You are here

I wish DH could swap SD15 for an orphan who deserves to be spoiled

frustrated-mom's picture

Submitted by frustrated-mom on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 9:19pm

What I hate about DH’s Guilty Daddy spree this week with SD15‘s visit is how much money is wasting rewarding her for hateful behavior. She’s done nothing to deserve being rewarded by her dad, yet he threw money away on a trip to Los Angeles and Disneyland trying to buy her love.

She doesn’t deserve any of it and it’s just encouraging her to continue to act as disrespectful as possible to me and there’s no consequence. Instead of dealing with the problems with his daughter’s behavior, DH spent the whole week trying to avoid SD15 and I being in the same room.

Yet, he continues to spoil his brat and he’s flying up to visit her while she’s off for spring break.

There’s got to be so many kids who would love to have DH as a dad and would absolutely worship him and appreciate anything. But nothing is ever good enough for SD15 and she will never let him live down his mistakes or let him forget what happened to her while she was living with her BM.

I’d love to be able to drop her off in foster care and let her see what those kids’ lives are like and exchange her for a girl who wants DH to be her father.

Comments

Anon2009's picture

Submitted by Anon2009 on Mon, 03/12/2012 - 9:49pm

DH's behavior is the real problem. You can't control SD's behavior. She lives too far away. However, you can and should let DH know that you're very frustrated with how he himself handles the situation. She can be disrespectful until the cows come home. Not that she should be, but you should focus on what you control, and that is what you can and cannot tolerate. You cannot tolerate DH's handling the situation the way he is. If he wants to continue speaking with her and talking with her and her counselor (not always going there- he should go sometimes, but it'd be much more convenient for him to call into her counseling appointments for an over-the-phone conference or Skype them), and maybe occasionally going to see her, that is ok. But he should not be giving her trips to Disneyland and LA until she has ceased the rude behavior towards you. While he did screw up as a parent, buying her love with expensive trips is going to screw her up even more. Instead she could really use some lessons from him and the other adults in her life on how to work through your problems and difficult past with those who are responsible for that. If she has issues with her dad (and it does sound like she has legitimate ones) he should be encouraging her to work through them with him and talk about them with him. Taking her on expensive trips is only putting a temporary band-aid on a very serious problem.

I agree with you that difficult pasts shouldn't be used as excuses for bad behavior. DH and I don't let the SDs use them as excuses for bad behavior. However, molestation will affect those afflicted by it for life in varying ways, regardless of whether or not they were permitted as kids to use it as an excuse. There's research out there to prove it.

The adults in this situation need to stop letting her use it as a crutch. She knows what she's doing is wrong. However, she doesn't have any incentive to change. Why would she want to? Dad is buying her great trips to LA and Disneyland. The best way to try to get her to face and work through her very real issues would be for him to stop doing things like taking her on expensive trips and make it known that until she can start being respectful to you, and start working through her issues, the fun things will cease and the only communication they will have is through their phone conversations and telephone conferences with the therapist.

She needs to know that her Dad loves her and wants to help her and work through things with her but will not tolerate bad behavior from her towards you or anyone else.