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.

It may be boring but it's the truth. They're married so it's a joint asset. OP chose to marry a man with a child. You can't just choose to throw a child out of their home. If she can't live with the child it would be sensible to get divorced. Which in the current climate often means selling the house and living together until it sells.

You’ve assumed it’s a joint asset. I’m married and my house is not a joint asset. The OP says it’s her house so perhaps it actually is? Stop assuming everything and focus on the fact that the Op is being treated like shit and it needs to stop! She doesn’t need to accept any of this in her home if she doesn’t want to. The child has another home WITH THEIR MUM which is where they should stay if they can’t treat the OP with respect.

The OP has avoided answering whether it is jointly owned so I'd imagine it is. But no, the Dad is as much a parent as the Mum. It's not up to women to pick up the slack, he needs to be doing 50% of the work.

Technically it doesn’t matter if the house is jointly owned or not. If OP owned it before marriage and they have lived in it as the marital home, then legally it’s probably a matrimonial asset, regardless of whose name is on the deed. If they split the DH could possibly claim part of the value of the house, although perhaps not an equal share.

That said, I still wouldn’t let his child be disrespectful to me in our home. He needs to deal with it.

You are telling the OP to enable her husband in continuing to fail to parent his own child by burdening another woman, his ex, even further with parenting work to achieve that.

And people say that misogyny is dead.

The OP has a husband problem because it's his job to sort his daughter's behaviour out. And she has an entitlement problem in that she expects this girl to like her when the girl had no choice about her father's remarriage.

OP doesn’t expect the child to like her. She expects the child to treat her with respect. Which isn’t unreasonable. The DH should be coming down on this behaviour like a ton of bricks.

I think there are two parents here and the Op isn’t one of them.

YOU are being completely unreasonable and really quite offensive calling the OP entitled have you even read what she is having to put up with? She doesn’t even expect her to like her, she just expects not to be told to fuck off, which is really a bare minimum don’t you think?? Kids shouldn’t get to decide their parents whole life. Thats not actually how life works! Sometimes stuff happens you don’t like, you don’t get to behave like a brat forever over it , you have to suck it up and move on.

this is why some kids are shit, because there are all these ridiculous adults making excuses and blaming other adults rather than actually looking at the kid and sorting it.

honestly, some of you people of this forum are totally batshit. It amazes me that people actually exist who think behaviour like this can be excused over things that happened 7 YEARS AGO. Jesus.

The DSD is a troubled and very young teenager. There are plenty of them in all kinds of families - parents still married, blended families, single parent households etc.

The answer is not excluding them from one or both of their homes

I find it really interesting @Youcannotbeseriousreally that you are finding the opposite opinion of yours batshit, given that it's by far the majority opinion on this thread. Most people find your opinion here, ie treat step kids like shit, the batshit one.

but now he is at a loss what to do, esp with the promiscuity this week

This is a very disturbing way of talking about a child OP!

And it remains the husband's duty, by law as someone with parental responsibility for this girl, to parent her and set behavioural standards. The OP has a husband problem.

It doesn't matter how many years ago the divorce was. The girl did not consent to her father's remarriage and she did not consent to the new wife being in her home.

My comment is aimed at all the people who think it's OK to tell the husband to kick his daughter out of her home.

There's a phrase to describe fathers who opt out of parenting: "deadbeat dad". That women are telling the OP to encourage her husband to become a deadbeat dad is frightening.

Are you reading the same thread?

the only person treating anyone like shit is the SD to the SM.

all I’ve suggested is this would not be allowed in my home and why the hell should it. No one should be treated like that and the OP isn’t the parent so she has no say in the raising of the child but she absolutely has a say in who is welcome in her home and the SD should be told she can only come if she behaves with respect.

I don’t understand why people think the SM should just suck it up. I can only assume that most of you are lost and you’re not a step parent and you don’t really belong here, but as usual, you come to be superior and to judge.

OP: talks about DSD like a delinquent and a prostituted woman.

Also OP: wonders why DSD doesn't like her.

She didn’t need to consent to anything she is a child.

and the ‘new wife’ isn’t in her home, she’s in the new wife’s home.

For the last time: It's DSD's home too.

You are talking about a child living with her father as if she were a cousin coming to stay as a guest.

She is a child. Her father has parental responsibilities for her. That includes allowing her to stay in line with the court order governing custody and access. This is not negotiatiable. This is the law.

When the OP married this girl's father, she married a father, not a childless man. She cannot expect him to treat his own daughter like a house guest.

It's her father's home, and that makes it her home too.

The issue of consent isn't about legal consent. It's me trying to explain that this child has had another adult brought into her life unilaterally. She had no control over this. She had no say in this. It would be like if I came home to find a new flatmate that I had not asked for, didn't like, and couldn't evict. This girl will see OP as an invader.

You’ve assumed there is a court order, do you live in the U.K.????? I don’t know anyone with a court order re custody arrangements!

A guest would behave better I would imagine. The OP does not and should not have to shut and put up. Regardless.

Children are not disposable. If you don't understand that, YOU have no place being a step parent!

The DH can move out and then create a home for his DD somewhere else. Otherwise, the DSD has two homes, in one of which, OP lives. This really isn’t difficult @Youcannotbeseriousreally

The joy of being divorced is that you can dispose of them if you like 🤣🤣 ( 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?!)

seriously though. The Op shouldn’t have to deal with being treated like this and should be able to have boundaries and protect her space if required.

The DH needs to deal with it, but in the meantime the Op is well within her rights to stop her being at her home.

There doesn’t have to be a court order. OP’s DH is the girl’s father and that gives him parental responsibility

There was a court order for me and Dsis. My understanding is that court orders setting out custody arrangements are the norm.

Even if there isn't one, this man is the child's father and still has parental responsibility, meaning a legal obligation to parent.

“and apparently THAT is ok so double standards much”

err, what? I’m not on that thread so whatever some of the tens of thousands of. MN posters are saying there is nothing to do with this thread.

A judge will only usually get involved in custody arrangements in cases of DV or other significant family issues. There is nothing written anywhere that says when and how my kids go to their dads and I don’t know anyone that has that either.