DP humiliated DSD(12)

[butbyanyothername]

DSD is 12, lives here full time. Been with DP 5 years, our kids are both little so completely out of my depth with a near teenager.

She had 2 school friends round for a sleepover last night, no problems. One set of parents came to pick them both up this morning as they live close to eachother.
Lighthearted conversation about how much mess they’d made, plates and cups everywhere etc.
Another parent said how they’d found a glass of smoothie in their dd’s bedroom that had turned completely solid/moldy, fine everybody laughed.
DP then said how we’d found used period products/ dirty underwear in DSD’s’s room.
Obviously nobody laughed, awkward change of conversation and they left. Poor DSD’s face completely dropped, her friends both looked at and made a face to each other and didn’t acknowledge her as they left.

I’m absolutely furious at him, he does feel terrible and has apologised but DSD is completely beside herself, has she’s not ever going back to school now and won’t come out of her room to talk to anyone. Sunday plans we had are probably going to be cancelled.

Any advice on how to deal with/rectify this? What do we say to her?
Is it worth DP contacting the parents to apologise?

That's really out of order. Poor DSD. Can you ask him to apologise to her?

How has he acted since? Did he go apologise? It's so so inappropriate to shame her like this.

No, don't contact the parents that will only make it worse. He needs to give DSD some space and back off, what he said was unacceptable but feeding into the drama will only make it a bigger deal. Hopefully it all blows over quickly and DSDs friends will forget and move on to something else to gossip about.

He definitely needs to go and apologise to her! And give a big hug as well and explain he just was a bloody idiot and didn't think. What the hell is wrong with him? Yes, and probably contact the friends parents too.

I think he needs to talk to DSD and ask her how he can make it up to her. Maybe she would like him to contact the parents, or maybe she would prefer not to. He's massively overstepped the line and he needs to respect her wishes for how to try and make amends.

That's awful. Poor DSD.

She’s already said he apologised, why is everyone suggesting he apologises?!

I did say in the OP, he does feel terrible and has tried to apologise to her.

I'm confused. Is your dp her dad? You write "our kids are both little" so I'm confused.

I think this is unforgivable, personally. That poor girl must be absolutely crushed. I fervently hope the friends aren't the type to spread gossip at school. What on earth possessed him? Is he usually an idiot?

I don’t think contacting the other parents will be helpful.

He’s apologised to DSD, there isn’t much more that can be done. He can’t unsay it. DSD is embarrassed because she knows her friends will judge that behaviour, embarrassment is a really hard emotion to sit with at any age.

It would probably be better if whatever you had planned for today go ahead, to take her mind off it.

Jesus what a dick move of him. If I were her I'd be forever more styling it out that my dad's a weirdo and "you know what he's like..."

Dp is Dsd’s dad, the op and he share two younger children.

Yes, he's her dad and she's my stepdaughter
We have 2 younger kids together.

Clearly OP and her DP have two small children together, and he has DSD from a previous relationship.

What an arsehole!

That was our thinking.
Have tried saying let's get dressed and go and do something nice, everyone will have forgotten about it by tomorrow but she's completely beside herself and convinced she now has no friends and can't go back to school.

Is there 1 of the girls she's closer to? I would maybe suggest texting her and saying "omg I'm so embarrassed by what my Dad said, it's not even true. He's such a xyz" because at least then hopefully the girl will reply and she'll feel better.

Tough one though, I feel sorry for her.

My mother was like this she would tell anyone anything about us even when we had our periods.
It was embarrassing.
I went no contact with her in the end and buggered off to live abroad i still think its not far enough.

I think it's time for Dad to put his hand in his pocket and buy some forgiveness.

@butbyanyothername I really feel for her, it’s such a hard age, social worries are a big thing.

The best advice I have for her is to front it out - don’t mention it to her friends and if it’s brought up a “yeah, my dad can be a complete idiot” followed by a subject change.

edited to add: seeming unbothered, even when she very much is, will quell interest in discussing it more.

Wow that's so bad

If I was you I would ring the mum of one of the other girls you are closest to and ask her advice. People tend to want to help - I am guessing she will suggest her calls your dsd - your dsd needs to know she is on good terms with her friends before school starts tomorrow.

Is he neurodiverse? My hubby would not be picking up my daughter’s underwear to notice state of them - I am not sure how he got to the point of finding such things

Jesus what an idiot he is. I would be furious as an adult let alone at 12 years old. Don’t force her to go out today, if she wants to stay home I think that’s fine. His just got to ride the waves on this one, young girls can be brutal and even though they probably have done the same themselves they could easily use this to bully her. Poor kid.

The trouble is that if she insists that what he said was completely untrue, her friends will conclude that her dad is some sort of sick pervert for making up something like that. Either way she's humiliated.