This is my first time doing anything like this but I am to the point that a little outside perspective can possible help. I just don’t know how to deal with some of the problems a blended family brings, mostly because I don’t come from one. I married my love of four years last year. We went through a lot to get where we are now. He has a 10 yr old daughter. I have two daughters, 8 & 10. We have a 1 yr old son together. My girls and our son live full time with us. Our oldest girls are in the same grade, same school and were actually best friends before we got together. Our situation is a little complicated. My SD lives with his mother. During the beginning of our relationship and up until a couple of years ago, my husband was on a really bad path struggling with addiction and we had a lot of problems. Even during our struggles through all that, I did my best to continue to see my SD and keep a relationship between her and my girls as much as his mother would allow me. Well his mother ended up taking full custody in a very deceitful way and this was actually right in the middle of him trying to get clean and change his ways. He’s been clean and quite simply did a complete turnaround for going on two years now.

Ever since my MIL went behind our backs to get full custody (supervised visitation at her house) things have been so difficult. She uses my SD against us any chance she gets. When we are there, it’s so awkward and difficult. She is pleasant as long as she’s in control. For a while, things got better and she started letting SD spend the night, etc. Well things started getting difficult again recently one night when SD came over for the weekend and she decided at nearly midnight that she wanted to go home. She came in there and told my husband to call my MIL and I could see that he was a little upset about it. He got onto her and told her that there’s no reason that she can’t stay and that she knows we had plans for the next day as a family and that she can’t just get up and leave when she feels like it because it’s not just about her. He saw that my girls were all upset trying to figure out what they did wrong. So anyway, she threw a fit about it and we end up calling his mom to come get her as she demanded. When his mom got there, it was a huge fight between my husband and MIL. He tried explaining that she needs to understand that this is her family and she can’t just leave with no explanation. He told her I’m still her father and I have a right to say something when it needs to be said. MIL yelled at him and shut him down and wouldn’t let him get a word out.

So the next day, we went to the local pool as we planned and my SD and MIL were there. They both ignored us and the kids. Just completely ignored us. They walked right by us, said nothing and left a few hours later. He was fed up at that point and didn’t know what to do. He walked out to her car and told her how dare you allow her to treat her family like that, her father. And got onto his daughter about her behavior again. His mom shut him down again and said well she’s mad at you. He was shocked and told her… “Mad at me for what? Because she was corrected for doing wrong and acting selfish.” This was during the first week of summer.

We tried to get the girls together one more time after that and let my oldest go with MIL and SD to the pool, that didn’t end well either. My oldest tried talking to my SD about everything and told her she just felt like ever since that night, it hasn’t been the same and she didn’t understand why. My daughter handed my SD a note and a necklace and kept trying to talk about it so they could move on. Well SD threw a fit and shut her down and wouldn’t play with her the rest of the time there. I didn’t find out about this until MIL got back to our house to drop my daughter off and she came in crying. My husband came to her defense after asking both sides what happened and had it out again with his mom and got onto his daughter for behaving this way to her little sister. He kept telling her that this is not how you treat family. Family should be able to talk about it. So yet again, no progress was made because his mom shut him down again and refused to talk about it and said she refused to make my SD talk about it if she doesn’t want to.

After all this happened, I saw that my husband pulled back a little from wanting to go over there. I saw that he needed time. I talked to him about it a couple of times about it over the last couple of months and I see the helplessness he feels, like he can’t be a father to his daughter. We both realize that our hands are pretty much tied.
So since school has started, my daughter has come home saddened at least two or three times a week and told me that my SD just ignores her and rolls her eyes at her when she sees her on the bus, hallways or cafeteria. My daughter said she has waved at her and she smiles at her every day but nothing changes. This of course upsets me as her mother. I hate seeing my little girl go through this and I don’t know what to do.

Last night I told my husband what’s been going on. He was just like, I’ll talk to her. And explained that this time he wanted to spend time with her first and another time go back and talk calmly to her about it. He said he feels maybe she’s acting like that because she feels that my daughters get all his time and all that. In my heart, I realize that sounds like a fairly reasonable way to go about it but at the same time I feel upset because I know that if the roles were reversed, he would immediately come down on my girls hard. It wouldn’t be a matter of being her friend and talking about it. They would be in trouble. I guess I feel a little tired of my SD getting away everything. She is spoiled. Period. His mom gives her anything and everything she wants. I have never seen her in trouble for anything in the four years I’ve been in her life. And I feel like why should she get special treatment just because she doesn’t live with us. Why does she get a slap on the hand when she’s basically being a brat about everything ever since she actually got in trouble for something she did wrong. I know that things are complicated. I know that she is still a child. I realize that yeah she may feel the way my husband mentioned but it doesn’t give her a right to behave this way. And it’s so hard because at the same time of feeling protective over my girls, I feel for my husband and how helpless he must feel. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want this to be a source of problems for my marriage.