AIBU to say DSD can’t stay here anymore after joking half my house will be hers one day?

[BetLynchsEyes]

I’m probably too close to this so need honest opinions because DH thinks I’ve gone nuclear.

DH has a daughter from his first marriage. She’s 27. We’ve never had a terrible relationship but it’s never exactly been warm either. I’ve always felt like she sort of tolerates me rather than actually likes me, which is fine, she doesn’t have to love me, but I do expect basic respect.

Whenever she visits she stays with us. I clean the spare room, sort the bedding and towels, buy extra food, cook, make conversation, all of it. DH enjoys having her here but realistically I’m the one doing most of the hosting.

Anyway, last weekend she came to stay with her partner. We were having dinner and DH made some offhand comment about being lucky the mortgage was paid off. His daughter laughed and said “Well, don’t get too attached, half of it will be mine one day.” I honestly just froze. I know she’ll say it was only a joke but it didn’t feel like one. It felt really nasty.

I said, “That’s a horrible thing to say.” She immediately said I was taking it the wrong way and she was joking. I said, “You’re sat in my house, eating food I made, talking about it like you’re waiting to inherit it. How else am I supposed to take it!?”

Then it all kicked off a bit. She started crying and getting hysterical. She has form for doing this when she's been called out on horrible comments.

DH told me to leave it, which annoyed me even more becuase I feel like I’m ALWAYS expected to leave things. She got upset and said I’d never liked her. I said that wasn’t true, but I was sick of being polite while she makes digs and then acts all innocent.

Her partner looked mortified. She ended up crying even louder and they left earlier than planned. Now DH says I embarrassed her and made a stupid comment into a massive issue. He says she was clumsy, not malicious, and that saying she can’t stay again is way too harsh.

But I can’t get past it. Maybe it was “just a joke” but I don’t want to wash sheets, cook meals and play happy host for someone who apparently sees my home as her future inheritance.

I’ve said she can still visit her dad obviously, but I don’t want to wait on her hand and foot anymore and just put up with horrible digs.

AIBU or have I properly overreacted?

But I agree with you the overreaction was on the op's part.

The fact she resents the SD doesn't condone an overreaction.

@TeenLifeMum I think it's abit different with step-parents, especially if you are an adult when you meet them. My SM was lovely and we'd joke about many things, but not this.

I mean I regularly make jokes like this to my parents and we both have the cognition and mutual love and respect to know it's a joke. Do you genuinely think SD was wishing you dead or do you just find her an inconvenience? She's your DH's daughter and priority whether you like it or not. By all means absolve yourself of the responsibility of catering for her and her partner but you're definitely over-reacting and you really don't seem to like her much which she almost certainly realises

I can see with a step parent it’s different but it’s more a misspeak than a total slight. Time for op to openly discuss wills with her dh though!

@Shinyandnew1 Exactly, this was the latest in a string of bitchy "jokes" and it's massively backfired.

The mind boggles as she's taken the news really badly 😢.

I can't imagine any of my kids describing their relation with me, or with their dad as:

He saw her regularly throughout her childhood
Does the OP say that about her own kids? They saw HER regularly throughout their childhood?

So a kid being a bit bitter at the wedding with the new wife, which .. you are, and the MIL attitude on this thread.

The more updates I read, the more ridiculous the over-reaction from the OP is.
Husband is no angel, but he's not the one going into such a tantrum over.. nothing.

Hopefully she’ll go running to her mum about how mean you are. Her mum will be shocked at her crass behaviour and explain the finances to her.

I don’t approve of her behaviour but I feel a little bit sorry for her coming to terms with the fact her dad isn’t as rich as she assumed, and her inheritance from him won’t be what she’d planned. She shouldn’t have planned, but clearly had. At a guess she’s a bit of a princess who hasn’t actually come to terms with her parents’ divorce.

What is the matter with you??? her children are not his.

It’s a crass thing to say but it’s true and is the type of jokey comment that would be said in my family. It’s only hit a nerve because she isn’t your daughter.
You shouldn’t have gone in with the ‘my house’, it is but it’s also her dads and therefore her family home (I know she’s an adult, but I mean in the sense that she should always be welcome and have a place there if needed). Feels like misplaced anger at your DH for letting you do all the work to facilitate her visits.

She sounds like she doesn’t actually like her dad, and is just waiting for him to die?!??

Surrounded by dramatic women?? Check your misogyny and old fashioned views about women. We can now speak freely and take up space without dinosaurs like you calling us dramatic.

The stepdaughter has been a bitch to OP throughout the years that she's known her but you want her to sit back and take it? Be a good girl and stay quiet? Fuck that! OP has done the right thing standing up for herself and given the SD some home truths.

I don't know what you mean about her dad cutting his daughter out. He was doing no such thing, she assumed that she was getting 50% of the house when OP owns most of it. OP has her own children who will inherit her portion. But you would know all this if you had read the OPs posts rather than make shit up.

I do think it’s slightly different with step parents. You joking about stuff with both your parents who birthed/raised you and you’ve known all your life is one thing.

OP has known her step daughter for a few years-she was an adult when they married and since then, she has made repeated bitchy comments to the OP which she’s said were ‘just a joke’ every time when pulled up on them being hurtful.

On top of this, she’s pitched up to dinner to ask them for money so she can buy a house, and then starts with more ‘jokes’ about how half the OP/dad’s house will be hers, when it won’t be, because the OP owns much more of it than her dad does.

It’s far more complex.

You can’t ringfence an asset for divorce

What’s ‘true’ here?

@BetLynchsEyescrikey, she has really shown her true colours hasn’t she? I had a feeling based on your posts that she was not going to take learning the truth well at all but she has really shown her immaturity, naivety and selfishness. I despair at adult children assuming and banking on that they will inherit. Well done for bringing it to the light. Enjoy your wine, you have done nothing wrong.

Agree. I didn’t expect anything from my parents.

Poor man?! 🤣🤣🤣

Tbf, I do feel sorry for children of first marriages, because if their parents had stayed married, they would have inherited all of it one day. (Split with any siblings, of course.)

However, if doesn't sounds as if her dad has much money of his own anyway.

I think your DH is at fault for not addressing these issues with her when you two married. I think adult children have the right to know what the set-up is when their parent marries someone else. Now it's all come out in the worst way possible. All this could have been avoided if your DH had been transparent.

What are you on about?? Maybe lay off the sherry….

The fact that if her father died then she would inherit some of the house. Admittedly making a big assumption about OP’s DH’s will but that’s the usually arrangement isn’t it.

@BetLynchsEyes when your SD said "well don't get too attached ...." who was she talking to? I don't get it.

If it was to her dad (who had just talked about the mortgage), it doesn't make sense, he wouldn't be too attached because he would be dead?

If it was to you, that is so rude! Was she saying, to you, that she would inherit half if he dad died so you would have to sell up? So don't get too attached. That is nasty I agree.

I'm at a loss to understand it but honestly I'm going to take a giant step back now. Her dad can decide what he wants to do next.

I think that’s the most sensible way to go about this.

Luckily she’s a grown ass woman. It would be awful if she was a child/teenager and would be staying with you regularly.

Your husband can maintain his relationship with her away from your home going forwards.

If family gatherings are awkward, then that’s her fault not yours OP. And hopefully your husband understands that.

I think you’ve been doing all the work that your DH should have been doing to accommodate his DD. Please stop doing anything at all from now on because it’s got you absolutely nowhere and is a complete waste of your time.

With the COL and decades of austerity and childcare and housing being so expensive, I don't actually blame adult children for hoping for something. Even if we were living in the land of milk and honey, it is customary for people to inherit from their parents.