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?

"Admitted" implies a negative.

Nothing wrong with smirking

There is for an adult dealing with teens

It’s not a very nice or mature thing to do and DD clearly thought she was smirking at her - which in the context I suspect she was.

How did confronting them help? The mature thing would have been to ignore the whole thing.

They didn’t intend OP to hear their comments.

Smirking is for naughty 7 year olds with chocolate on their hands.

She admitted the smirking but that doesn’t alter the fact that the girls lied to their dad about what happened.

It sounds like DSD16 is very much not fully recovered and there isn't a united front between houses on helping support her recovery. And actually, if she's so fixated on bodies and upset and misperceiving a look, she still sounds pretty deep in it. You can be technically weight-restored but your brain is still all ED, which is what often happens with adolescents who are forced into treatment by parents (not that they shouldn't be, just that it's hard). DH is probably reacting this way because he's scared she's going to relapse. Statistically, he's not wrong. EDs are pernicious and it's hard to understand how it warps your brain unless you've been there.

Have you attended any family therapy or information sessions for DSDs ED, OP?

And reiterating that she admitted smirking when the point being made was that the girls lied to their father is for those who haven’t read the thread.

And the fact that she lied to her dad ? Is that a symptom of an ED ?

Children do make these kind of comments, sometimes my children will say things to get a reaction from me, I just ignore them, like I can't be bothered with their childish games.
It honestly doesn't even bother me.

@Anarchy99 Don't you tell them that it's important to be kind to their family and friends? We do, because we see the positive results of this as adults. DH and his siblings are all nice to other another and their parents (I'm an only) and we have friends with adult children who are also incredibly nice to one another.

It's amazing the difference between those families and ones who aren't so kind to other another.

16 and 18 and bring so cruel to you and you just let them know you’d heard? I don’t think what you did was that bad. You just quoted shat they said about you. They’ve been caught so are trying to turn the blame on you.

Now you know what you know, I’d say you have to be cautious with how you deal with them.

You absolutely cannot ban them from coming to their father’s home.

Whether they intended OP to hear or not is relevant. OP did hear and instead of apologising they made up a load of nonsense and told it to their father. Not only were they unkind but they then lied to cover it and made out the OP was the instigator in this matter.

My reaction wouldn’t be to say they can’t visit adhoc. However, I would absolutely raise it and expect that they own up, apologise and accept their mistake. If they did this I would drop it and leave it there.

That does not excuse what they did. Unless you support fat shaming ?

What I don’t understand is your DH saying he’ll have to get her side of the story, as if he might not actually believe that you are speaking the truth??

People falling over themselves to put the step daughters comments in the context that she is young and has an eating disorder

Every second thread on here is about 'oh I dont want loose skin if I lose weight' by grown women. Its viewed as a fate worse than death

She can’t ban them from coming to their father’s home, I agree. But it’s OP’s home too, and she can and should insist on having their house keys returned, and that they only visit when their dad is at home. They were cruel behind her back and haven’t got the decency to own it after being caught out. Unfettered access to someone’s home is a privilege, and they’ve forfeited it by their disrespectful behaviour.

But there is two sides, she’s admitting that. They clearly said what they said and it looks like the op said what she said /

so I think it’s fair he also hears what they have to say.

for me eyeing up and down a young woman with an eating disorder and smirking is really fucking cruel and far worse than what these teenagers said about the op.

@ThreadGuardDog Yes, I think we all know that teenagers find us funny and vice versa, I sometimes find my young adult and teenager funny too, especially DS (17) and his friends. That doesn't mean we're all cruel to each other.

It's not clear to me if she's knowingly lying or if her ED brain is causing her to misperceive and twist things. Anorexia makes you think weird things, like that any even mildly tangential comment or glance is a criticism of your weight and body. Because your brain is full of it all the time and it's the first thing you think about when looking at anyone else, so it's hard to comprehend that others aren't doing this. I was in inpatient treatment and could easily see some of the girls I met there absolutely latching onto what OP did, twisting it in their minds, claiming OP did something else, having a meltdown, and being absolutely convinced that it was true, yes.

Prior to her hearing the catty remarks made by her husband's daughter, OP obviously had no problem with them handing out in OP's home:

'He sees them very regularly and they often just pop round whenever they fancy as well as the arranged times when they stay.'

She was understandably shocked to hear what her DH''s daughter said about her loose skin. OP's own home should be a safe space from bitchy remarks like that. If they don't like OP, they don't have to come to her house and they can see their dad elsewhere.

The 16 year old maybe gets a pass as she’s a teenager but the 18 year old doesn’t as she’s an adult woman.

I’d be wondering (and OP knows more than we do as she’s their stepmum) what other rude comments they’re making about me, and then getting their dad to side with them by lying.

And yes, it’s their house too, but it’s not their main residence, as they drop over and stay whenever they like as it’s their dad’s house but shared with their stepmum, so yes I wouldn’t be stopping visits but would certainly be saying they should be use kind words and be respectful towards their stepmum and other adults, children and teens of their own age. I feel for the girl with the eating disorder and teenage hormones and finding her way in life, but it doesn’t give her a free pass to be rude or unkind about someone else’s appearance. OP has really done them a favour by standing up for herself and letting them know in a roundabout way she heard them. I bet if she did talk to them about it tactfully (as PP’s have advised) they’d deny they ever said anything in the first place. Or say they had the right to say what they wanted.

That depends on the context at the time. And in this particular context, there’s a lot wrong with it. OP should have just ignored the comments and spoken to their dad privately. Now they’ve gone running to daddy playing the victim and OP is being made the wicked step mother.

Oh a classic example of what Im referring to in my post above

Total cop out.

This is about basic rudeness, body snobbery and fat shaming. In real life, not on politically correct forums, people view saggy old people as a joke. Eating disorder or not.

Whats the other daughters excuse by the way?

We don’t know that. As I said, suspect she did look DD up and down while smirking or at least DD thought she did.

But the point here is that they knew what they had said and that OP’s reaction was to the fact that they had heard them. They’ve totally misrepresented that in putting their side to their dad. I don’t believe for a second that DSD2 didn’t realise OP was responding to her own nasty behaviour.

Exactly. As I just posted who knows what else they think or say about the stepmum behind her back. And yes it’s fine not to always get on, sometimes have arguments with them and think nasty thoughts about someone but it’s another thing entirely to actually say something to hurt someone’s feelings.