I’m new, please forgive me if I don’t know the lingo quite yet. My husband and I have been married for 3 years now. I have 2 daughters from my previous marriage and he has 3 daughters from his previous marriage. My girls are younger; 9 and 11. His are older; two are out of the house and the youngest is 15.
Up until 5 years ago my DH and his girls lived in CO; about 1500 miles away, which is where his kids grew up. When DH and I began dating he moved to where I live in OH, so his kids stayed in CO with their biomom. They do not have a formal custody agreement; my DH is self employed so he’s fortunate enough to be able to go to CO for a week at a time every 6 to 7 weeks or so, during which time the youngest daughter spends the entire week with him, or his girls will come to us in OH and stay with us sometimes. Primarily just the youngest will come stay with us sometimes, since the older two are in college/ have their own families now. The youngest will come and stay with us for like 2 weeks over Christmas every other year, and come for a month during the summer.. I guess its to be expected that my DH’s daughter (SD15) had the toughest time I think with her parents’ divorce. And with him moving out of state. She
My kids father and I don’t have a custody agreement; he lives in the same town as us, and whenever he wants them they go to his house, but he doesn’t see them all that much and usually the longest he’ll have them is overnight; very rarely maybe 2 nights. It may average out to like 4 to 6 days a month I guess that he has them? He isn’t really a family man and he works out of town sometimes so that is a factor as well as to why he doesn’t see them that much.
So, while my kids’ bio dad isn’t ‘out of the picture’ so to speak, their stepfather, my DH, pretty much serves as their dad.
SD15 just left here after spending the month with us in OH and we’ll be seeing her again in about 2 weeks when DH and my kids and I go to CO for a one week visit.
I feel awful but I’m to the point where I just don’t even want to be around her. I’d like to get some unbiased advice maybe. I just find her rude, lazy, dramatic, selfish, just overall unlikeable. Is it me??
I think it started 2 years ago; SD15 was 13 and up until that point I really didn’t have a problem. We didn’t spend a ton of time together, but when we did it was fine, we got along, no big deal. But one day 2 years ago when she was staying with us in OH, we went to the store, did a little shopping, and she made a nasty comment in front of me, and my DH, and my kids, regarding DH paying for everything. Took me a second but I realized she was upset at the fact that DH was pulling out HIS debit card even though there were things there for MY kids. My daughters were pretty young at that point, 7 and 9, so they didn’t know at all what she’d said or what it meant or anything. But I did. DH knew I was furious; I didn’t say anything but we drove home and he did go and speak with SD15 in private to tell her she shouldn’t have said that, and that me and him are married and so our money isn’t separate yada yada. She did apologize to me; at her father’s urging of course but she did sound apologetic and was polite.
My daughters, especially my 11 year old (then 9 year old at that first incident) positively adore SD15. They are beyond excited when they know they’re going to see her – my 11 YO gets everything ready for her, makes sure her room is perfect, plans activities. So to hear SD15 basically put down my daughters like that and be just outraged that her daddy was spending money on them, got me to my core. I’ve worked since I was 15 years old; I’ve been at my current company for 16 years and have worked my way up to the top. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, I have never stayed home – like SD15’s mom did for all of her life – and I am extremely proud of my career and my work ethic. I do not ask for handouts nor ask anyone to support me or my kids. I never did speak to SD15 directly about this incident; when I’d go through the possible conversation in my head after it happened it always led to me explaining to her how I work very hard, I have worked all my life, I do provide for my kids. And then I’d realize I was preparing to f&$king explain myself to a 13 YO. Not going to happen. My DH did concede that it was rude, she should never have said it but he would add that she was just a kid, sometimes kids say stuff. He’d say ‘You don’t think your kids have ever said anything that hurt my feelings? But they’re just kids’. Which, at the time my girls were 7 and 9, so not quite sure what they would have ever said up to that point that would be so condescending and ugly. But OK.
I suppose my feelings for SD15 never really recovered after that. I had to watch my 9 YO/ 10 YO just adore SD15, follow her around like a puppy, all the while I had the knowledge that SD15 had put them (and me) down the way she did (I will say SD15 has never said anything nasty directly to my daughters or treated them badly or anything; other than minor step sister type things.) And my feelings get worse every year as does the strain on my marriage.
My DH and I’s situations are so different, I think that may be a big part of the struggle for him and I? He is raising my two kids with me; of course he disciplines them and corrects them and guides them. And I won’t lie it was difficult at first for him to discipline them; I wasn’t used to that and my first instinct at times was to defend them. But I learned to accept it, and work with him as best I can to raise my girls together. And I think it goes pretty well for the most part. I’m probably a little more strict on them than he is – I want to raise kind, generous, polite, helpful kids. When they’re wrong or being drama queens I have absolutely no problem setting them straight! When they’re being sassy or lazy I put them in their place and tell them what’s what.
This isn’t the case with SD15. I am not helping to raise her, I’m barely in a ‘mother’ role at all. Which is fine with me, she has a mother, but this means I have no disciplinary power, and I cannot talk to her/ set her straight like I talk to/ correct my own kids. So I’ve been just bottling up what I feel; trying to get through our time with her as best I can – sometimes that’s by just working late when I can, sometimes by trying to avoid her in the house, and usually by just keeping my thoughts to myself, etc. Its just gotten so bad this time; she just left yesterday after spending a little over 3 weeks with us and I quite literally cannot believe how long those 3 weeks felt. Me and DH dang near got divorced by the end of it. Its making me very sad – she is my family – she is DH’s daughter, she’s my kids’ stepsister. What is wrong with me? I have started, over the past few days, to speak out to DH. He does try to listen to me, I can tell, and try to understand. For the most part he’s pretty defensive though. Again with ‘she’s just a kid’ and kind of comparing her to my kids, as in ‘your kids say stuff and do stuff sometimes too, they’re just kids’. I want to scream ‘She isn’t a little child for God’s sake! She’s a 15 year old with a nose ring!!’ He has never been mean, or nasty to me, he is a wonderful, kind, caring man who loves me dearly. And I do believe he tries to understand. But I have a feeling its just extremely difficult to see your bio children in the same light as someone who isn’t related to them. Is it just me??? Here are examples from the past few weeks of what has really gotten to me (most of them, on their own, are nothing. But day after day of shut like this, it just wears on me.)
We go to a neighborhood function one evening – the event is at the back of the neighborhood so we must walk about ½ mile to a mile. DH and I each carry a folding chair on our back, my youngest daughter carries her own little chair, and my 11 YO and SD15 do not carry anything. We get to the event, DH and I each set up our chair, I set my phone down and put my drink in the chair’s cupholder then walk my youngest daughter over to her friend sitting nearby. I come back a minute later and SD15 has moved my phone and my drink over and is sitting in the chair, engrossed in her phone, doesn’t look up. DH must have seen my face, he smiles and says Oh you can just sit in my chair 😊 But I went to this function to be with my DH so we both end up standing the whole time, SD15 never looks up from her phone. My two kids were off playing the whole time, never sat down. Course once the evening is wrapping up I make a joke “I’m not carrying that chair back lol!” and DH isn’t happy he says ‘Its just a chair, jeez, I said you could sit in my chair’. I of course end up carrying it back.
We all go to the movies. We get to the snack counter and order food & drinks and the total of course is expensive. SD15 makes a noise about it and I gave her the benefit of the doubt – I said ‘I know, right, its so expensive nowadays for the movies! This doesn’t even include the tickets!’ And SD15 says ‘Yea but they don’t need all that’ and gestures to my girls, who got popcorn and a drink just like SD15 but also got a candy and one of them got an icee too.
SD15 does not do her own laundry at our house, does not wash dishes, does not take the trash from out of her room. Now my youngest is 9 and doesn’t do a whole lot around the house. But my 11 YO does her own laundry and cleans her room, takes out her trash, and does often offer to pitch in, whether its putting up the groceries, picking up in the living room, etc.
I don’t do well with negativity and complaining. Yes of course my two kids complain at times, sometimes a lot. Me and DH have no problem telling them ‘Hey, chill out OK. Calm down.’ About 60% of what SD15 says is negative and/or complaining. I will say, my DH can also tend to get too negative for my taste at times, and from what I know of SD15’s BM , she is an extremely negative ‘play the victim’ type of person. So I’m certain that SD15 is only mimicking what she’s been around her whole life. But its so frustrating, and within a week of her being with us I can tell my daughters are picking up that negative attitude.
SD15 says (has been saying since I’ve known her) that she has an allergy to something. DH explained to me once before that they’d taken SD15 to an allergy doctor when she was young and she had a slight reaction to this item. SD15 brings it up at least once each time she’s with us. We recently had kind of a dramatic moment while out in public due to even the possibility of this alleged allergy – nothing major, granted, but pretty embarrassing. I’ve never seen SD15 show any hint of an allergic reaction and DH has told me before that the biomom is the one who really played this up, and that SD15 has likely grown out of any allergy she may have once had to this item, and but now BM has SD15 believing she’s in ‘danger’ at times when its just absolutely ridiculous. But he wouldn’t dare to ever call SD15 on it, or anything else completely dramatic that she does or says.
The overall rudeness gets to me. SD15 will interrupt a conversation, no problem, and begin talking over me, or over DH if he’s the one talking to me. DH has never said a word.
A few days ago DH and I were discussing something, SD15 was within ear shot. I won’t get into details but it was regarding Covid, specifically how pleased we were how OH handled a certain thing; we praised the OH governor, etc. SD15 happens to be of the opposite mind from us when it comes to some Covid mandates and points of view, including this one that we were talking about. Anyway DH and I are talking about how OH handles this issue, and SD15 looks up from her phone and says from nearby ‘Dad – you know that OH is 44th on the education scale? Do you know what CO is? 6th’. That was it, no one responded. I guess that was something she looked up so that could proclaim what uneducated hicks we are in our area? Not sure. DH certainly didn’t say anything back to her.
This was extremely long, wow. Anyway, those are just a few instances of when I’ve really had to bite my tongue these last few weeks. Maybe these are very minor things and I need to get a grip. Maybe this is all normal behavior and my kids do all of this too but I don’t get mad when they do it. I don’t know. I’d love to get an opinion from anyone else maybe in a similar situation, or who has been in a similar situation! Thanks for reading..