How to help stepsisters bond

[Amuseaboosh]

Hello, I need help with a rift between DC14 and DC10.

Parents of each child met and married, creating a blended family.

14 and 10 year old have issues with one another. Stems from a few incidents when they first met where 14 year old wasn't very kind to 10 year old who basically wanted to be friends. DC14 was dealing with all the change in her own life (as was DC10) and told DC10 she didn't want to be her friend as well as other unkindness such as purposely not inviting DC10 to her family birthday party where every member of the family was named that she wanted there, even the dog, but my DC's and I were excluded from the list. When DC14 was asked why she did that, she said she meant all of us but couldn't be bothered typing out our names. DH believes her, I don't.

All of this hit DC10 very hard.

Both DC's are very attached to my DH. Obviously biology with his own child plays a huge part, but he genuinely is very loving of the other DC too and tries his best to be fair with both DC's.

DC10 has a diagnosis of high functioning autism, (Aspergers) and a diagnosis for ADD forthcoming. DC10 is struggling with the rejection from DC14 and can't get passed the fact that DC14 has been repeatedly unkind to her. DC14 isn't a mean person, I believe both children are coming from a place of pain and hurt.

DC10 is very protective of her personal space and is distraught that DC14 is spending time under the same roof as her. ASD diagnosis is very recent, so I am struggling to work out what is behaviour because she's 10 and having a strop and what is her Autism coming out. She says DC14 rejecting her has made it so she feels she can't trust people or make friends, her trust has been broken and she feels like DC14 is talking about her to others all the time and everyone hates her. I am very worried about these extreme feelings that DC10 has.

DC10 has begged for help with feelings of anger and inadequacy, DC10 feels no one likes her and that DC14 has been allowed to get away with causing her a lot of pain and hurt. DC10 wants an apology, DC10 has apologised a few times herself to DC14. DC10 has said after an apology for the hurt, she can move on, but it will take time and patience for her to build trust with DC14.

We haven't even spoken to DC14 about this yet as I don't really know how to resolve it. What if DC14 feels there's nothing to apologise for? DC10 is very upfront about her feelings, DC14 is much more sneaky and manipulative in the things she does so everyone sees DC10 getting really angry and upset while DC14 just acts all relaxed and like nothing has happened.

Both DC's are good kids with good hearts, how do we get them to work this out while keeping in mind that DC10 is neurodiverse and DC14 is a teenager going through her own stuff and missing her Dad.

You - expecting your ASD child to give up her safe space for a child that has spent years being horrific to her.

You - allowing your DH to enforce brutally unfair double standards re behaviour expectations, for fuck sake, stick up for your children.

Him - for not ensuring his teenage daughter has her own space at his house.

this^^ is spot on. I also have DC with ASD and wouldn’t ever expect them to give up their safe space. DH needs to make the office into a multi space so his daughter can have her own space when is stays.

She stays*

This is ridiculous! So her dad and his "new family" have all moved to a nice new house together and, even though there is a room that could be her bedroom, clearly she's not important enough or part of their family enough to get her own room. Dad getting his office is obviously more important than her. No wonder she's resentful.

And expecting your dd to give up her bed for a teenager that has been nothing but horrible to her is awful, even more so because she's got ASD.

I'm sorry OP but you and your DH both sound clueless and pretty selfish tbh.

What ages were the girls when they first met (and the birthday party debacle happened)?
They weren't 14 and 10 unless you and DH had a whirlwind romance and wedding.

It doesn’t appear that any of these traumatised kids are being raised trauma-focused, or prioritised? Just…made to live with their mothers new bloke and his offspring part time and their entirely natural reaction to that is now a problem? I’d love to be corrected and OP let us know how moving her kids in with this guy and his part time kids is prioritising her kids.

Some great insight, advice and responses here, thank you for those.

Those of you that are clearly projecting from your own hurt childhood or the childhood of your own children, it's sad that you/your children have had those experiences. I hope things improve for you. Thank you for your insight.

Those of you that are clearly downright crazy, pitchfork wielding villagers, I despair. But thank you for the entertainment, we enjoyed reading your crazy.

This tbh. Blimey. All a family but one just a visitor without her own bed? Yet preaching kindness? You clearly don't understand kids/teens.

And you won't get anywhere while you label anyone who disagrees, many of whom with direct personal experience as 'crazy' 'pitchfork welding villagers'. What a peach.

Poor bloody kids, tbh. They didn’t sign up to play happy families with new partners. It’s so sad that you see this kind of crap played out time and time again on here. They aren’t an inconvenience getting in the way of your and your partner’s relationship.

How many children does your partner have, and how are the bedrooms allocated between all the children in the family? You say up the thread that your step children have space in the home that you share, but where is that space if dsd has no bed?

I don't think it's sneaky to lie about forgetting to add your dc's names to the invite, I think she just wanted her immediate family at her grandmas house and didn't know how to tell her dad that.

She is watching her dad form a completely new family where is doesn't sound like there is much space for her.

What you can do, is make her some physical space and give her some emotional space with her dad. Let them have 1:1 time. Having to fight your children for space in her dads life is never going to lead to happy families.

Whatever has happened, you say yourself that your dd has said some really nasty things (wanting to destroy her). A child with ASD is probably going to struggle to give up space to anyone, never mind someone they don't like.

I really would take a step back from the happy family picture right now, they don't see themselves as sisters. I think if you make space for everyone things might improve and you can go from there.

Am I doing the wrong thing by pushing kindness on her? I don't want her to be a mean girl.

I don’t think you know what kindness is. Kindness isn’t something you tell your children to do. You have to actually feel kindness and model it for your children in your behaviour towards other people. There is nothing kind towards any of these kids in your or your DH’s behaviour from what you’ve said here, so it’s little wonder that none of them are behaving very kindly in return.

You could say that about full siblings.

I haven't heard of many parents ask their children can we have another baby ?
And if they fight - that you can't force them to be friends or play nicely ?

Why does this mentality only apply to blended families. I personally, am raising my children to be nice and polite to everyone esp any child with ND.

I don't wanna raise that "kid" and if my children act poorly I will address that.

Unkind people are unkind because no one else has told them it's not ok

So you have 3 dc to his one dd. She doesn't have a bedroom or a bed and doesn't have time with her df alone and is expected to mix with her step siblings and sm. I suspect this is one if many reasons she's not very happy.

I think the best thing would be to remove all the pressure from the girls to feel any way at all about each other.

Thinking of them as stepsiblings who need to bond doesn’t help. From their perspective, they aren’t siblings of any kind. They’ve been thrown together because their parents married.

If you remove expectations about any kind of relationship, you can probably help your 10 year old adjust much better, and the 14 year old will feel less like she needs to openly reject your child.

Ok the birthday party issue is a red herring here from your later posts. Its absolutely crazy that DC14 doesn't have a room, your husband has to give up his office. What possessed him?. And you certainly can't ask DC10 who's already struggling with the relationship to give up her bed?? That was never going to help!

I'm confused on the time line here but I assume they all got on well for the first couple of years of blending before you married? So try and remind them of this- maybe recreate days out or holidays they had together as younger children, inside jokes, games etc. Try and remind them of the bond they used to have before things started to fray. But most importantly, let them both have their own space and don't force it.

I had a similar issue - Dsd7 and dd8 adored each other when we first moved in and wanted to share a room. Once my dd was 11 and started puberty they stopped getting on and wanted their own space but dsd didn't want to give up the bedroom (en suite) and move to a smaller room. Because she only stayed during school holidays, maybe 3 weeks a year, it would've been silly to make my dd give up the room (doesn't see her dad so here 100%). We got round it with a room makeover for dsd with all new furniture and decor.

How many DC are involved here?

No she doesn't. We've moved house recently and the room that should have been DC14's room has become her Dad's office.

Goodness me! On each of you posts @Amuseaboosh I feel even more sorry for your 14 year old DSD.

You seem to condone your own DD’s rage against her, you call the DSD14 “sneaky” and now you tell us that she has no space of her own in her father’s house!!

At 14, her thoughts about whether she even wants to visit her father will be taken into account.

You are forcing her into playing your version of Happy Families. But you seem to have very little empathy or compassion for this young woman. And NO understanding of what she might be going through.

Realistically, she’s not going to just say ‘I don’t want them there’.

Not inviting you and your children is clearly a problem so she’s going to try to explain it rather than get herself in more trouble.

Rather than being so black and white and weirdly direct about it, maybe try to see it from her perspective. You do seem
berg keen on appearing empathetic to her in your posts, but underneath it there’s little attempt to really think about what it’s like for her.

She’s 14. She doesn’t want new stepsiblings (or probably a stepmother). Very few teenagers would. But she knows she can’t do anything about it and almost certainly feels she can’t just say what she feels about it.

Her dad needs to give her time and space and remove the pressure. Teenagers are often much more likely to open up (to some degree) in indirect ways. Confronting them and demanding explanations doesn’t work - especially not when it makes telling the truth about how she feels (probably ‘it was a family party and I wanted to invite MY family. They’re not my family’ or similar) impossible. She’ll have felt she had to pretend it was a mistake of some kind.

Put your DH office somewhere else in the house and give the 14 year old a bedroom.

I think I'm part of the issue here. My parenting is underpinned by kindness and compassion for others. When DC14 has been unkind, I've told my DC's that they can't mirror that unkindness because that's not the right thing to do.

You seem to use the concepts kindness and compassion very strangely. And have such rigid thinking about ‘the right thing to do’.

The bed situation is a very good example of it. You didn’t think about it from either child’s perspective at all. But you used ‘the kind thing to do’ to try to force your DD to give up her bed for your SD. It’s not at all like asking her to move for visiting grandparents. It’s an already problematic and tense situation where the children feel unsettled by stepsibling relationships. It’s neither kind nor compassionate to ignore all that and tell a child ‘you need to be kind and do this’.

I know you’re going to react badly to this suggestion, but have you considered being assessed for neurodivergence. Quite often mothers are assessed after their child’s neurodivergence has been diagnosed.

We both work from home and yet had no office until dss hit 19 and we started using his room as he moved to his own place. Our 3 shared a room so he had his own room.
A 10 year old is not going to be a very attractive proposition to a 14 year old. Add to the mix a stepsister and ASD there is little chance they will more than tolerate them.

I think if you want to show your kids they need to be kind then you have to model it yourself. You should move out of your bed and sleep on the bunks and your husband can take the sofa. But you won’t!!! Why should DC10 model kindness when you don’t

*You - we are a family, you are sisters

Also you - DSD14 you are A VISITOR

Chaos and totally conflicting messages*

Op, you may have stopped reading given MN is deemed crazy by you however please take on board the messages. It isn't projection as I haven't ever had a step family situation.

You are trying to force a family blend with 4 (or 5) children and 2 adults. Accept that the road will be bumpy but critical is that you and your DH are on the same page. He will be protective over his daughter like you want to protect your children. Blending is a nightmare especially at teen years. Whilst you may not want to hear this the reality is many step families have major issues which appear later down the line.

If you rushed moving in together then recognise that - ask the children what they need but focus on your step daughter who is the visitor to your house and is obviously outnumbered.

I remember you're last thread even though you've name changed it was a covid relationship of 18months which you moved into and married each other last than two years people told you it was too quick then especially given people were living in a bubble. I'm not surprised your dsd is struggling she's had massive changes in her life, shes lost her personal space at her fathers and gained 3 new step sisters who she know has to share her celebrations with her extended family. It sounds like she has no safe space at all.

You have zero empathy and understanding on how she might feel and are wanting to paint your dds are being good and her as the bad one which is grossly unfair they are kids. You can call posters but it won't stop the issues going forward. You can if you take notice on what people are saying to you. You can't have it both ways as be a family unit but then say she's a visitor in her father's home and doesn't have a bedroom you are contradicting yourself. It also might be worth her df allocating someone to one time with her dd.

Exactly this.
I feel sorry for both these children.
Why does your DH prioritise an office for himself over providing a bedroom for his daughter?
Neither adult has thought this through.