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?

I think a hint that you had heard was good, they now know you know. Surely if one of them has an eating disorder they should know better than giggle about other people's weight. If they can do that they obviously aren't that sensitive to discussions about weight however much they protest. And you don't expect guests in your house to be making fun of you behind your back, their dad needs to talk to them.

She’s upset as OP was rude to her too - we may not be getting the whole story from OP.

Agreed.

There’s wrong in both sides. But one side is adult.

Some of OP’s comments make me wonder if she is quite happy to have found the thin end of the wedge she can use to make sure only her husband feels comfortable in ‘her’ house. The house she seems to regret is jointly hers and her husband’s now they are married.

Yes…

I don’t think what she said was ever about you op, but rather about her comparing herself negatively to you. Ie That she is not good enough at her eating disorder, otherwise she’d be losing weight.

And this is why no one in close contact with a sufferer should be actively restricting their intake when around them or using other weight loss methods.

Lots of assumptions there to fit your own personal agenda. Bizarre really how invested people get.

This. And also, one of them is ill, as much as some posters on this thread would like the ED not to be a factor, so that they can feel more comfortable demonising a sick child, it is a factor.

I'm a grown woman, and I still say stupid things from time to time if I am struggling to keep my illness under control.

I know it is not acceptable to stare in wide-eyed horror at someone's plate and exclaim "omg, there must be 5000 calories on that plate," but sometimes my ED takes control of my mouth.

I would hope that people who love and know me are able to understand that what I say is not always a reflection of what I think about them; it is my illness speaking, and it's about me, not them. I'd also hope that if I ever inadvertently offended them, they'd be understanding enough to tell me and allow me to explain and apologise, rather than take it to heart or lash out at me.

Yes their remarks were unkind but you were never intended to hear them so they were not aimed at hurting you. I think you’d be very unwise to punish them for this by restricting visits. I’d suggest apologising for the fact that she may have misunderstood your reaction but that you were simply hurt by what you’d heard then move on.

I have not spoken about weight loss or my use of WLI at all to dsd2. I don’t even have scales in the house due to this and I weighed myself at my dm house . Obviously she can see I’ve lost weight but I have not made it an issue.

She's not planning on restricting visits, she just wants advance warning by text when they're coming over so they don't have to walk in and find her with a bikini on. Which I think is frankly reasonable in the circumstances.

She did talk of saying visits were not convenient when she fancied no visiting

Yes.

OP should have just said something honest and direct rather than the veiled pass agg that's so open to misinterpretation (that's the downside of trying to maintain plausible deniability over what you said - other people can also claim, or honestly believe, that you meant something else because you were deliberately cryptic). And of course a teenager is going to think it was about her, because teens think everything is about them, and if they're recovering from an ED they're going to see everything through that lens. Also, she didn't know OP had overheard her so she wouldn't have made the connection with her own words, especially if the conversation had moved on.

Of course it was a horrible thing to say and she should apologise and not do it again, but some of the reactions on here from grown arse adults - proudly doubling down on calling a mentally unwell child a cunt online and so on - are wildly out of proportion. (Are people really this stung at the idea that a 16 year old might find bodies of her parents' age a bit ick? Of course they shouldn't say it but is it a surprise?) And it's mad to think the dad should just start imposing consequences without giving her a chance to speak too. That's totally unfair.

Teenagers are twats but they're teenagers...

And this is why there are so many young adults who behave appallingly these days because their parents think that treating others with respect is optional.

You think it is ok to make bitchy remarks as long as the target can’t hear you? Weird.

16 and 18 is not a child in either case - plenty old enough to know right from wrong.

Ive had the same thing with my DiL OP. Ive put up with 10 years of rudeness and catty comments from that woman and said nothing, recently I just said that's it, no more effort from me and DiL and DS have gone bananas.
They can dish it out but can't take it.
I've found being super nice and taking the abuse gets you precisely nowhere, it doesn't make them change. Having very strong boundaries does.

I don’t dispute that for a moment and understand you’ve tried to be sensitive as possible, which is probably why you were so hurt.

Unfortunately this is not how EDs work.

If you take the time to read the posts from @Frequency. This is what I’m referring to.

I know other posters may have said they’ve had ED. I can’t comment further on that.

All I can say is there are degrees of suffering and levels of how mentally ill a person is.

And unfortunately I know far more about this than I would ever choose to.

I’m not sure about that, I see a lot of posts in this vein. Respect is a two way street, good behaviour is required from all parties, irrelevant of age, the op gave as good as she got, if not better, a parent should lead by example when they see bad or disrespectful behaviour. Not mimic it,

when they do they lose the upper hand, as the op has done.

We are all old enough on here to know right from wrong and yet we all sometimes do wrong. It's not an irredeemable crime for a 16 year old with a mental illness to make an unkind remark and misunderstand the deliberately cryptic response. It's not an excuse for abusive remarks from adults who should also know right from wrong.

Having anorexia doesn’t give you a pass to treat everyone around you with disrespect. Also, she made up the part about the OP looking her up and down because she was caught out.

what excuse do you have for the 18 year old?

From the behaviour of adult women on this thread - calling teenagers bitches cunts, manipulative, liars, little madams etc it’s all too clear where young adults get bad behaviour from.

What is this if not “bitchy remarks”? You think it’s ok because SDDs can’t hear you?

Where’s the respect for them? Or does kneejerk hurt feelz over-ride humanity?

Exactly.

Well you are making bitchy remarks about people who can’t hear you.

To be clear… sd has had keys to your house for years, treats it like a second home. This time, she’s made some comments about your body that make you feel uncomfortable, and you don’t want her to walk in unannounced anymore.

she is ‘ too upset’ to discuss it.

it’s a problem between the two of you, isn’t it. Why is she blocking talking to you? Do you not really get on well?

this is the overt rift that has long been lurking? Otherwise… it’s all seeming very unchill.

if she was close to you, she’d hug you and chat it out, no?

She said she smirked not eyed up and down the girl. the smirk was saying you think you got away with it, but I heard every word, combined with I'll go and cover up (all the bits you two find so funny). I think she was very restrained really.