I don't know what is 'normal' anymore but personally I can't see that you have any choice but to take the route of disengaging now. If your fiancee supports your choice I would stick with it. You are not holding him back from visiting or communicating with SD. You are merely stating that you will not be treated badly in your own home. If you had an aquaintance who started this crap I'll bet you would disengage from them too, and you would have good reason to. I only wish I had set limits earlier on in my marriage. I'm not sure the outcome would have been any different, I'm disengaged also, but I would not have endured so much BS for as long as I did. My SD has been giving DH the silent treatment for a year and 1/2 now and it has turned out to be her loss but hey, I'm OK with it.

Is this normal behaviour........NOPE it sure is not. Is this typical adult SD behaviour, YEP I think so. Adult stepkids seem to think that a new partner on the scene especially one who becomes a husband or a wife is nothing more than a huge stumbling block on the road to their inheritence and they will move heaven and earth to get rid of it. Never mind is dad is happy and being well looked after it's not about dad it is all about them and their money because as they see it what is dad's is theirs. Daughters seem to be the worst offenders in this. So, no not normal and if you can stay from it STAY AWAY I tried for 8 years to make it work and banned the cow of a woman from my home last August. I do not care what happens she will never step foot in my home again. I wish to God I had never even tried I wish I had done what you did from day 1. I think well done to you. I will however tell you this..............If your partner tells you to give her a chance, she is just upset, or mad, and she will get over it, or anything else along these lines, don't listen. When they are this type of person it does not get better. You are in the way of daddy giving them everything and they will never get over it. It just gets worse.

Dad is taking on his responsibility in a mature manner - you're lucky we've read Threads by women with men who are saying love my adult children or leave.

It's one think to at least put up a front for children but once they're grown you need only act like a civilized adult around them. As the person has already pointed out you would not put up with this behavoir from a neighbor or friend so why her?

Not uncommon behavoir from a threatened daughter. You might get Dad a book or Internet print-out on how to handle adult kids in this situation. He really should let the kid know that he is not forgetting her in his will or trust.

You really can see her problem can't you? If he can east that fear she might actually start acting like an adult and if she's acting acceptably you can accept any offer she puts forth in the future.

That is not "normal" adult behavior, that does seem to be "normal kid of divorce" behavior...sigh. If you are up to it and your husband is open about it, check out this book and maybe your husband can send it to her.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Your-Parent-Remarries-ebook/dp/B0047O2IDM/ref...

When Your Parent Remarries Late In Life: Making Peace With Your Adult Stepfamily

I have to say that it has ONE review and not a very good one, but NOT because it's a bad book, but because the stuff is "common sense and common courtesy" stuff that most ADULT kids of divorce won't like. I think the reviewer was expecting someone to tell her she was in the right and the book does NOT. It might also be good for you to read it to help you understand what is reasonable from an adult skid. I know for me, it really helped to understand that I was not wrong in what I expected and at the same time, it gave me some insight as to how they think.

Good luck...

I think you were right not to engage in the first place. Smart. Wish I had done that.

My stepspns were much much younger but we all got along GREAT. They seemed to even enjoy the tim we spent together our first 2 years UNTIL we announced we were getting married and then all war broke lose and never has been the same since. This is 23 years later and kids are adults now.

You aren't cruel, you are realistic and you do not tolerate abuse. Good for you. If, later, he claims that she has come to terms with the situation and is offering you an olive branch, ask on what objective basis does he believe she will not subject you to abuse and then come to the site to toss a few ideas around.
She is behaving abnormally, he is behaving normally, you are behaving normally. Great that she has not warped your relationship.

I would not see this as an automatic disengagement scenario. In my opinion, disengagement is the last resort, not the first response. I would recommend that you read Step Wars - a book that was reviewed negatively in this forum, but i found it to be eye-opening and very useful. There are other approaches that can be tried before disengaging. I do not think you should encourage rudeness but it makes sense to try and build a relationship, or at least leave the door open for one... Also, could you provide some details about your situation? How old is the SD? How long have you and her dad been together? Is her mother in the picture? Do you have kids?

Step Wars discusses all those scenarios from every possible point of view and gives you insight into the kids' perspective. I am reading and re-reading it now finding new revelations all the time.

Are you serious PS? I agree there could be many pressures on the SD, for example this could be a situation where OP had had an affair with him whilst he was still married to her mother or whatever, but here we are clearly told that the SD is yelling for an hour at a time late in the evening about inheritance and threatening to ban the father from her life. How is she ever going to step down from that immorality, realistically? I guess she could after a lot of therapy but that is not for OP to engage in with her. It is for the father to do with her on their own. If OP approaches her at this point in friendly fashion, she will be flamed. By disengaging, she is only getting out of the line of fire and then waiting for whatever period is appropriate, for SD to approach her politely if she wishes to. But even then, I would have thought SD would have poisoned the whole relationship by her emphasis on money. I certainly would never get intimate with such a person even if I came to tolerate her.

I don't agree on this with you Pilgram Soul and I do respect your opinions on other posts you have made, however, in this case she is not disengaging, she never engaged with the daugher to begin with because the daughter made it clear to the father that she wants nothing to do with her. I wish I had seen that before I wasted 8 years of my life trying to give my husband's daughter "time". This woman has told her father she will ban him from her life if he marries her, and she has been ringing the father yelling about her inheritence...............Now, that says it all. This has nothing to do with the original poster and everything to do with a greedy woman wanting to make sure she stakes her claim on daddy's money. As they say, when a person shows you who they are, believe them. This woman has shown daddy and his fiance loud and clear who she is and what she is after. I think the poster has done the right thing by not getting involved with her in the first place and leaving her fiance to sort it out. When you have a daughter who is more focussed on her inheritence than her father's happiness, nothing is going to change anytime soon by trying to play nice.

Agree with comments. What about the future

I agree with a lot of the comments others have made. Sounds like the SD already slammed the door on you from the start. Absolutely, you don't have to put up with that type of behavior in your home. While SO seems to have taken SD communication outside of the home and in total support of you, my concern is, will this continue in the future? What about the wedding day, will she come? What about holiday's, how will that be handled?

Just cause you/she have disengaged now, what happens after you are married. You may want to have this kind of dicussion with Fiance, because while they say and do one thing now, from my experience, there will be a time when the Finance may want to have that olive branch extended. I'm just saying you might need to be prepared and set a few ground rules before the wedding day.

Also (Random comment), I guess I've always wondered why children feel that they are entitled to an inheritance? It's not the child's money, home, car, stuff - it's their parents, who worked and earned it all. I don't understand children dictating to their parents what they believe they are entitled to and why they don't believe the person sharing their parent's marriage bed isn't? (whether 1st, 2nd or 3rd wife). Just kind of befuddles my mind I guess. :?

You have every right to not want her around. You are marrying her dad, not her. I feel the same way about DH's kids. They were part of another life. A life that did not include me. I have no biological link or emotional attachment to any of them.

I think you are very smart. Establish the rules from day one and stick to them. Don't allow childish, rude and demanding behaviors to even set one foot in the door. You will read how many of us for YEARS have put up with this crap ONLY to finally see the light and realize the skids are CRAZY, mean and vindictive. Your husband needs to deal with this on his own....he helped create the little selfish, greedy darling. You don't realize now how smart you are being...if you don't believe me read through this forum and see how much anguish some of us have been through when we should have done what you just did in the beginning. My hat is off to you. Why is it the stepmom that has to be the one to make things all OK??? I have a quote to give to you... IN LIFE YOU GET WHAT YOU TOLERATE....

You are smart. Most of us take years to figure out that it is no use to spin your wheels trying to make them like you. If they are rude, treat them as you would any other rude stranger.

I think the kids who have been brought up as the apple of the daddy's/mummy's eye (or worse both parents so unhappy in the marriage) made the kids the centre of 'their' universe and the kids now think they are the centre of 'the' universe. They grow up to be over indulged, greedy, it's all about me, and everything is mine, adults and I use the word adults loosely, because their emotional growth living in this fantasy world is clearly stunted. So, they are shameless and absolutely convinced that everything the parents have will pass onto them. When a new partner comes in, they really cannot bear it. My husbands daughter (30) some months ago was screaming at him because she wanted something from him, and in her tyrade actually said..................I am your daughter you owe it to me, what did I get out of YOUR divorce. This woman was red raw in the face and screeching at the top of her lungs over all of this and her boyfriend has already told her father and I that she has been estimating our worth and valuing our home. Now as far as HIS divorce went, he walked out in nothing but the clothes he stood up in, and stayed with family for the first 3 months giving his former wife 3 full months wages, the home was mortgage free, and the 3 cars were relatively new and all paid for in full. However his daughter who was 19 at the time then tried to sue him for child support. At the time she tried this on, he had paid for her university education in full and was still paying her cell phone bill. She had the house to live in and a part time job. But not only was she after child support she and the mother took him to court for 'extras' such as a makeup, clothes, hairdressing, and phone allowance, and for good measure $50 a week pocket money, and $50 a week for entertainment allowance. She is one of the ones who grew up in a home were mom and dad hated each other and all their attention went to the kids especially this daughter as she was the only girl and the youngest in Italian family. Her father to this day has no idea of the damage he has done to this woman, and both he and she will be horrified when life hits her and for all the evil she has put out, it will hit her hard one day. Mom and Dad have of course taught her no coping skills.

I have also disengaged myself from my future SD but now I'm told I'm being negative. I don't see it that way, she jams herself down my throat all the time and trys to pull so much crap. It doesn't help that she lives with us in the basement apartment. But I'm starting to feel that it is wearing on my relationship which is exactly what she wants. So is disengaging the right thing to do? I'm not one to put up with a lot of crap!