Step daughter makes me feel so unhappy in my own home

[Futurebride]

I'm not really asking for advice but not sure what else to try to make things better. Sorry this goes on a bit.

My SD age 13 won't acknowledge me and its got worse since I married her fantastic dad. I've known her for 7 years, she was always cold toward me but I thought in time things would improve. Eventually they did a little, but since the wedding things have deteriorated. SDs mum is jealous and intentionally unhelpful and works against us - we have standards and are trying to bring SD up to be a respectful, balanced person but SDs Mum won't work with us on discipline (she thinks it's OK for SD to shout F Off in my face and says she doesn't care what goes on in our house) and won't remove privileges for really bad behaviour like we do, so we are seen as the bad guys.

SD is increasingly difficult (knowing her mum will back her up). She won't acknowledge me or talk to me. She leaves the room purposely saying goodbye Dad, goodbye Dog, but not me. She increasingly harps on about the times before I was in her life. She says the sky is green if I say it is blue. I cook her favourite food then she refuses to eat it. She is refusing to do anything her Dad asks her to and is rude. In addition, we have the usual teenage battles of too much phone time, only coming out her room to eat, refusing to engage in household activities when we give her the choice of what to do together, refusing to clean her room etc. She has vaped at 12, smoked joint and now just had sex at 13.

Her attitude is so awful toward me and her Dad that the atmosphere is now awful in my own home. She genuinely believes she can do what she wants in life. We have suggested she perhaps spends more time with her Mum but she doesn't want to (as she has a friend near our house). I have an older daughter so I know about teenagers but SD is is on a different level. We have never criticised her mum in front of her. I have only once tried to intervene in discipline when she was screaming at her Dad and that went very wrong. In 7 years I have always bit my tongue on her manners and behaviour and try to address them through her Dad. He has been good in trying to address her behaviour and they used to have a close relationship as he has spent so much time doing outdoorsy things with her, but now he is at a loss what to do, esp with the promiscuity this week. SD is already having counseling at our suggestion as she wont talk to us. I have always been kind to her and not get involved with discipline, but it has got a lot worse not helped by the fact her Mum says her Dad doesn't want to know her since he got married! (We are dealing with a jealous witch) We are therefore dealing with 2 children and just don't know how to make things better for all of us. She is with us every other week but I now feel like I don't want to be here when SD is , yet it is my house.

OP what is the housing situation? Whose house is it? I think you may find it just doesn't work to live together. Is it your joint house? Can you get a flat and either you or he with his dd live there on his days?

Messy but you don't need to live with abuse and he does need to house his dd on his days.

The joy of being divorced is that you can dispose of them if you like 🤣🤣

No, you can't. Parental responsibility can only be dissolved through an adoption order.

( there is another thread right now where the mum is chucking her naughty daughter to to SM and apparently THAT is ok so double standards much?!)

I'm not on that thread. And no, it's not OK.

There is something wrong with someone who thinks of children as a problem to be got rid of instead as having problems to helped with.

What’s the relevance of this? Her dad has an equal obligation with her mum to feed, clothe and house his DD whether a judge says so or not.

He pays maintenance I assume. So he does that. It was in relation to the ‘he has to have her on his days as the court says so’

which is probably not true.

he does need to parent, but he doesn’t need to do that at the detriment of the OP. So he could do it elsewhere until the behaviour is improved.

If arrangements were contested, there would be a court order. I suspect that that's why Dsis and I were subject to one.

None of this alters that he's her dad and the word for men who dump kids on their mothers is "deadbeat".

Marry a deadbeat dad and encourage him to be deadbeat, you get the husband you deserve.

“He pays maintenance I assume.”

OP said that DSD was with them every other week. I read that as 50/50, though of course it may be EOW. Given OP is finding it hard to avoid DSD, the implication was more than EOW to me.

Irrelevant either way, he doesn’t get out of being a parent by paying some money and not parenting.

I mean the semantics over who's house it is,

Op puts "yet it is my house"

What I'm trying to get at are the posters that seem to be saying it's ops husbands house and dsd house but seem to omitting rather passively that it's also ops.

If someone is abusive to me in my own home you best believe that I will have some skin in the game in with how it's dealt with.

“he does need to parent, but he doesn’t need to do that at the detriment of the OP. So he could do it elsewhere until the behaviour is improved.”

That I do agree with. But it’s a different point to your previous ones.

If OP wishes her DH to move out part time to home his child, that’s between her and the DH to sort.

@namechangnancy don’t think anyone is omitting it, but you do you.

Hahah thanks, I’ll let them know 🤣

I agree with this. But it’s also why I waited until my stepson was legally an adult and out of the house before moving in with my now husband.

He is welcome here any time and has space of his own. But he knows it’s also my home and that I have an equal say in what goes on here.

I’ve not ever, in any of my comments, made ANY reference to the OPs turn of phrase in that respect.

My interpretation of this is the despair of the OP and the seriousness of the situation. So instead of picking at her words, I’ve seen the bigger picture.

I'm sure I just saw a comment saying that dsd would see op as an invader into her home... like a flatmate who dsd didn't agree to. Framing it as ops moved into dads and dad home. When in matter of fact it is ops house.

But it's a bit this and that imo - everyone in the house has a right to be treated with respect and dignity. Everyone including sm.

You could say that about a child that gets a sibling, many parents don't sit down with their children and go we wanted ask you if would it be ok if have another child ? The reason for this is they are a child and will have child like response.

If my dd started being verbally abusive to her sm and started behaving like this I would come down on here like 1000 bricks and get her in to therapy if I thought the break up of my marriage had turned her into person who thought that was ok.

And I would support sm and dad at any rules that were imposed as a consequence.

But op has a husband problem because as a parent he has to knock this behaviour on the head.

I agree. I would not tolerate this behaviour from any of my own DC so why on earth from a step child? I'd tell DH when it's his week with DD he needs to find somewhere to take her during the daytime and just come back to sleep because until the brat learns to be civil you don't want her in your home. Make him sort her out

Thank you for coming along and seeing sense. I was starting to think I was nuts for thinking that the OP is important to. Everyone else seems to think that the OP should shut up and put up and we should all swim in empathy for the ‘poor’ step child. ( as usual on these threads tbh!)

But op has a husband problem because as a parent he has to knock this behaviour on the head.

I think it’s difficult to appreciate the extent to which you are absolutely fucked as a parent if the other parent is undermining all attempts to raise a healthy child. Someone who puts their hatred for their ex above all else will destroy their own child if it helps their cause of hurting the other parent.

If you haven’t seen it in action it is incredibly shocking.

I totally agree.

Fully agree. It will be hard for him to have a big impact on her behaviour without a united front from her mum.

That's not to say he shouldn't try. He absolutely should. He should be telling her it's unacceptable continuing to encourage therapy etc which it sounds like he is.

But if she's going home to mum who says her behaviour is okay and encourages it, what hope is there that there will be any big changes.

I framed it like that because the marriage made it no longer just OP's home, but also a father's and his daughter's home. It's the girl's home too. Who was there first isn't actually important.

It's normal to have siblings. Marriage is supposed to be for life, so by definition it's not normal to have stepparents.

We are in 2024 not 1924, I think you'll fine that it is increasingly becoming the norm!

Such an unhelpful comment.

And here’s another thing. If you are a decent person and you marry a decent person, your own tranquility depends on the health and happiness of their child. On them having a good relationship with one another, at minimum.

Because there is an absolute dark pall over everything for a good parent if their child is miserable and struggling. And if my husband is deeply unhappy, there is no real happiness for me either. Maybe everyone learns to live with it over time, but I hope to never find that out.

Beyond that, there is the constant chaos when a struggling child and it can get worse as they get older. Drugs, jail, unplanned pregnancies, uncared for grandchildren. Decent people can’t easily ignore this type of chaos and just enjoy their daily lives.

I wasnt shitty to my stepmums but my dad had a knack of making me feel ignored and unloved and like he'd moved on. Eventually, he did. Cut off all contact at 17 when he met a new woman to whom it was not convenient to have me around. I didnt have this tension with stepdads on the other side, they tended to be accepting and fun and my mum made me feel loved and secure. I feel bad for the girl in this situation tbh.