anyone on this thread who says they never have is lying.

Should the children have said it? No.but the way to deal with that isn’t to make snarky comments back. You walk into the room and say “you should be careful who can hear what you’re saying when you’re going to talk about other people.” Which would have delivered the message perfectly.

Any adult would be able to have that conversation. But no, it’s all turned out to be “he said she said, and they were nasty so I was nasty back wa wa wa.”

All this banning children from their own home achieves nothing but resentment. Or why not follow the MN collective and blow up your marriage into the bargain just because of an ill thought-out comment made by a teenager who will probably look back in five years and cringe.

Grow up.

It sounds like she doesn’t know you heard her, and therefore took the comment as a bitchy dig against her, when it was intended as a smirky “yes I heard you”.

I guess your DH will tell her you heard her and then she’ll understand why you said what you said. Whether you say no more unannounced visits without DH being at home, or tell them you won’t be home certain days when you intend to sunbathe is up to you - but the latter would open the possibility for them to turn up anyway, believing you won’t be home.

Which you can tell your husband but is also why the first thing you should have said to them was that you'd heard them, instead of feigning normality then making passive aggressive comments and smirking.

I’m not judging you for reacting in a way that, with hindsight, wasn’t ideal. However I do think you need to be the grown up here and get DH to arrange for you all to sit down together and discuss this. Explain why you felt vulnerable/ attacked in your own home and apologise for how you reacted and that you absolutely weren’t looking DD2 ‘up and down’ in any sort of way. Then confirm that they were out of order in talking and judging another woman’s body and that you expect an apology back.
I think it’s lovely that they feel welcome enough to drop in without an appointment and it would be sad for that to change over teens being bitchy teens. IMO it’s important to role model that we can all get it wrong but taking accountability is what’s important.

I would have called them out on it straight away , They are old enough to know better …
your response wasn’t appropriate though - a straight up “I heard that and it’s unkind “ would have worked better .. it’s also possible that the teen who is in ED recovery may have misconstrued your comment to feel like it was a dig at her.. her thinking will still be disordered..
you can’t ban your DHS children though ..you all need to sit down and talk about it rationally like adults . They are perfectly old enough to understand that body shaming is not on , and no one wants to be body shamed in their own home

You don't need to apologise, you've done nothing wrong. They're lying and manipulative and need to be called out

Feel for you OP. You don’t deserve to feel like this especially in your own home. I would set some boundaries that they can only come over when pre-agreed. They’re old enough to know better.

Isn't OP old enough not to respond with similar sneering remarks? That's silly playground stuff from an 'adult'.

Surely there's a middle ground here? Say you heard and that you were upset about her comments about YOUR wobbly bits. Give her the chance to apologise.

We all have the right to not be insulted in our own home. When other folk disrespect that right, we are entitled to start drawing boundaries. OP did not have boundaries before this, kindly allowing step children to come and go as they please - on trust. The children have broken the trust. We all got to learn sometime, talking cruelly about others to make ourselves feel better is a hiding to nothing in the long run.