Husband wants SD to live with us. She has emotional issues
:jawdrop:
my husband yesterday said he had spoken to his ex. His daughter is having major issues at the moment. She is 12 yrs old and been talking to boys of 19/20 on FB. She has also been getting out of hand. My Husnands ex got married last year and now her new husband has issues with the daughter and has hit her. Both the daughter and the ex and my husband want her to move in with us.
Now my big problem is. We have tried to see his 2 kids but over the past year she has always told us we cant see them. So we have managed to see them about not even 10 times in the year. My husband owed her Child support which he gave her a lump sum and she never informed the agency (i know my husband should have done that and i was upset he never got anything in writing, but whats done is done) so she got 4k from us leaving us in a position of still owing the child support.
I also have a 20 year old daughter who is at college and doing well. She dosnt come home and has never lived with us. I have been married 3 years and this past year has been the toughest because there have been times i have wanted to leave because of other issues going on. I attend counselling regularly, my husband refuses to go. I dont know if i could survive this huge change. I feel like i have brought my own daughter up as a single parent and i dont want to go through it all agian. I know it may sound selfish, but she is just not my child and though i empathize with the problems they have, they are not my problems. I think my husband believes i can fix his daughter because i did a great job with my own daughter, but shes not my responsibility in that sense. And thats just how i feel. Dont mind seeing her every few weeks and having some fun together. But this will change everything in our life.
I did tell him that if he wanted her to stay then he would need to go to court and get custody of her and move us to a 2 bedroom apartment and take full responsibility for her and also that he would need to contribute more and pay the extra for having her there. I told him that he needed to have a mature conversation with his ex about the situation and she needed to know its not a matter of packing upi the child and sending her here. It all needs to be above board and legal. I dont want to come home one day and she has moved in. He didnt like that but its where i stand, because with my own child i am 100% responsible. If something needs to be done for my daughter i do it myself.
I like his daughter but i just dont have the maternal instinct with her. And i do feel guilty sometimes about not having it, but i cannot force feelings that are not there. I just think our marriage couldnt survive it and i am under no illusions that i would stay and bare it because i believe life is too short. So my question to you guys is .... Am i being an really awful woman with the situation or should i stand my ground. Do you ever get maternal feelings for kids that are not your own. I have never been a step mom before and i dont know what to do. Any advice or suggestions would be grately appreciated ..... Thank you
Not your kid not your
Not your kid not your problem, it sounds like your DH does not see it that way. On the other hand, it is his responsibility to be there and raise this child he created. She is in a situation with her only other bio parent and abuse has gone on. Personally I would decide to stay or leave first. If you stay, boundaries should be set before she moves in with you guys. Make these boundaries with DH and you before approaching the ex or the daughter. I would start from get go being disengaged from her and the parenting left to DH. Of course you will have to correct her at times but to much can backfire.
We had no choice, BM
We had no choice, BM abandoned the twins on the side of the road during a spat with her new, now ex, husband! SKids called us, crying and we had to go and pick them up, the now ex could have called child protection services. Never mind that we'd just arrived at a job site three hours away, it was 10 PM and we drove the three hours to get them?!
It sucks, really sucks, if you get used that way but that's the penalty us responsible folks have to pay when others just do not give a damn about anything or anyone but themselves.
As the other poster says, make sure you have things up front and agreed upon before you make any decisions.
It sounds like you have a manipulative BM on your hands, give her an inch and she'll take a mile.
oh yes, your DH thinks you
oh yes, your DH thinks you are a superwoman and can deal with the problem and solve it. I know about it. You should not be raising a child not yours.
HAve a couple of excuses: you work full time, you have already raised a daughter, the flat is not big enough. But above all, not your responsibility.
Your work is done, now BM has to take care.
This situation has the
This situation has the potential to turn into a disaster. Your DH may have to try to save his daughter. But he has to be the one to do it, not you. He has never been a full-time parent. He has no idea how to do it, and he will have no help from BM. His tendency will be to turn the responsibilities over to you, and you don't want that AT ALL. He will be defending SD's behavior because his instinct will be to protect her from your criticism. So you will have the responsibility with no power or control. Maybe he should find a place to live with SD only, and see how that goes for a while. You can observe and see if he has any ability to actually parent her. Red flags include failure to get legal issues and CS issues handled in the past and his refusal to get counseling.
I will have been married to my DH for 3 years in May. In December of the year we married, my SD, then 12, was dropped off by her BM and we were told "Don't bring her back". I wish I had insisted on returning the child right then. She lived with us for almost 2 years, and along with some other issues not child-related, my marriage and my sanity almost didn't survive. I give credit to my DH for learning pretty quickly how to set some limits with SD, and for taking care of her needs. I would not allow him to put it onto me. The end result was a BM who decided she didn't like having to pay CS, who entered into a campaign of PAS over the phone and on her EOW, that resulted in SD, now 14, returning to her mother in a state where she only communicates with her father once a week by phone. She didn't care for being required to do her schoolwork, clean up after herself, and do some household chores, so she went back to the chaotic home of BM where she could do as she pleased unsupervised. I expect her to be pregnant by 16. In our home, she would never have had the opportunity. She has since been enrolled in an "alternative" high school, although she is quite capable of functioning in a normal school environment. But in regular HS, she might actually have to do her work!