What would you do?

[Walkingalone21]

I will try to keep this as brief as I can.
Husbands daughter got in touch last year and it’s been rocky in our relationship for lots of different reasons since then. You think you know a person eh?!

We have pre teen and teenage children together and she is in her mid teens.
Recently it has been our children’s birthdays and she has messaged my husband attacking me because of the birthday posts I had put up on social media. How she isn’t being put in the picture and how others agree with her. Now, these posts are not any different to the posts I have put up any other year. In fact I put up a birthday post for her too. My husband has been amazing and defend me but I can’t help but feel hurt and pissed off. I have messaged her directly but had no reply. That was well over a week ago. Should I just let this go and move on? What happens when my husband wants her to come to our home? They are still speaking which annoys me because I would have at least expected her to speak to me directly especially with her having so much to say about me to my husband.
I feel like I am surrounded by land mines with this. What would you do?

But when I have been attacked for no reason after everything I have done to make sure she was, and felt welcome in our lives and opened up my home. It really hurts

Really surprised to read that you have teens as your responses seem to be more typical of someone who hadn’t dealt with teens on a routine basis. They do attack you for no reason. They are odd. It’s their changing brain chemistry. No point trying to understand the things they do much of the time as it will never make sense. Most teens are dicks. They do eventually come out the other side but often not until early 20’s.

You are expecting the step-daughter to act like an adult and are getting angsty when they are acting like a teen. Even more so when they are a teen with issues over and above the average teen which I’m guessing is the case given the background with her father.

Firstly thank you for all your replies.
@QuitMoaning I do think I will just have to absorb her anger. It still feels unfair but I am the adult and she has a lot going through her mind and her emotions are all over the place. I know it’s an awkward age even without these circumstances.

@HoppingPavlova Sometimes I wonder if I have a teenager too. I know I have been very lucky with their behaviour up to now. Other than the odd mumble under their breath we have never really butted heads and is very kind, open and respectful. I doubt that will be the case with my younger child who is very strong willed. I suppose this whole situation will give me some practice in getting used to what’s to come. Any kind of bad behaviour is addressed, spoke about respectfully and resolved, together.. so far anyway.

I suppose for me, my whole world and children’s world has been shifted. That is quite often overlooked in these kind situations. It really hasn’t been an easy transition for us either.

I’m just going to leave them to it. There isn’t any more I can do really other than apologise, which I have. If she chooses to blank me, then so be it.
I did think about removing her off my social media but I actually think that will cause more harm than good. I don’t want her to continue to feel rejected.

OP teen girls can have a bit of a queen of the universe complex where they eat sleep and breathe manipulation tactics. In our case there's been a huge attempt to leverage me out of SD's dads life and it's hugely frustrating. More so because we're nearly a decade into being together now.

When my DH received similar messages he firmly told SD that I'm a member of the family just as much as anyone else and behaviour or talk like that wouldn't be tolerated. You wouldn't tolerate it from a friend so the line does have to be drawn somehow.

My advice is to detach as much as possible from the madness but support your husband emotionally. If he's anything like my DH he will be very hurt by this and confused about how to handle the next step. Ultimately you need to take the personalised element away from you, you're just a pawn in all of this

Hi OP,

I sympathize. I had a 17 yo DSD who I got on fine with when we were interacting directly then would absolutely rubbish me to her father; called me desperate for not being able to find a man of my own, said I tricked him into having a baby with me (she knew well how untrue these two accusations were), called me pathetic and two faced, a loser, said she hoped the baby died in labour, laughed when my cat died, rolled her eyes when I had cancer... Then expected a warm reception from me when she messaged me an order three days after my parent died (which she had completely ignored.) And lots more.

So I really really get it. We do not have infinite patience to rise above it. Particularly as you have a teen child in your life who behaves well.

But you have to grit your teeth and remove yourself. She's not an adult and she's struggling. By all means hold her accountable when she's in her twenties. For now, just close your ears, dig deep to find your compassion and leave your husband to it. He has a long complicated history with her even if he was blameless.

Her brain can't unscramble what's happened and she's seeing photos of a picture perfect family that she wasn't a part of. You did nothing wrong at all but that's not going to stop her being upset.

Give them space and give yourself a break. It's not personal. He's not choosing her over you by not taking your side. He just sees it for what it is - a hurt girl trying to justify how upset she is.

The annoyance is because she had so much to say about me but won’t address it directly.

She's more likely to speak to her own parent, who she feels a bit more comfortable with.

So yes, it’s annoying that she has been messaging my husband.

Your husband. Her father. Nothing unusual about her going to him and I think it is best she goes to him tbh. Just like if you have an issue with her, it would be better to go to your husband first, especially given the unsettled history.

I did think about removing her off my social media but I actually think that will cause more harm than good. I don’t want her to continue to feel rejected

There's a way you can not delete her, bit restrict her from seeing your posts and she wouldn't know.

You can go to privacy settings on Facebook and restrict who can see your future posts. Go to 'friends except' ..then exclude her from seeing your posts.

Good advice from @SandyY2K on social media. I found out a few years ago that anything myself or DH did on social media was immediately judged, critiqued and dissected by SD and her mum so we decided not to share it with her anymore. It immediately diffused that problem

Oh yes good advice to hide yourself on SM. If you block or delete now it will look confrontational but hiding will get rid of that problem altogether.

When I met my DP and we decided it was a relationship one of the the first things I did was search for his ex and kids and block them. I knew (I had a stepparent when I was a teenage girl) the likelihood of them stalking and mocking me was high, plus I have older photos of wild nights out etc so I decided to hide online.

Of course I got loads of abuse on here one time I mentioned it, posters saying it was unwelcoming to his children. It really drove home how disregarded you are as a step parent; you have to give everything but get no decision making powers.

Really I think the best thing you can do here is pull right back, give them space to try and get a foothold then see where you fit in. It might be hard because the natural instinct is to bring her into your family and if that had worked it would be best. But it's not working so try to let them develop a relationship together.