It's my first post on here and i apologise for just how worked up i am for this. I'm posting because i need some serious advice from neutral people ahead of having a major discussion with my Husband tomorrow night regarding my 'adult' SD.
I walked into a relationship with my OH with full knowledge of his domestic set up at that point. I accepted he came as a package with a 4 year old child and thought i had my eyes wide open. I knew and accepted that i would be having my SD every weekend and the majority of holidays too. I loved and adored my OH and i came to love and adore my SD too. I truly mean that too. When at age 10 her domestic situation changed (i had just given birth to our first child together) and i was asked literally on the spot to have her move in permanently with us i was so keen to help my Husband that i readily agreed. I had, after all, spent 6 years at this point in a happy and healthy relationship with her.
Over the years we had one major blip when she was 17/18, it was quite a blip and affected us both deeply but somehow we got past it.By the time she left for Uni we were as we'd always been, completely close as anything. (her bio mum has been nothing short of horrible to her over the years so i've always 'stepped up' and been more).
However, my current issue began after Uni. At first she said she wasn't moving home as had met someone and they were moving onwards together (he was nice, they were happy, i thought they were too young etc... but she was adamant). Still, i got the loft converted so we could move one of our 'now 2 children together' into a bigger room and still allow her to be able to move home after if need be. So far so good. Invariably, her plans didn't go her way post uni and the boyfriend insisted they spend 6 months to a year getting more funds together and then move in properly. She returned home rather unhappily in this regard but with this being the plan. Unfortunately this is where it goes a little wrong on all of us as we failed (i now see) to discuss what the plan was, what would happen, lay down any rules, structure anything at all. Thus, i spent a first miserable year post uni with her living out her relationship under my roof and rather painfully so. She became surly, rude, sharp with her siblings, came and went as she pretty much pleased, got a great job but offered no upkeep at all, lived in a pigsty, destroyed the shower room she came to see as utterly hers (as we have more than one bathroom lucky for us) and just generally sent our lives into a year of miserable chaos. To the outside world and OH's family she was still the great girl she'd always been, no complaints there and i'm not prone to going moaning to them either as not their problem. However, it DID start to erode the relationship between me and OH very gradually. During that first year i lost my second Brother to cancer and i was at a real all time low but trying to work, run things, love my children, deal with SD and her other half in the house and the constant rows and tiptoing around things that everyone was doing.
A year into things, no doubt with things festering with me i completely lost it at my OH about her speaking rudely to me and for once he'd actually overheard it too. When i say 'rude' it was always done in quite the clever way... nothing you could fully pinpoint. But it was with disdain almost and i didn't like it. So... I blew. NOT at her i might add as we'd had that once at age 17 and neither of us had quite recovered from that. Instead I just walked away from her and raged at her Dad. So, in turn, he ended up blowing at her. He didn't mean to, he simply said "WHEN you've gone through life a little, lived a little and earned the right to form opinions on everything, you can decide then if you get to be rude to people like your step-mum - until then maybe you could grow up a little". Unfortunately, that statement provoked the most hellish row they've ever had in their lives and my SD said the most terrible things i've ever heard her say to him. I was no longer upset for me but furious for him (he has been an amazing Dad to her, nobody is perfect ... but he's been her everything, and i've come a pretty close 2nd over a long time). So it hurt.
SD tried a few days later in a roundabout way to apologise for some of the things she said 'whilst simultaneously blaming us for making her say them' which didn't bode well with me at all and made me even more angry then i was. I then ended up losing my rag too and said things that really weren't pleasant at all. Quite a few hurtful things got flung in my direction that i wont go into and i reciprocated pretty awfully too much to my horror, but there you go... cant be taken back now.
A few weeks later her boyfriend dumped her and the atmosphere at home became worse.
THAT was a year and a half ago.
Cue today and i'm just NOT living a normal existence at home at all. In fact, i dont feel like i've lived a normal existence in my house now running into a third year. Nothing is 'natural' anymore, nobody ever fully recovered from the huge row. No apologies ever came our way, quite the opposite at the time ("all my friends think YOU are wrong") and there it was..... We come and go in 'polite terms', there are no more rows... but there is no more anything really. We all exist alongside each other but not in an entirely comfortable manner. I DREAD coming home :( i mean REALLY dread... each and every day. I can't seem to get past it no matter how i try or resolve to do so :( I'm still so very very angry at her and cant get past it much to my dismay.
I'm confident she would prefer we WOULD get past it, and i've no doubt she wishes it wasn't this way either, but my resentment has done nothing more than build this last year and a half. We've now had to rip up the shower room as it's now completely disgustingly ruined. I cant bring myself to go near her room as it's so beyond shocking and it's hard to 'parent an adult' in all honesty. I'd be telling my younger ones to 'pick that up' 'bring that plate down' 'clean that sink' etc... but it no longer works this way as it's just plain awkward as she's nearly 24 now. She'll come in at all hours and then stay in bed all day at the weekend, get annoyed if the kids go near her room etc. During the week she still works at her very well paid job, yet still 2 years after getting that job she is yet to offer one penny in contribution (again, we should have covered this from the off, but when you're told someone is going in 6-12 months you tend not to maybe cover everything you should have covered) - but nonetheless i'm still angry that she never even offered.
I feel very very angry of late. I'm arguing non stop with my Husband now over it. I'd say we've pretty much argued over it every week if not every few days this last year - its going to kill the pair of us off. Everyone thinks we have this sold strong relationship (we did) and i'm just unable to discuss this with family or friends for fear of them holding it against her (i dont want them to do that and they would).
My husband wont talk to ANYONE about it at all, and as he cant talk to me without it now escalating into a full on row then that leaves him nobody and i'm actually devastated for HIM that it's this way. I should be the one person to take away his hurt and i'm causing him more by being unable to come back from this. He feels 'stuck' in this whole situation.
I feel she should be making plans by now, that she's an adult, a working adult at that and should no longer be acting like a teenager. She has many many wonderful qualities to her, all the things i have spent many years loving her for and heck raising her with myself. But i'm scared that if she doesn't make a plan to change this soon that it's going to implode at home and we will never return from it. I'll be throwing away 20 years and i'm starting to see no way out :( My 12 year old Daughter has started to ask me at bedtime 'what is wrong mum, is there a problem with you and SD?' and i'm devastated that being the intuitive little thing she is she has picked up on all the little things that clearly aren't normal anymore.
Tomorrow night i have asked my mum to come and babysit the children. I am going to take my OH for a drink and my intention is to explain that this cant continue, we need and deserve some plan of some kind, it's not unreasonable and i want to come back home with him on side and with some plan to go forwards with. I'm scared it's not going to go this way though :( :( :(
I don't want to type the 'am i being unreasonable?' sentence... as no doubt there are major parts of me being unreasonable. What i would really welcome though is some constructive advice to help me through the next stage of this.
Sorry this was so very long.