My Story........would be grateful of any advice.
This is my first time posting on Step Talk, I am hoping for some advice from you guys that have probably been there and seen it all before, I am sure I am not the only one feeling like I am going insane??
I am a 40 year old woman, childless by choice so far and I am recently married to a great guy who I dated for 5 years before marriage, lived together for 4 years prior to marriage. He has a D8 from a previous relationship (never married the BM)who he see's twice a week for a few hours after school and whom stays at our home EOW, he also see's her EVERY Sunday even when it's not her weekend. So there is a lot of contact, which I have always accepted.
SD8 is not a nice child, my H thinks she is a wonderful caring, well mannered child. She will be told by her Dad to not do something and instead if accepting that he is the adult, she will question why she cannot do said thing, not question him once, but on and on and he answers her!!!
I think he suffers from Guilty Daddy Syndrome and I think SD knows it, hence not respecting him when she is told to not do something without questioning everything he says.
Over the last 6 months I have disengaged totally from the situation. I do not speak to SD unless she speaks to me, I do nothing for her at all except provide dinner only if I am cooking for me and my H, If she asks me anything I tell her to ask her Dad. She leaves her dirty clothes on her bedroom floor and her bed unmade, I no longer pick them up or make her bed, it stays as it is until her Dad does it, not that SD would care, she has the manners and habits of a pig.
The last few weeks SD has decided that she no longer wants to come to our house to visit her Dad. H is devastated, but instead of tackling the problem head on and finding out why, he says she should not have to do something she doesn't want to. H cannot see this child is ruling the roost. My point is if she did not want to school, would he back down and not let her go there either?
BM is not helpful and doesn't make SD come either which in my mind show yet more lack of respect to my H. H's Mum is just as bad, says we will have to make her 'more welcome' whatever that is meant to mean. She already does what she wants, talks while we are talking, gets what she wants and is taken out on fun days on her weekends with us, what more are we expected to do? My take is that she is here to visit her Dad not have endless trips and gifts, what sort of a person only visits somewhere if they benefit from it? I shake my head in disbelief.
My fear is that H is blaming me, he hasn't said that, but I am pretty sure he thinks it, only thing is in the week when he has her for a few hours after school, I am never there as I stay away until I know she has gone and she is refusing to come on these times too, so it can't be because of me.
What are your thoughts here on how he should tackle it?
BM has live in lover and 2nd child (not by live in lover) who looks after child no 2 as his own, it even calls him Dad and my thoughts are that they want SD there to occupy the younger child, we all know 2 kids are easier than 1.
I just feel like walking away.....SD is a horrible girl, once she asked if me and her Dad would have a baby, I said we might and she launched into this fit about if you have a child it will HURT you when you have it and I won't get all the attention from Daddy, I just ignored her, her face was full of hate, this is well over a year ago, of course H was not ther to witness it and when I told him he said SD wouldn't say that!!!!!
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Girls are always more
Girls are always more emotional fighters. Most kids play these games at some point. Didn't you threaten once or twice to run away as a kid. It is normal. Advice- get a book about this and you both read together or counseling session or two. Those rose-colored glasses won't come off dad, but maybe they will be little less pink.
I will also add that if your
I will also add that if your DH isn't willing to correct it now, good luck. They never change. My DH has two SDs 8 and 11, they decide when they are coming to see him and when they aren't it's been that way since they could talk. DH and BM divorced when SD8 was less than a year old.
DH gives into everything these two little brats want. Well that's slowly changing but it's been a battle and I told him the last time, I was leaving and started packing.
As far as visitation, if SD is saying she doesn't want to come, BM and DH should tell her tough shit, she is a child, she gets no say, just ask any judge they will tell you that. I tried to tell DH how to handle this and he won't do it, so I've said OH well and I'm disengaged, they are all your problem now.
Which means, no I do not watch them for any length of time for any reason, he must call MIL to do it.
I think you need to sit down and tell him how you feel. If he fights you, you know where you stand. I never tell anyone to leave because that's the person's choice, only you know what you can and want to handle. There are days I wish that I had never met DH, yes I love him but this life is hard.
thank you for your post. I am
thank you for your post. I am in a similar situation but with 3 children and one of my own. I dont see anything you have done or not done for that matter as wrong.
In the last two weeks i have taken the back seat and i think it helps when trying to gain perspective on the situation.
Thank you all for your
Thank you all for your replies and in my opinion I have done nothing to make SD not want to visit our house, I think H would like to really say that because I don't engage in any conversations with SD then I am making her feel unwelcome BUT I do answer her IF she talks to me first. She walks into my home and doesn't speak unless H prompts her to, why would I want to make conversation with a child that in the main ignores anyone that speaks to her? She only hears what she wants to hear.
I have never had children of my own because life hasn't worked out as planned, I was married in my 20's for over a decade and we planned to have kids mid 30's but then my XH cheated, end of marriage, then left at 35 and single you have to start again and I have never been one to rush into anything, I'm 40 now...just turned so time is not on my side, I guess I am weighing up how bad it could become if we had kids, would SD be worse? I have always got on with children, SD is different, spiteful and hostile not just to me but to most people. She certainly knows how to play my H, it really is quite sickening to watch.
If my H said he didn't want a child because of SD's feelings that would be a deal breaker for me, I would be gone, the day he puts that child's feelings on something she should have no say in is the day I walk away, but he has never said that, he has always said he would have children with me if that's what I wanted.
I think the problem is with my H, SD is only a child, I would not allow a child of 8 to call the shots, but he does, he would say he doesn't but he does. His Mother is the same, anything to keep SD happy, even if at the expense of other people. It's not parenting, it's pig farming in my opinion.
One other thing, H does not have a court order in place, he and BM were never married so there has never been a court case and even though some years ago I asked him to get one, to save future issues he said it wasn't needed, I think he doesn't want to rock the boat, but low and behold as I predicted now BM has live in lover things are changing.....H is no longer allowed in the house to pick up SD, before she met her fella she would ask H to go down and see his D down there....you would think he would see my point by now....but NO shit goggles always on where SD is concerned.
I think staying out of it is my only option, otherwise if I have to deal with SD I will go mad!
I've been going through
I've been going through something similar recently with SS9 and here's what I did. First off I disengaged. This helped me cope to some extent but it didn't solve all the problems. I decided I wouldn't do any of the household chores whilst SS was here nor would I allow him to get in my face (purely to annoy me) so I basically ignored him. The problem was that DH didn't pick up where I left off, the house was untidy, SS was still ruling the roost, I was a ghost in my own home. The only positive was that by disengaging I was able to protect myself from SS behavior, but I still had to witness it and watch the place fall apart in the process. Come Monday morning he'd leave and there I'd be cleaning up all the mess. It wasn't really working.
I decided that I had to talk to DH and tell him exactly how I felt about the situation. I was completely honest with him about SS behavior and HIS behavior. I told him I felt put upon and that he needed to step up and start parenting his son. I listed all the issues we have (mine, SS and his) and gave him examples of how we could deal with each one individually in order to move forward successfully. I was fully expecting him to get defensive and have a meltdown but much to my surprise he listened to everything I said and agreed with me. It was like the big fat elephant in the room had been exposed.
Since then DH has stepped up and gotten on board, he's now parenting SS as he should, correcting bad behavior, setting up routines and house rules, he's stopped giving SS adult status. SS is begrudgingly following his dads lead and I can tell he's full of resentment towards me but I'm okay with that as long as he's getting the parenting and guidance he needs and his dad is finally BEING a parent and our home is being respected.
It's a work in progress and I expect I'll have to keep reminding DH here and there but I feel like we're a team now and that's a huge improvement. So my advice is speak up. Tell your DH exactly how you feel. Try to do it in a calm, understanding way so he doesn't feel like the accused, nobody likes being criticized. Just state the facts, be honest. Sometimes I think they're blind to a lot of it and/or they have their head in the sand. You gotta yank it out of there and open their eyes.
Ignore the kid if you have to, leave everything to dad. I'm still disengaged and it's working a lot better now since DH and I had our talk. SS can't annoy me now so he just annoys his dad instead and DH is now seeing the kids true nature and realizing that I wasn't just nit-picking all this time. SS used to annoy me then be sweet as pie with dad so dad was blind to it all. Have a talk with your DH and stay disengaged would be my advice.
Just wanted to add that in
Just wanted to add that in the back of my mind I'm half-expecting SS to pull the 'I don't want to visit there anymore' card as a manipulation tactic but I think if that happens just ride it out..it's just their way of trying to control Daddy. I suspect it would be short-lived. If your SD says she doesn't want to visit that's a matter for your DH and BM to tackle, stay out of it. If he blames you then that says a lot about him.