I hate my step kids!

[Tappergirl]

They live with us full time, are parasites, and have ruined my relationship with my husband. Now though, I blame it on him for being spineless and taking every spat as my fault. I dont want to walk away but I can not see another option :-(

Shirley, you don't really have a wicked sense of humour do you? I said it was Les Mis to humour you, and you sounded so straight laced! No it wasn't Ta Dah!

OP did your stepfather hate you? Or did he attempt to get along, try to support you, be kind and supportive?

Which approach would you have preferred!

and not wanting to come home from work to teenagers being teenagers.

Ok well they arent going to suddenly stop being teenagers so what are YOU going to do about YOU not wanting to come home to teenagers? You have two options 1) stop coming home to teenagers 2) stop disliking coming home to teenagers.

What are you going to do?

I am trying to understand why you feel as strongly as you do.

And yet...... You then flip moods into jokes about musicals.

Is this real or attention seeking?

OP had 3 step fathers. I wonder if there is some projection from her own experience of being a step child. Perhaps OP was subjected to restrictive rules due to her step parents and believes that is how step parents are supposed to be.

shirley was alluding to a thread where you apparently pretended to be French I think. Did this actually happen by the way? If so why?

FFs Dia, give it a rest, just accept that everybody has a different situation in life and also a different agenda. I know nothing about you, other than if I worked with you in an office, I would press the ignore button. You accuse me of being rude, please take a look back at your own posts towards me, have a cuppa and hit the pause button for a brief moment.....

You knew everything before u married him u chose it

Where did i accuse you of being rude?

OP, Dia wasn't rude. She asked a relevant question. I had three step fathers, it's not as uncommon as you might think.

Please look at your circumstances from someone else's POV.

And as for everyone having different situation and agendas in life, why post about yours if you object to people commenting? You posted for a reason.

I feel so sorry for the 2 SDC. I have tried and tried and tried but I can not, for the life of me, see what they are doing that is so wrong.

There are posters on this thread who are SMs, but who are also mothers, who ought to take a step back and read their posts and think about what they written, then ask themselves if they would be happy for another woman (or man) to treat their DC like they have advised/posted if their marriage/partnership were to breakdown. I bet you wouldn't!

No Nicki, it didn't, wasn't me.

Jokes about musicals? Read the threads above to see why. What a really lovely bunch of women with sense of humour failure on this thread. I give up!

Maybe I am too outside of the box for you to be able to comprehend my sense of humour. Luckily that is something that DH and i DO share in common!

OP i have seen a thread before where you denied having two dogs and that the DCs came to live with you due to having mental health issues.

There really is no point at all in you posting if you just lie about anything you feel like to suit your current agenda.

You said "no I didn't see Les Mis, it was just a joke".

This long running thread is about your apparently unendurable domestic arrangements. And yet you now want to make jokes, or hurl abuse "FFS Dia.... I'd press the ignore button"

So many people have tried to help you. I've run out of patience, get a grip and sort it out. Put up, or shut up.

"Shirley, you don't really have a wicked sense of humour do you? I said it was Les Mis to humour you, and you sounded so straight laced!"

holds head in hands

I think you missed the sarcasm, wait, no, cynicism point somewhat.

Tappergirl, I'm your age. I live in a similar set up to you from the sound of it. I must, I really feel that I MUST, tell you this.

It's not the TEENS who are coming across as "needy and immature".

They're trying to get on with life. OK, you don't like the days spent xboxing in their rooms but you're hardly making them feel wanted and respected downstairs in the sitting room are you?

They do their own washing. They cook. that's an improvement on many teens, consider yourself lucky! They need nagging at to clean up. That's not immaturity that's standard for teens.

They're not the ones proclaiming the need, need, need to have their father and to share him with no-one else in the home.

I've read your other posts. You spoke in one with glee at your stepdaughter being away, that you "can't stand her" being with "us", which is telling, and that your wonderful, creative sex life with your husband will be "history" when his daughter returns home. You speak of her with real envy and venom, as though she were competition, a mistress, not a daughter!

Now who's being needy and immature? Really?

Ok so here is my final piece of advice.

Sit down with your dh and have an adult to adult conversation, do it on neutral ground outside of the home, take paper and pen with you to make notes on what you agree, disagree and can compromise on. Take all blame and "I this", "my that", "you this", "you that" out of the conversation, don't harp on about how you got to the point you are at, take it as "this is our current situation and we need to find a way to make it work and be a pleasant and comfortable environment for everyone". Find the middle ground between your differing styles of parenting.

Once you have had this discussion and come up with an agreed way in how to improve things, sit down together with the children and say to them "we've come up with a way to make everyone's lives easier and better, but we need you to be on board with it to make it work, it is all our home and we all need to live in it and feel happy and safe in it" then discuss it with them and come to a compromise and agreement that everyone can sign up to and no-one feels marginalised.

You will, however, have to accept that your step children are the product of their environment and circumstances, they are not you or like you were at that age, and even if they had the same circumstances as you did as a child there is no guarantee they would be like you were at a comparable age, we are all different and can react differently to the same set of circumstances. Stop comparing them with you and your upbringing and finding them wanting, that is your issue, you need to address it and work with the individuals you have not the ones you want them to be or think they should be.

You do still need to look at yourself and your reactions to things and remove the chip on your shoulder regarding your perceived injustice of the situation you are in. Also, your "I, me, my" attitude needs changing, there are four of you, whether you wanted that or not, and the only way for any of you to have any semblance of a happiness is for you to accept that, compromise, and see it as "our situation", "our home".

op I'm actually shocked you came back on to this thread. You certainly don't shy away from conflict! I think you do enjoy the drama.

I truly feel so sorry for your dsc, after what's happened to their mother they are now forced to living with a woman who has hostility and resentment for them radiating of her in waves.

It must be unbearable in your home for them. I'm hiding the thread now as this is appalling to read.

"I think it was an evening of WW1 themed showtunes? "

"Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag"?

"If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy"?

Or, "Here we are, here we are again"?

passes popcorn

Ok thanks for the explanation maybe.

I am now intrigued as to what the hell did the French poster say?

I have seen it mentioned on another of the OP's threads that she is this other poster. Apparently the circumstances and posting style are the same. I cannot comment as I never saw the other threads with the French poster.

I still don't think they have done anything wrong. But the op hasn't really either she can't help how she feels she does need to act on that though and either get family counselling or leave in some way.

I had a situation just now and it just made me think that it's exactly how situations like the ops are started.

Most of the time dp and I parent dsd (10 but with ld) who lives with us 50/50, we act like we're both her parents in every way and this works for us. But once in a blue moon we have a problem like today and if it happened everyday then I can see it becoming like the ops situation.
Dsd asked for a drink as dp was getting out a can of Fanta for himself, I said get yourself some water, at exactly the same time as dp said we can share this. I said have you had any water today (I didn't get up until they'd be up a while) she said no, I said anything else? she said no (this is 2 In the afternoon! We have a lot of problems with her not drinking enough and then wanting loads just before bed when she's not allowed due to bedwetting problems) i said can you have some water first then. DP just gave her the can after pouring some into a cup for himself and she went to drink some and I said have your water first, he said it doesn't matter just drink it and I then explained to him exactly why she should have the water first and he got annoyed and said drop it, it doesn't matter etc. I felt like he was, in front of her, showing her that she didn't have to do anything I asked and annoyed as I was trying to keep her healthy. I went to the bedroom for space as I felt angry at them both even though it's not really her fault, and then 5 minutes later he came and lied next to me on bed and didn't say anything I didn't move but I was getting annoyed that he'd followed me, then dsd obviously followed too asking if she could come in... leading to more feelings of 'but I'm trying to have some space!!!'. then when i left the room i asked have you had water yet and she hadnt yet.... It didn't help that 5 mins before this incident, I'd tried to talk to dp about something and he'd told me he didn't want to know, making me feel like he wasn't interested in me.

So I can easily see how if this sort of thing happened every day, I might feel resentment towards dp and dsd even though dsd didn't do anything wrong she was just being a normal kid. Luckily this is a one off for us!