How to alienate the husband’s entire family…please help

[Kathyb677]

My husband and I met nearly six years ago. He has three girls, now aged 19, 15 and 14. I don’t have any of my own kids. The oldest SD lives with us but is at uni, and we have custody of the two younger ones.

However, the youngest stopped seeing my husband and I, and his entire family, just a few months into us being together. We have never known why or been given any answers and she stayed away for five years, full of hate for her dad, before reappearing just as suddenly in June 2023.

All has been going so well up until New Year’s Eve. It was a night that I felt was marred by the youngest having a melt down and screaming match before we had left the house to go to the family party at my husband’s mum’s house, then the oldest getting drunk and lairy and being offensive with her language and behaviour.

Yesterday I was in a text conversation with an old friend and I sent a text to her to say NYE had been a nightmare and that husbands girls had been rude and lairy, ending the text by saying I would make other plans next year. Except that rather than sending the text to my friend, I sent it to my stepdaughters and husband on our close family group. The girls saw it and were rightly horrified and offended. Ten minutes later we were due back with the whole of my husband’s family for a New Year meal. Of course everyone knew what I had done when I walked in, and so I apologised to the girls and explained that I thought I thought I was ranting to a mate.

I think the older two may forgive me, though at the moment I am deservedly in their bad books, but the youngest who had stopped seeing us for so long until just six months ago has now said she’s not coming tomorrow night when we were due to have her. I had dreaded this would happen, I just want to run away from the whole family who are all rightly offended.

My husband has no relationship with the girls’ mum so we have no room to appeal for their help in smoothing this over.

If anyone has any advice on what I can do to make this at all better I would be grateful please as I’m absolutely devastated and fear I have caused so much damage to my marriage but also, and more importantly, to the relationship being built back up between my husband and his daughter.

It was an accident and you weren't lying. I wouldn't beat yourself up too much. All you can do is apologise which you've done. It might give them pause for thought now the behaviour has been described. If she stays away that is her choice. Your dh can try and see her separately if needed. He can take her out and patch things up. Even take them on holiday for a bit to work on their relationship. Did he try and see her separately when she was younger? She can let you back in when ready. I feel for the 8 year old her not seeing her dad for whatever reason we don't know.

Whether the kids’ behaviour was rude or not, it’s never nice to realize your close family talks badly about you behind your back to a wider circle. Unless your friend that you texted knows the girls fairly well, they (at least the youngest) understand that you have created a negative picture of them to another adult, which is completely out of their control. Would you like it if your husband ranted about you to a colleague or friend that you didn’t know well enough to be sure the person had a balanced picture of who you really are? Kids deserve the same respect as adults, privacy and fairness wise. Maybe more.

These kids also now know that what they do around you or say to you can’t be trusted as private, it is potentially going to be shared with other people who weren’t there. Is that a harsh judgement based on one ranty text? Yes, but it is still a truthful one. The youngest daughter seems to have realized this most completely and, as is her right, maybe will trust you less in the future. She will probably behave better around you now (lest she become text material again) so that’s a win for you maybe, but if I was in her shoes I would quite be wary. Kids learn quickly who can be trusted as having discretion, who builds them up to others, versus who overshares or quickly talks badly about them.

There is nothing you can SAY to fix it…you just have to re-earn the kids trust by behaving differently going forward - showing them over time that it was a one-time event, and not sending any more criticizing texts about them. Don’t over apologize, or make a big deal out of it. Just say you were sorry and that it was an error of your judgement to share something negative about them with the friend in a text like that. Then don’t do it again. Have your discussions with your friend in person.