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

[UnflatteringComment]

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?

@blackpear little madam indeed, its just cringe that she has twisted this to play the victim with an ED, when all her stepmother has done is withdraw gracefully and make a pointed remark to let them know she heard them.

There's talk about "calling out" the horrid behaviour, but a huge part of the issue is that OP didn't actually "call out" anything. She didn't tell the child she heard the remark. She made a cryptic pass agg comment with a smirk and the kid has misunderstood. Had she been direct about what she was upset about, then whatever else might have happened, there couldn't have been a misunderstanding. Tbh I might well have misread it, because smirks are designed to be superior and sneery.

OP and her husband have to act like the adults in the room because they are.

Well I saw someone basically using the logic that if you point out someone is a bully, that makes you a bully. Which leads me to believe that MN is full of immature people these days.

I don’t think she misunderstood

Nor do I. She's sixteen not six. It will have been as plain as day.

It doesn’t sound like they actually live there, just drop in when they feel like it so my opinion remains the same.

She didn't mimic it. Mimicing it would have been saying something horrible about their bodies. She simply let them know she'd heard the bitchy comments.

she hasn't lost the 'upper hand' at all. They've learnt their behaviour has consequences.

OP says it's no longer her house (except it obviously is in her head) how do you know what the financial arrangements were regarding the father's accommodation prior to this marriage?

I know you don't, but all things considered - usual teenage self centredness, ED, deliberately cryptic remark with a smirk, not expecting to have been overheard so no reason to make the connection and so on - it seems very likely to me. But I am also team It's Not Big Or Clever To Call A Child A Cunt On The Internet, and I'm aware we are outnumbered on this one.

Quite honestly I think a lot of this is people experiencing second hand stinging from a teenage remark about a middle aged body.

There was nothing cryptic about the OP's response. Nothing.

what abusive remark??

And this would likely result in 20+ years of continued sniping on both sides.

You could just have a group conversation in which you explain that you overheard their comments and were understandably upset. Your husband, if he has any sense, will prep them with this and they will apologise. You accept graciously and you then have some chance of a continuing pleasant family relationship.

OP has said they spend regular time there plus drop in.

He moved into her home.

The main point is that you seem to have felt justified in being psychologically wounded by this comment. And you aren't. It was a teaching moment from you as an adult to her as a 16/18 year old. You could have dealt with it in a calm and adult manner. Instead you escalated it to a feud which has caused enormous distress.

You could start modelling adulthood by apologising to SD, and her Dad making it clear an apology from her to you is also in order.

If OP and her husband split up, he will be the one moving out

Of course it was cryptic. It pretended to be about wanting to cover her own body when it was actually about the kid's comment that she didn't know was overheard, complete with a smirk that wouldn't make any sense if it had been direct and honest. Why on earth would you smirk at someone over deciding to put some more clothes on? I don't believe anyone doesn't understand that.

It was pass agg, designed to convey her displeasure without having to have an actual direct confrontation over it - plausible deniability, basically, and it was plausible enough that the kid totally misread it.

Abusive remarks: people on here calling the kid a cunt, a shit, and so on and then congratulating themselves for it. Read the thread, it's all there. Body issues really bring it out, I guess.

Big you don't know if he sold his house and paid off her mortgage or any other financial scenario.

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

Quite honestly I think a lot of this is people experiencing second hand stinging from a teenage remark about a middle aged body

@ThatCyanCat

I 100% agree with this. And I say that as a woman in my 50s.

I can't describe how unedifying I have found it to listen to women who appear to have matured in their bodies but not their minds or emotions, spill bile and retribution on a teenage girl. I can only conclude that these women have failed to achieve any sort of security in their sense of self and esteem.

No middle aged woman should be bothered by a comment from a teenager.

OP is getting a bit of a pasting here but I don’t think she has an anything seriously wrong, one of these teenagers is in fact an adult and should be aware of the consequences of her speech, or indeed any other actions.
She has not banned visits from the SDDs outright, just casual unannounced ones and a/she can do this, it’s her house and it could well be inconvenient at times and b/surely it’s no hardship anyway for the SDDs to phone ahead and ask to come round?

I said YABU because you reacted like a teenager. Why not just address it with them? A simple "i can hear you when Im out in the garden" would have sufficed.

Nope, but I can see why the OP is upset. She should be able to sunbathe in her own garden.

I have young adults and teens who wouldn’t dream of being so nasty about me or anyone else.

Just to say from the point of view of an ex anorexic, she might have genuinely misinterpreted your comment to be about her body. You're not thinking rationally when you're in that space, and can be deeply paranoid about comments.

Laughing at the idea of OP being cryptic to ensure plausible deniability - she didn't need plausible deniability as she had done nothing wrong. She would have been perfectly in her rights to say "I heard what you said and am going to cover up because you've made me self conscious about my body in my own home". She equally had the right to quote back what her stepdaughter said in order to highlight that the comment had been heard and assume the stepdaughter wasn't a complete dunce and could figure out cause and effect.

I don't think the SD genuinely misunderstood the comment, she was just embarrassed at being caught out and didn't want to handle the discomfort of coming to terms with her own nasty comments so has twisted the narrative (possibly even to the extent that she now believes her own lies) to give herself the comfort that OP is the nasty one.

What’s so bad about a father believing his own kids over his wife? So many men side with their wives over their children and get slated for it.

He can clearly see that the OP reacted like a teen herself - now she wants to stop them coming round as much as they do, The OP’s own description of her reaction is what is making people come down on the side of her stepdaughters.

But the amount of grown adults calling young women names makes me think that some of you should look to yourselves before accusing anyone else of being spiteful or bitchy.