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.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia but that's exactly how you framed it.

It was dsd and her father's home and op was invading it. It's funny how now it doesn't matter ?

Of course btw it does matter because if op had moved into the family home dsd actions whilst not great is someone what understandable. That doesn't mean however anyone had the right to be verbally abusive in the family home.

If trauma hurt whatever is causing anyone to act that way, then that needs to be dealt with, and if dad refuses to deal with it it's on him and any fall out or consequences of verbal abuse don't just fall on the person being abusive dsd but also on the people who enable that behaviour to continue.

Just becauseop married a man with a child doesn't mean she has signed up to accepting verbal abuse directed at her and in her home.

If dad doesn't like it well he has options and agency... there seems like quite a few people on here would be willing to put up with it directed at them so maybe they would take him and dsd on with being treated like a less than in their house** ?

Are we calling this progress?

Exactly. Every time my DSD visited her mother, she would come home and be absolutely vile for a good week or more. Everything me and her dad did went out of the window after those visits. Once those visits to her mother were stopped ( by the Court), she became a different child.
No matter what the OP and her DH does, unless the mother is also proactive in supporting and being there for this girl, nothing will change.

That's funny because MN usually loves to tell step mums that the kids where there first and how they moved into the kids home. Presumed it worked both ways.

@Chocolatebuttonns “MN usually” is meaningless when you are answering an individual poster and his/her individual point.

..... Right. So basically what you mean is, in any given situation the SP is to blame and anything we've said before was essentially bollocks and we'll change it to suit our narrative. gotcha.

I do want to get across that signing up to be a step parent means you’ll have to put yourself aside just like you would as a parent. But you’ll have even less control over everything. Because minor children do come first with good parents. And because you have no idea what kinds of problems lie ahead with their other parent. How absolutely nuts they can become once their ex actually gets married again.

This such a load of complete nonsense.

No you don't have to put yourself aside because low & behold, the child already has two parents!

I have a step-daughter (I can imagine you don't) who I think is fab, but not at any point have I had to put myself aside. When it's our weekend to have her, sometimes (and here comes the big shocker) I go and see my friends or my Mum or whatever the hell I fancy doing!

I’m not going to get into it with you but shocked you’ve never had to make decisions to put a child’s needs in front of your own.

Given your tone here I don’t imagine it’s all sunshine and roses for your (perhaps fictional) step child.

In 1924 and previously, people could have step-siblings, however it would be through death rather than divorce.

It is progress unless you think dying in your prime from disease or accidents, and if you are a woman childbirth is great.

I mean hell, I have a dog and often have to put her needs before my own, too.

Can’t imagine never having to do this for a child in my life.

You’ve never wanted to go on holiday over but had to work around your step child’s schedule? Never had dinner plans that got canceled because their other parent needed your DH to take them unexpectedly?

Never had to postpone luxury expenditures because something came up that required family funds be directed to the child?

Or do you just not care if your DH goes to out dinner with you, on holiday, or struggles financially while you are flush?

The step-child comes to see and spend time with their parent not the poster.

If seeing and spending time with the poster as well as her parent is a positive influence on the step-child, then I expect they do so.

and given the fact you haven't said you have a step child when asked, then begs the question, what the hell are you doing on this board?

1. I don't have a dog
2. what children? You're not inexistence step children?
3. No
4. No because my DSD has 2 parents who fund her
5. Sorry I don't understand the question

You didn’t ask, you wrote that you imagine that I don’t. I immediately took a dislike to your tone so I didn’t bother jumping to correct you. Because I don’t feel someone being condescending in the internet is novel nor worthy of much attention. Who cares?

Doesn’t sound like it.

It would all be easy if you just don’t care about them or their parent, your partner. But why even call them a step-child then? It’s just your partner’s kid at that point.

I think you've both got a point.

I think realistically, to some degree, you do have to put them first. We've certainly had to rethink plans for dscs schedule, change things, buy a house in a certain area, hell mine moved in which I'd not really anticipated happening at the beginning. I did a lot of putting first. I did some parenting too which I'd never set out to do.

But on the flip side I was very aware I wasn't his parent. When he didn't live with us he was very much there to see his parent and no I wouldn't cancel plans to specifically be there etc.

It's a very tough balancing act and it's very easy to end up in a space where you feel you're a bit worthless and you're getting the shit end of the stick. Because you get the crap bits of parenting ie, you can't go out this weekend because you have dsc now, but none of the bits that make it worthwhile, ie the unconditional love.

That's why we put up with our own kids when they're shits because we're programmed to do so. You don't always / often get that with step kids depending on circumstances.

I wholeheartedly believe you shouldn't take any/all responsibility for someone else's child and there was a lot of things I simply would not do. But there was a lot of things I did do which meant putting myself out a bit. It's a hard position to be in and I wouldn't recommend it in all honesty.

@Chocolatebuttonns we are on exactly the same page.

Re: cancelling plans - of course we wouldn’t ever have to alter plans if they didn’t also involve our spouse. But if I planned on doing something with him and he couldn’t at the last minute, that automatically means my plans have been changed.

Not at all unhelpful. Children can be reasonably expected to accept a younger sibling. Accepting a whole new adult is a different request.

The kids were in a parent-child relationship with their parents before said parent started a new relationship.

One of the things about parenting is that, from the birth of DC1 until DCn turns 18, the parent has to put the kids first.

That means kids ahead of:

• hobbies
• sleep
• nights out
• career
• current spouse
• future spouse

Remarriage doesn't change any of that. OP cannot expect her DH to put her ahead of his own DD.

See my immediately previous post.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia I actually agree with you. And even if a step parent is respectful of everything you’ve mentioned and the child adores them, you still introduce a level of complexity in their lives. Particularly if the other parent is unstable and not happy to see their ex remarry.

Doesn’t make it the step parent’s fault of course, but that scenario is a nightmare for a child.

Says who? You? The parent police? The office of national parenting?