Step daughter never visits anymore

[Anuta77]

My SD (19) lives with her mother about 40 min away. She has a good relationship with me and her father and when she was younger, seemed to love our son (8). My husband used to pick her up and bring her back every other weekend and of course, it's very understandable that she would have other plans and with age would come less often.

The thing is that during the whole summer, she only came for her fahter's bday in the beginning of June. She doesn't work, but has a music band. It's very understandable that she wouldn't want to spend the whole weekend with us anymore, but not even one night or evey half a day?

I see online pics of her not only with her friends, but quiet often with her mother's friends (and their children who are younger than her). Her mother basically seems to have 2 close friends and they have many parties and activities. To this, add her mother's partner's family's activities, the SD basically has no time for us. My husband says that she's busy and doesn't want to disturb her. When she announces to him that she has a some free time, he just drives to see her, which happens about once per month.

Am I wrong to think that an young adult child could find some little time for her father and little brother and not just fully priorize everything and everyone else?

Why can't her father take his son with him if she wants to see them both? She sees her dad roughly once a month, if he wants to see her more he should move closer to his child. He only seen her every other weekend anyway for at least 8 years. She's not the unreasonable one here.

She is 19. That just how they roll at that age. She is caught up with her own life. I didn't see my DDs much at that age either as they were at uni.

He should be going to see her 40 minutes is a misson away. Shea an adult with her own life.

How often does DH/You/Brother call her?

Do you (well dad if he wants to see her more), ever make arrangements to go and meet her or plan a day out?

When she was younger and coming EOW, did DH call/text regularly in between contact to see how she was/connect and when did that drop off?

Kick starting it may help sort the situation, what's your relationship generally like with her?

It’s geography, and time, I wouldnt take it personally , her travelling or him makes no difference , probably should be him tbf , dont take it personally, she sounds busy. I was married with 2 kids when I was 19. She has her own life , cant you go with him if you miss her ?

They’re all like that at that age.

they are building their own adult life.

Do you make it nice for her to visit? Pleasant? Chuck a bit of grub around?

This doesn’t really surprise me. Life is busy, she’s 19 and enjoying herself!

Maybe a bit selfish and thoughtless but what does she care? That’s this generation for you.

She is 19. You say that she does contact DH and he goes over to see her. Pretty standard for that age I would say.

Sounds like he never asks to see her, don’t you think she’d like to know he’d like to see her sometimes? Or like him to take her brother over there? Or couldn’t you go too?
your language is a bit unpleasant ‘when she announces to us’ do you mean when she takes the initiative to continue a relationship with her father, even though he doesn’t reciprocate?
You say she has no time for you - what time do you make for her? How are you helping her and her brothers relationship? How is her father helping it? What’s her brother doing, does he ask to FaceTime her for example? Or is it all just her responsibility?

Does your DH contact her or wait for her to get in touch?

Do you invite her over for Sunday lunch or dinner in the week and she declines? How often does her dad contact her?

She's 19, taking her father for granted, being lazy about travelling and is too caught up in herself to even consider her dad's feelings about it. This is normal. If he's been a good dad she will learn to appreciate that and make more of an effort from her mid 20s. It's how brains develop.

If you want to see her more then arrange to do something fun with her.

Does your DH ever invite her over for a specific time/date/activity? It may be that she’s invited to all these other places or to spend time with her mums friends. Perhaps she feels as though she doesn’t want to interfere in your busy lives?

i’m not saying this is the case, but thought I’d balance the ‘she’s a selfish teen’ posts by offering a different perspective.

Is she refusing to let him and your son visit her? And meet up near where she lives? Not sure how much you expect from someone raised by an ‘every other weekend’ dad to be honest

How did you determine all that about her?

This is typical for a 19-year they are building their own life with their own friends away from parents. I reckon he chose the to be the every other weekend dad

i know this is a bit different and no offence:

my stepmother always showed up with my dad.
i had no quality time with him. always on my best behaviour. so he could show off my good behaviour to her. i couldnt confide in him or ask advice. it wasn’t ideal.

it wasn’t relaxing. it was like an interview. always for her. to please her. not about me at all. it was like a duty for me. and for him. to tick a box for her.

i found out years later that he was frightened to ask to see me alone as my stepmother would start complaining about things, pretending to be hurt, and throwing a strop unril sje manipulated him. he basically wasn’t allowed to see me alone.

that may be different to your situation but if i were you i’d encourage him to go see her alone on alternate visits. that way she can confide in her dad if she has issues she wants advice about.

he should contact her to arrange. prove hes keen so to speak. He should travel to her and take her out for dinner and a catch up or whatever. even if it’s just mcd’s or something.

see if that helps. it’s true shes busy. we think parents are cool with it when we are young and blow them off but we dont understand.

Does her DF go to watch her playing in her band ?
Its understandable that she wants to hang out with her friends and isn’t particularly interested in spending time with an 8 year old tbh.

Because I read the ops post, have teen step daughters and was a teenage girl myself once.

She's not doing anything wrong, she's just behaving like a normal 19 year old girl.

Yes, DH is in constant contact with her and I write from time to time. I leave it to DH to make arrangements and she seems busy. Except busy means that everyone and everything else is more of a priority and I absolutely do not expect being a priority, but at least occasionally?

Honestly, when she was visiting, she was just sitting in her room doing homework or on social media, but we always tried to go out somewhere to eat. With her mother and partner, they like having parties, we are more introverts, so we made efforts according to our capacities. And the times we had parties or were invited, she was with her mother. So maybe we just seem boring to her.

Ignore my language, I'm not an English speaker. I just meant that it's always on her terms. And yes, my DH is in constant contact with her, but he lets her decide when she wants to make time for him. And her mother moved further away recently (with her), which makes it more difficult for DH to drive there and it's not an area where there's much to do.

I don't know the frequency, he is a loving father, but who seems to think that it's ok for kids to priorize everyone else. I have asked several times why she can't come over for some dinner which is what busy adult children would typically do with their parents, but he would never ask her to take any public transportation and her mother bought a house with her partner which is almost an hour away in a large city with constant traffic, so a dinner is logistically difficult especially when she only leaves small availability windows for us. He does go eat with her maybe once per month.

He doesn't know, but I do see pics of her on social media and she's fairly often with her mother's friends, so to me, while I would totally understand priorizing your own school friends or studies, she could take some time away from her mother's friends. But I guess we are just more boring.

We have tried inviting her to travel with us, always refused. We have a cottage, she's not interested. We asked to watch movies, never interested. I tried to connect with her, but she barely answers my questions, so it's hard to find what actually interests her to do something fun.