Adult Step kids

[PinkyPunkyHairdoo]

Did anyone think that once they got to adulthood it would get easier, only to discover that it actually just changes to a different set of challenges.

I'm finding the passive aggressive comments and eye rolling kind of grating, given that we've just paid to entertain them for a week whilst they've been here (meals out every day, trips etc). This is a 20 something professional.

That sounds difficult for you.

How do you treat them? If you've always been welcoming and kind, they are being massively unreasonable.

Do they do the same for you? Do you go and stay with them?

Why do you think they're behaving like this?

Sorry if I sound like your therapist.

Always been welcomed with open arms. Bent over backwards when they were kids. I was a step kid myself so know how difficult it can be.

Also very disappointed to sit and listen to DSD take any opportunity to throw other DSD under the bus. DSD 2 has been through a hard time recently so would have hoped for a little more compassion rather than character assassination.

Just disappointed as I'd hoped she would have grown out of it. Sadly think this is the woman she is going to be

My two DSD are teens. Years ago when they were small I though it would get easier as they got closer to adulthood.
I’m seeing from their general behaviour and attitude that’s not necessarily going to be the case and like you said, it will be a completely different set of challenges.

Did your DH / partner call her out on her behaviour at all?

Call me petty but I'm inwardly refusing to pay for another meal out tonight and instead I'm doing a home cooked meal. I feel sad for DH as she drops negative comments about him, DSD2 and all his family when he's out of the room and then switches when he walks back in. This is particularly sad as she was their golden child when she was young (which I never agreed with btw and always felt for DSD2). Her grandad thinks she loves him, whereas she has been bad mouthing him to me today. I tried to brush it off and change the subject.

Thankfully she's off tonight but its just made me sad that she's now like this.

She's an adult not a child. Rather than brushing it off and changing the subject, perhaps you should call her out on her behaviour and explain how it makes you uncomfortable

@gurglebelly

She's an adult not a child. Rather than brushing it off and changing the subject, perhaps you should call her out on her behaviour and explain how it makes you uncomfortable

I'd do this. At 20 they are old enough.

Yes finding this myself, it's the demands and the entitlement, on top of a few issues that can't be helped when you live in two houses with a couple of very different expectations and personalities.
DSD is super selfish, she was never a sharer when little and has got worse. We have some lovely times together but we are definitely taken for granted. Now we have entered the serious adult relationship stage there are some real issues I can see of the lack of sharing and being generous not just with money but time, resources etc. I feel for her boyfriend. There is also the sense that she is not a kid but at 25 still acts like one.

I did sort of call her out by taking on the subject of a negative trait she'd raised about DH and then talking about it, then when he walked in the room I said something like ' we were just talking about you and how you...' and filled him in. She did look a bit sheepish.

I know what I'd say if she were my daughter but you're stuck between a rock and a hard place as a SM. I didn't want to create an atmosphere but equally she didn't mind being PA and eye rolling.

I'd really hoped by the time they'd got to adulthood we could just start to relax and enjoy each others company. Instead it feels like she's mentally taking notes all the time to bitch about us to other people the way she does about others to us. I never engage when she starts bitching as I feel I'm being setup.

DSD2 is very fragile in terms of her mental health so need to walk on egg shells around both of them in different ways

Don't start me on the entitlement. She's announced that she is going to live at home rent free for 3 years living off her low income earning mother so she can save for a house deposit. Not my business as her mother seems to have accepted this, not sure what her step dad thinks though

It's never easy. Our latest drama is when is the poor boyfriend going to propose, she keeps asking her dad how he proposed and what pushed him to do it. Her step dads daughter (they were estranged step dad and his daughter when she was a child so only recently getting relationship on track) is getting married next May. DSD hasn't been asked to be part of the wedding group as she's virtually a stranger but has taken it badly. She is competing despite barely knowing the girl getting married. She hasn't many nice things to say and it's all she talks about. When we try and steer a conversation to work or travel or family or anything she brings it back to this wedding. It's tiresome.

I have a very difficult DSD. She was 14 when I met her, 20 now. I don't expect her to be easier as an adult. I don't intend to work at my relationship with her or give her the same leeway as when she was a teenager.

I think as a SP it's easy to fall into the caring to much when they are kiddos as to not fall into wicked stepmother role.

When your world feels small, make it bigger, tale up a hobby, see friends go out ect.

Since DSD is a adult you absolutely need to call her out on what she says. I would be like oh that's unkind to say that about X, let's discuss it with x when they get home and then sort it like adults. Every single time.