I can't stand my going to be step daughter or the way my fiance or his BM let her act!
I am new here, and I know this is kinda of a topic that as already been brought up, but I'm going crazy trying to cope with these feelings! My fiance has a 9 year old daughter and I used to be able to tolerate her, but the more I am around her now, the more I absolutely cannot stand her. I am pregnant with my fiance and I's first baby, and I am extremely excited about it, but when I see how she acts and how he ignores things, it makes me second guess everything! I just cannot stand her attitude, she refuses to shower, brush her teeth, or wipe herself when she goes to the bathroom and my F doesn't ever tell her to do these things regularly, because when he does, she cries and throws a fit. When she does homework, she rushes through everything and always does it wrong, then tries to tell me I'M wrong when I correct her or tell her she made a mistake. She cannot spell at all or read right and it drives me crazy because my F nor his BM work with her at all to improve it and when I try, she just gives me an attitude. She cries over EVERYTHING. You tell her to go to bed, she cries. Tell her to shower, she cries. Tell her to eat, she cries. It drives me insane. I know this sounds horrible, but I wish the floor would just open up and swallow her so she didn't exist anymore. Her mother lets her stay up to all hours of the night and do whatever she wants, so when she comes back to us on during the week, she acts out and when my F tells her to do something and she cries, he just huffs and puffs then ignores her because he doesn't want to hear the crying. I absolutely cannot stand her anymore, and I don't know what to do. Everytime she comes in the room, I get irritated and wish her away. I can't stand the sound of her voice or hearing her cry, it just makes me want to tell her to grow up and shut up. I'm finding it increasingly harder to keep my temper in check around her. I'm sorry, but I had to vent. I just cannot take it anymore.
Oh, and I forgot to mention
Oh, and I forgot to mention she expects everyone to do everything for her. When she gets up for school, she expects her dad to get her clothes for her or when she wants juice or something, she'll scream across the room and tell someone to go get it for her. She did that to me once. I was in our room and she was in hers and she called my name and goes "JUICE!" I told her to go get it, she was a big girl and then she responded by saying "JUICE NOW!" It made my blood boil! She also has no respect for anyone. When we're sleeping, if she happens to get up earlier than everyone, she'll turn her laptop or tv on as loud as it will go and laugh really loud. One time she even screamed at the top of her lungs for no reason! I was furious, since I work 11 hours days and rarely get to sleep in. She wakes up in the middle of the night and will scream for her dad as loud as she can, waking me and him up. The more I am around her, the more I want her to disappear!
You are not going to
You are not going to incorporate this kid into your image of a happy family. The best you can do is negotiate a truce - its a one way truce because you are not going to be involved in her rearing. If you continue to try and raise this kid you will be divorced within two years.
I wrote this a long time ago and I hope this helps with your problem. It may not reflect your exact situation but you'll get the idea:
The situation with my step-kids finally got to the point where I decided that my efforts to raise them was futile.
First I told my wife in private what I was going to do and why.
Then I stopped investing myself, time and money in their upbringing. I realized that by conscious choice I could cease being responsible for them or their actions. Neither would I take credit for how they turned out, good or bad. I simply stopped interfering in their lives. This is not to say if they would start a fire on the living room floor I would not intervene. But if they did not do the laundry as scheduled I ignored it. Nor did I do any of their chores. If the trash overflowed in the kitchen - well tough. Mom dealt with it when she got home.
You will be absolutely amazed at the look on a kids face when s/he realizes you don't care enough to even tell their bio-parent they did something wrong. And you'll be amazed at their future behavoir and attitude towards you.
I stayed friendly enough and taught one how to drive when she was old enough. But they could no longer blame me for the consequences of misbehaving just because I saw the misbehavoir. I never told. If they were caught in a infraction it was not my fault. They began to realize that they were responsible for their actions because of what they did not because I caught them.
I would talk to my wife in private if I had issues, but once she made the decision I backed her up 100%.
Once the kids realized I was no longer the ogre they thought I was their attitude changed. I was not their friend, but neither was I the enemy. They came to realize that I had not done those things to irritate them. They in fact missed the things that they had come to depend on me doing. Permission to go to the mall when their Mom was not home? "Sorry, can't do that".
Their mother slowly came to realize that I wasn't overreacting to their actions. In fact I wasn't reacting at all. She came to understand that she would have to control the situation and she did.
With that things got much easier around the house.
Billions of kids grew up in the world without help from me and turned out just fine.
I agree with you here, but
I agree with you here, but what really gets me is that he will ask me to help out with her and ask what I don't like about his parenting methods, and when I am blunt (but nice!) about it, he comes back with excuses and gets mad at me for my critic. It drives me crazy. I asked him to take parenting classes with me since we see things so differently in child rearing. But I am definitely NOT going to get involved with her anymore. All it does is get in between me and my fiance and make me the enemy when all I want to do is see what's best for her. But, as you all have made me realize, I can't be the one to help her out, that's her parents job and I'm better off just not getting involved at all.
Thank you! I am so glad that
Thank you! I am so glad that you could break all of that down for me. Like I said in the above post, he wants me to help with her, but then gets mad if he asks what I don't like about his methods and I honestly critic him. I know my F isn't a horrible parent, he does what he has to do to get her through, but that extra effort just isn't there and that's where she is suffering, because I am unwilling to help out because when I do, I turn out to be the bad guy and I honestly don't need the stress. I love the idea of just turning on music and walking away. I love the idea of putting her in the bathroom during her fits too, but I don't think my F would go for that. So I'm just going to stick with ignoring it and refusing to get involved.
She sounds like she needs
She sounds like she needs some "parenting" to me, plus shes lacking in self confidence, she needs to be pushed a little and encouraged, if your dh keeps letting her off, she will never improve, I understand why she annoys you, but the real problem is your dh, he needs to do some research here on how to help her, perhaps you could try one more time and speak to your dh, express your concern for sd and come up with some positive suggestions and work as a team, this girl really needs help, if this dos'nt work then by all means try to disengage, I do believe that this is a last resort though. As for the tantrums, I have always put the child in another, room shut the door and ignore them, wahhhhh poor meeeeeee, there is no point in having a tantrum if everybody ignores it, don't forget its your home too and you have the right to stick up for yourself if you feel that your happiness and needs are not being met.