Dealing with feelings of resentment
I’m really struggling with feelings of resentment towards my stepdaughter and I do not want to feel this way! We have always gotten along great....she is the one who chose me for her father. She relies on me often and even comes to me for advice because her mother is not a stable figure in her life. Her dad and I married last year when she was 18. We purchased our dream home together the following month and she is living in the home with us. She is now 20 years old. My issue is that she refuses to do the little chores I ask her to do around the house, like keeping the litter box clean/washing dishes. This has been going on for quite some time, and the feI have tried talking to my husband about it he comes to her defense. She seems to have a lot of excuses for not getting things done, including being sick. Her father falls for it but I believe she is being manipulative. Her dad never made her do chores when it was just the two of them. She has a bit of a wild streak but otherwise seems like a good kid...she works and takes classes at the local college. But I just feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. It’s affecting my relationship with my husband because I’m frustrated with him for letting her get away with so much while I, on the other, am made to feel like I don’t matter in my own home. Any suggestions on how to get through this without losing it?
Right here you got set-up for
Right here you got set-up for failure: "....she is the one who chose me for her father." Children don't get to chose adult relationships, because they are children. Regardless of if it is a step-situation or not, you always treat children like children and adults like adults. When she got to choose you, she got the message that she gets to choose anything re: you. She got the message that she and her dad run things, and not you.
Dad may have been one of those who thought it'd be "cute" to let his kid chose her own mommy. It's one of those things that sound so cute on paper, right? But, in real life, he was letting her know she is in control when it comes to him and his choices. If she hadn't chosen you, what would he have done? Would he have said so-long to his true love, all on the basis of some child's whims? That's a lot of power he gave that child, and he gave it to her and is not giving it to you, his wife.
SO, this is the way the household has been set up. DH and his kid first, you after the fact. There is a term here and in the literature called a mini-wife. I'm not sure that is the situation you have yet, but I can see it coming. . . . Dad's kid/daughter winds up becoming wife #1 in the household and you are #2. When dad did this, as well-intentioned as he may have been--Her dad never made her do chores when it was just the two of them--he set both her and any future spouse of his (you) up for failure. This was all set up before you even entered the picture. She is dad's little queen and she knows it and she'll play it.
Pls. look up the term mini-wife and what to do.
That’s an interesting
That’s an interesting observation...I never thought of it like that. I can tell you when I found out it was her that chose me for him I was not too pleased! I realize that he allowed her to establish her own role as the ‘mini-wife’ in their household, and figured there would be some minor adjustments to make with a new woman in the home, but never imagined it would be quite like this. She acts as if it’s her house and has no boundaries. I should never have been put in a position to claim my role in my own home. When she began bringing strange men home to spend the night, and one of them stole my prescription narcotics, that was enough for me. Ever since then I have been pretty disgusted actually. I was a single parent and have an adult son of my own so I understand the challenges that go along with that, but this situation here is a bit too much! UGH!!!!
Yes, "she's not your kid and
Yes, "she's not your kid and they don't have to feel the same as you do," that is true. However, SD is not her dad's wife, either. The woman dad married is his wife and husband and wife run a household. Not husband and child.
An adult child being in a home is there because the person or persons who run that household agree to it. Dad and SM are husband and wife and are in charge of their own household. If one of the couple who runs the household has problems with an adult being in that household, that should be it. Doesn't matter if the adult child is going to college or not, and what does that mean anyway? Yes, when I went to college I stayed with my parents, but I also paid them rent and did my share of the chores. Going to college doesn't mean you get a free ride and get to not lift a finger around the house and get to set the rules and run the household with dad, sans SM. If that is the case, and it sounds like it is here, then SM has every right to "change their status quo." Heck, she !@#$!@ better! SD needs to learn how to manage some responsibility in a household and act like an adult woman so she can some day launch, marry, and go on to have a thriving family of her own. If adult SD can't even manage a couple of chores, sheez, she'll wind up being married to some dupe who figures out in a couple of years that the bedroom antics aren't worth the price of a slovenly spouse who doesn't even know how to operate a coffee machine, and the next thing you know, the divorce cycle continues.
SM married dad. They are husband and wife. Their household, their rules. This has absolutely nothing to do with SM wanting to upset the apple cart, although I agree that is how most in our society would have been trained to look at it. This has to do with SM wanting to be treated like dad's wife and wanting to be treated like a spouse vs. someone who opinions come third, even in her own household.
Oh, please. How old are you?
Oh, please. How old are you? "She can be as irresponsible as her father raised her to be and allowed her to be?" Oh, really? And you think that SD's behavior is not going to be disruptive to this husband and wife's household? They are married. It is their household. THEY have the rights to set the rules and change them. Couples manage households and not children. Doesn't matter if it is an initial family or a second family. Kids don't get to set the rules. But, if you are a kid, I could see you thinking that kids should get to set the rules and play their parents however they see fit.
People come into our lives all the time, and not just SMs, that we have to make adjustments for. It is called growing up and being an adult. Yes, in this case, dad and SD have their out-there methods, their destructive methods, which SM has every right to put a plug in in her own home.
And this is not what many, if not most, parents feel. Again, please. Most bio-parents do not want their lazy butt kids hanging around the house doing nothing other than working at a job for a couple of hours a week and taking 3 credits a semester. None of any of the issues I stated have anything to do specifically with SPs. They have to do with adults acting like adults and children being treated like children vs. getting to manipulate and control pops or mommy or step-mommy.
You are right in the respect that she cannot control what her husband thinks or does, up to a point. Couples do have the ability to influence one another, and that is part of what makes them a couple. SM does have alternatives, and none of which involve her doing whatever it takes or having to suck it up and take it, although, even I have to admit, the mini-wife is almost impossible to squash. I admit a lot of dads and their daughters love this type of out-there relationship, where the daughter is or is made into a wife and treated like a wife by dad in every sense of the word other than the bedroom. Sometimes they even show up at family picnics and sit on each other's laps. Yuck!
StepRightOff, are you Sue reincarnated? If so, welcome back (I think
).
Idvilen, I swear I've been
Idvilen, I swear I've been reading her reply's lately and keep thinking this is Sue1... But her post before yours, on this blog, I know it's her. And I am agreeing to EVERY FUC.... WORD YOU SAID. This is OP and her DH's home to make the rules. I love you on this today and more because your outlook is so true on A PARTNERSHIP'S outlook any other day.
So let's just create a Crash
So let's just create a Crash Course for SM's:
"Learn how to do whatever you can to prevent your future skids from disrespecting you and running over you!"
I mean, God FORBID these poor things be taught that they should RESPECT EVERYONE. Especially when THEY ARE NOT THE HEAD OF THE HOUSEHOLD.
I had bio kids that were expected to contribute to the household far earlier than 20.
With this attitude, why get married???? Is anyone really that desperate? I was a single parent with 6 figure job, so why would I have gotten married if I were just supposed to figure out how to keep the poor WIDDLE COD's from disrespecting someone who never did a hurtful thing to them in the first place? My life before was busy but peaceful, and anyone who disrespected me would have been kicked out immediately. But poor baby adults SD's whose parents divorced when they were ADULTS...my favorite recent line from Aniki...."call the WAHHHHHHHMBULANCE".
But what a great thought! If more SM's were aware of this attitude AHEAD OF TIME, think of how the divorce rate would be positively impacted!
StepRightOff, super opinionated in her 13 weeks on the site - gee wonder what old user THAT WAS.
Oh she can control her
Oh she can control her husband but that's not what she signed up for. BUT, she and most SP's on this site knows that if their DH's/DW's was going to 'leave' he/she would. Most SP's can and have the right to set boundaries with their sk's/kidults and DH/DW if they need to and most cases they will,and/or do.
Where was I complaining about
Where was I complaining about my life?
Marriages have good and bad and you have to decide what of the "bad" you can live with.
For me, and it appears other on this post,
1. DH should have one wife, his wife. A DD is a daughter, not a wife. People need to understand roles. If OP's SD does not have clarity on her role, her father needs to remind her he is her father and not a partner/DH/knight in shining armor.
2. The couple is in charge of the household, not the child.
3. Anyone living in the house who is old enough should be contributing to positive upkeep of the house. No one is such a Prima Donna that he or she should be expected to be coddled just because they are "in school". What's next? "Oh, I had to work 8 hours today so I shouldn't have to do anything at home!!" Welcome to life.
I as an SM would have never married into a relationship or moved into a home where an adult SD called the shots. I hardly call that "hatred".
I can never figure that out
I can never figure that out when someone comes to a site clearly meant for Stepparents to vent and tries to "educate" us on how none of us have it right and how in the dark we all are. With them, of course, being the one and only in-the-know. Usually, to top it off, none of these "educators" have any real-life experiences as a SP. These type of superior-minded individuals = Queen Bees. What is in their background re: step-parenting? I'm guessing it is something they read in a textbook years ago, a textbook written in the 1970s/ 1980s by men whom were simply parroting the stereotypes of their day--as fact. Remember, in the 1970s the thought among professional psychologists and counselors was that if you were gay, you needed counseling to straighten you out. That was promoted as fact back then and even had a DSM # as a mental disturbance. Anyway, here is from Wikihow how to identify a queen bee, w/a tad editing.
How to Identify a Queen Bee:
Look for a bee [with an ego] larger than the others in the hive....
Using a magnifying glass, look for a bee with a barb on its stinger....
Watch the way the Queen Bee expects the other bees to act subserviently around her....
Strange, too, that BMs get to vent all the time. No standards for BM. She can talk about how she can't wait for school to start or how she can't wait to ship her kids off to camp all she wants. Happens on the time on mom-websites. She can also shack up with and expose her children to as many "Uncles" as she wants. SM, however, that's different. Society has such deadly venom in-wait for SMs, that SMs cannot even come to a website, "where stepparents come to vent," without the killer bees hovering. Now if that doesn't prove how falsely reviled SMs are, I don't know what does? SPs have insinuations being made all the time that we need counseling to straighten out and accept that whatever asinine scenario our spouse and his kids set up prior to the marriage, has to stay in place. Because as we all know, SM's marriage to her husband doesn't count and is not a real marriage. I get it, and SM doesn't need a dog to hunt. She's long since learned how to hunt on her own.