Struggling with step daughter and complaints

[Tuesday588]

Dsd is 9 and has been coming over every weekend during lockdown. From what I can see she generally has a nice time here and plays nicely with her step siblings. When she goes home her mum often phones up dp with a list of complaints/lies from her time with us that are generally aimed towards me. Examples include me supposedly watching her while she sleeps and me deliberately leaving her out by giving my dd more sweets than her. None of this is true but it has got to the stage where I dread the weekends and her coming over as I don’t know what I am going to be accused of next.
Dp usually speaks to her about what she’s saying and tells her it’s not acceptable and if she has any issues while she’s at ours to speak to him about it but the situation improves for a bit and then the lies start again. The last time she came over she was poorly when she went home and her mum has since blamed me for supposedly deliberately making her ill with my cooking.

I really don’t know where we go from this. I’m not happy for me to be put in a situation where I can be accused of something which isn’t true as her mum believes everything she says. Does anyone else have experience of anything similar and can make any suggestions of how to handle it? I appreciate 9 can be a difficult age so was hoping that it might be something she will outgrow but in the meantime I don’t want to be dreading her visits

Because then you can start to explore why she is doing it. But it then comes down to whether mum has any interest in resolving the issue or just loves feeding on the drama

@Tuesday588 get yourself the book "Say goodbye to crazy." Despite it's not very nice title it actually has some very good insights and advice around how to mentally detach from a destructive/malicious ex.

I'd say each evening, "Now I'm going to have a lovely relaxing bath while dad cooks dinner." Your partner's ex won't be happy when that gets back to her and she'll be insisting you're cooking again in no time.

Thanks all. I appreciate that dp probably does need to shield me from anything that is said. I think part of the issue is because his ex is so toxic, phones him screaming and swearing, it also takes its toll on him so I wouldn't want him to feel like he can't talk to me and has to bottle it all up himself. Insisting on email contact should help with the situation although I don't know if dp will want to suggest it to ex and she's prone to kicking off and withholding contact when she isn't controlling things

@MyCatHatesEverybody thank you for the suggestion , I will definitely look into this

Some good suggestions here and i agree it sounds likely these comments are aimed at gaining approval from her mum.

Your DH should ignore these comments, don’t justify them with any kind of detailed explanation. If by text, ignore, if a phone call say very little to shut the conversation down.

I don’t think your DP should tell you anything she says and he just needs to reiterate to his ex “that’s not true, I was there” every single time she raises a complaint. Once she knows it doesn’t get a reaction from you, she will probably stop (admittedly to try something else).

I’d also suggest your DP speaks to his DD’s teacher to say he is concerned about her lying and ask whether the school have any worries about her. He should be able to arrange a Zoom meeting.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I'd bet serious money that the mum hates you and the DD is telling her these things for the reaction/praise.

DH should just say, "um hum" and then end the call. I would feed this as little as possible.

Agree.

My first thought was any 9yo would complain to any adult if that adult then passed in there ridiculous complaints to said adult.

Kids donut about teachers all the time if mum to dad rings school.

It's a form of power.

I agree do stuff with your kids and leave her with dad.

And tell her. Me and my dcs are going to park and Mac Donald's and dads entertaining you and feeding you as I know last time "repeat whatever she's said to mum".

IME of many years of working with kids this age it's not so much a step family thing but a thing they'll do if it gets them power or they think it'll improve the situation to being all about them.

@Soontobe60

Next time she phones, let her say her piece, then reply - ‘thanks for that, see you next week’ and end the conversation. The ex is just trying to make trouble. And shes also trying to control what happens in your house. She has no right to do this. She’s most likely giving the poor child the 3rd degree as soon as she returns from your house, which is never a good thing to do, so your DSD is most likely making things up just to shut her mum up. I wouldn’t question your DSD about these ‘lies’ when she comes to you. You know what’s the truth, she knows what’s the truth. She’s being questioned enough.

Been there got the T-shirt

Ex would grill the child to the most ridiculous degree
Down to such small petty things

Child used to cry at the thought of going home.

It isn't the child's fault

The dad need to be tougher with the ex

Unless there is something urgent to do with the child's health then all communication should be limited to just about mechanics of handover etc.

Start making note

This is often the start of parental alienation

Things got so band for us we haven't seen SD for 10 years

This happened to me. It’s because BM doesn’t like you, SD knows this. She complains, BM swoops in as some sort of hero to protect her child, both feed off the negative attention. It’s a horrible cycle and feels like utter betrayal. Nip it in the bud if you can. We left it to get out of hand. It’s damaged our relationship with my Hs D.

I agree with other posters about moving to email contact. That way he can just respond. Thanks for the info and that’s it.

Typical case of ex likes the drama and causing issues an DSD probably gets quizzed on returning

@Witchymclovely

This happened to me. It’s because BM doesn’t like you, SD knows this. She complains, BM swoops in as some sort of hero to protect her child, both feed off the negative attention. It’s a horrible cycle and feels like utter betrayal. Nip it in the bud if you can. We left it to get out of hand. It’s damaged our relationship with my Hs D.

This! All of this.

We had the same for years. SC were trained as spies to use as ammo for the ex wife to bash DH over everything, mostly financial but also any opportunity to weaponise the children against him. The children picked up on "I give mum info and I get praise" so it snowballed really quickly.

We didn't read up enough on it to understand how long term the damage is for the children and they've been taught to manipulate everything to get what they want now as young adults. It's so sad.

Switch contact to email and grey rock everything that's thrown in your direction. She'll be puppeteering everything that happens in your house now and getting a kick out of it. Stamp that shit out immediately

I could have written these posts myself! Although I can't offer much advice I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one going through things like this, it's so hard and I tend to feel really alone with the whole thing.

I have a sd too, she's nearly 6 and I have been with her dad since she was 15 months old. Her mum is exactly how you have described, abusively messaging my partner within hours of sd returning to hers, and up to a week afterwards, at all times of the day and night about 'awful' things we have supposedly done, some completely made up, and some (in my opinion) completely reasonable such as asking her to wash her hands after using the toilet and not putting a spoonful of sugar on her already sugary breakfast cereal.

It got so bad (and very abusive) that my partner's mental health took a real turn for the worst. He has now told her that he will speak to her on day of pick-up and day of drop off and the rest of the time has her muted on WhatsApp and doesn't 'receive' her messages until the times agreed. This does seem to have helped our situation and luckily she rarely rings us as she tries to hide the amount of contact she has with my partner from her new partner.

Best of luck with everything - and thanks again for posting.

All of these issues are down to the fact that the dad is actually giving the ex airspace

@Tuesday588 your oh needs to stop answering the phone to her. Email only and only respond if absolutely necessary, and then “noted” “agreed” “I don’t agree” but mostly complete ignore everything she sends

This is what my oh had to do. Ex is blocked on everything except Email. His office known not to put her through but she hasn’t tried that for years now.

She would also grill sd and you could see sd anxiety levels rise the closer to home time it got.

In the end ex used sd as a weapon and it was destroying the girl. It got worse because the ex could manipulate Everything and everyone

Not any more