I just don’t know where to start. My weekends when SD13 decides she wants to visit suck. She comes to our home and sits in her room (door closed) with laptop (talking to mysterious friends that DH and BM are to blind to even give a crap), tv, phone and ipod . . . totally ignoring the world around her. She is very withdrawn and barely speaks to anyone. She acts as if she just really doesn’t want to be bothered. She does nothing for herself . . . she doesn’t cook/feed herself . . . she doesn’t do her own laundry . . . . BM does everything because she doesn’t have “time” to show her. SD13 in the meantime walks around like an awkward zombie. DH thinks I should be picking up the slack, I however think differently and here’s why . . .
I have my BS13 and I was a single parent up until I married DH 2 years ago. My ex-husband totally abandoned our son. I taught BS how to take care of himself . . . he can cook . . . he can clean . . . he can do his own laundry. I had too because I was in school fulltime and worked fulltime after my first divorce (got divorced while I was pregnant). BS isn’t perfect but I wouldn’t trade him for the world. He and SD13 are like night and day. I have worked very hard to train my son and I feel that DH and BM have dropped the ball. DH thinks I should be like Mary Poppins and just fill in for BM. SD shows up when she wants to or when BM says he can get her. So how am I supposed to have any sort of impact?
When I tried SD13 showed me through her attitude that she didn’t want to be bothered. If we took her shopping she would walk 10 steps behind us with her hoodie on. If I took her to the movies she would sit 2 seats down from us. Took her to a restaurant once without DH and she sat at a different table, well who has time for that shit right. When I tried to bring these things to DH attention he got defensive even though he witnessed half of it. DH would stop speaking to me for up to 2 weeks. I got tired of it and I disengaged before I knew what disengaged was! He was excusing her behavior (BM is a bad mother . . . she’s just shy) and I wasn’t having any part of it. I wasn’t raising my kid like this and he and BM could have at it.
Here’s the current problem. BM and DH never and I mean never make out of school plans for SD13. Every single holiday I ask DH what’s the plan for SD13 while I’m making plans for BS13. The answer I always get changes at the last minute (BM’s doing) and DH is stuck trying to figure out what he’s going to do with SD while he works (he could take vacation time). This happens every single holiday people! DH sees the pattern but he just ignores it. His main goal in life is to make sure that SD knows that he will go to the ends of the earth for her and she could apparently care less, even if it costs him his marriage. BM could care less about any of it. All she wants is for SD to be out of her hair for a while (let’s say 3 week Christmas break).
I should have known that DH was sugaring me up for something. He was extra nice last week. Took me to lunch several times and activities in the bedroom have been out of this world. Hugging, Kissing and all of the above, I felt like we had turned over a new leaf and we were getting on track with making this marriage work. Then he took me to lunch Friday and dropped the bomb. SD13 wants to spend her 3 week Christmas break at our house. Well that was fine with me, but of course my next question changed everything. “So DH what’s the plan . . .are you taking off some time from work”?? His response “NO, she can stay alone; she stays alone at BM’s house all the time”. I guess I should also add that Friday (yeah the day he dropped this on me) was SD’s last day of school. I asked him if he really thought this was a good idea. I told him that SD doesn’t even come out of her room. She doesn’t eat until someone cooks for her (she’s never even turned on the stove). She’s not familiar with this house (we live an hour away from BM and we work an hour away from home) and she doesn’t visit regularly. I reminded him how twice I have set off the security alarm (testing it but I was really testing her) and SD says she never heard it and never came out when the siren is right outside of her window. He says well your dad and SM live close by they can keep an eye on her. REALLLY???? She doesn’t even speak to them until Thanksgiving (buttering them up for Christmas). My dad calls her the ghost that comes to visit. Besides my dad and SM have their own lives to live and I would not dare even ask them to keep an eye on her when she’s never acted like a grandchild to them even though they (we) have all bent over backwards trying to accommodate her, so no this isn’t going to work. Once again DH and BM strike and I’m the bad one.
DH spent the weekend being a complete ass. He isn’t speaking to me (kinda figured this one). He tried to give SD13 cooking lessons (tried to teach her how to fry an egg) she was all whateva! Oh DH also refused any meal that I cooked (so I stopped cooking). He and SD ate out all weekend. I guess this way I couldn’t say I had to cook for SD. I guess he also told her she couldn’t keep her room door closed all weekend. She kept it cracked just a bit and every time someone headed up the stairs you could hear her laptop click closed (my house is nothing but a WI-FI hotspot to her). I’m so tired of the freaking games. Oh and before you ask BS13 doesn’t get out for break until Friday and then my sisters are in town so he’ll be hanging out with them, my dad, and my mother. I got it covered. If SD13 knew how to act she could do the same, but she continues to show us that really doesn’t want to be bothered and guess what now nobody wants to be bothered with her. We even had a birthday party and dinner for my dad last night, DH and SD refused to come down. I thought this was particularly rude but that’s ok even though we thought it was sad we still had a good time. I’m just tired StepTalk . . . . I’m tired of being the bad guy. How did this get to be my fault? BM nor DH made any plans . . . and I’m not your go to person for this one. I don’t trust this little girl and she’s not mature enough. Also DH could take off time if he wanted to. . . I kind of get the feeling he’s trying to one up BM or something or he just didn’t want to say no. Why is it ok for him to pick a fight with me when he won’t pick one with her? MY DH is threating to leave over this one. He says I’m really showing him how I feel about his daughter. WHAT!
You are correct. I took off a day (Wed) for Thanksgiving for this very reason. SD13 was going to work with DH everyday he wasn't off that week. I was like why not just take a couple of vacation days? He didn't want to that so the kid sat with him in his office all day. I called her when I got ready to go home one day to see if she wanted to leave early with me she declined saying she was staying with her dad. I was like ok. DH worked until about 9 pm that night!!!! So be it I asked.
Well I started to feel bad for her (I don't know why . . .she doesn't care) and I took a vacation day so she could have that day off. She stayed in her room all day and didn't speak. WHen I mentioned it to DH he said I was trying to take credit for taking care of SD. WHAT!
Sunny it's crazy!!! I also mentioned other things that I had done with with SD13 that he didn't know about (you know since I'm such a bad person) for instance last christmas she saw a gift that she wanted to get DH and didn't have enough money . . .I went ahead and paid for it and told her to keep her money (as soon as BM found out she had she was gonna take it anyway). He was livid and said that I shouldn't bring up the things I do for her, that I'm trying to take credit for taking care of SD. I was just trying to prove the point that I try and she never responds so I guess I should stop trying and let he and BM handle it.
If she is not even mature or responsible enough to cook anything or do laundry, why does he think she is mature enough to stay home alone? I wouldn't have ever left SD in my home alone. Not even now and she's 22!
We even had a birthday party and dinner for my dad last night, DH and SD refused to come down.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
let me tell you what I am hearing from my ex in reference to my kids: MY girls are 14
"They dont come and do any chores."
recently my ex moved 45 minutes away, my girls have now went from being with him 10 days and nights a month to every other weekend for about 48 hours each time so 4 days. Why in the hell would they come to his house and do chores? They arent even there long enough to create a mess to clean up.
What they will do is clean up their own mess, if they eat the dishes are put in the sink and rised out or washed and dried or in the dishwaser. If they take a shower they leave the bathroom clean. However I disagree with a child who spends this kind of limited time at a parents home being assigned to clean the bathroom during the 48 hours of visitation time that he has them every other week.
"all they do is sleep all day"
Yep they sleep all the time at my house too. On any given day with in 1 hour of them getting home from school you can stop by and find them asleep.
"they are on the computer, or their phones constantly"
yep your right they are, in addition to them being on their computers for play time they also carry their laptops to school all day and carrying a huge course load as they are honors and in academy programs that yield college credits.
"they dont hug my wife when they leave"
well dxh they dont like your wife or her kid
I think we as parent expect to much out of kids who visit our home occasionally. We expect them to walk in and fall into place into a home and family they arent familiar with.
Dont expect much more from a 13 year old girls then you are getting. Keep in my she probably lives a very quiet life and is now thrust into your house and probably doesnt want to be there. Dont make your life stressful because of it.
In regards to a sitter or someone to stay with SD. At 13 I think that is crazy unless she is completely untrust worthy which isnt what I am hearing. What I am hearing is she is lazy. Big difference
This is too funny! SD13 doesn't even do these things at her own home. I'm in no way asking her to do these things in mine! I don't need her too. What I do need is for her to be respectful to adults and speak when she enters a room and stop sitting in the corner acting as if someone is abusing her. The problem in this case is her FATHER!!!! He nor BM expect much from this kid.
I'm so sorry that you took away from my blog that I want SD13 to do "chores" at my house or that I'm expecting for her to be anything other than a teenager. The purpose of this blog is for me to vent that my husband thinks it's ok for his "UNTRUSTWORTHY" daughter who interacts with no one (including him) to stay in our home (a home that she only visits for wi-fi access) unsupervised.
Rising you are so right. He has made her behavior ok because he acts just like it and has allowed it. I feel like I'm done. I'm tired of going through this every single holiday. This isn't the first time they've refused to participate in family activities when they didn't get their way. Somewhere along the way I just started to ignore it and kept moving forward but this is getting ridiculous.
I posted this on someone else's blog and I will again... I just.don't.get it. WTF is the point of SD being with you for 3 weeks, if your DH is just going to work and she is left home alone the whole time? What because that's what SD wanted, so you musn't tell her no? So that your DH can feel better about himself because SD "chose" to want to stay with him? WTF is it?
My DH does this crap. If skid wants to come over, then the world stops and we all bow down, jump for joy and then.... skid comes and sits in his room 95% of the day and interacts with DH maybe an hour total out of the day. WTF is the point???
The answer to all of your questions above are YES. That's exactly it. Sometimes I have a hard time putting it into words and expressing this but this is exactly what it is!
We stopped the games. If SD wants to sit in her room all day that's her freaking business. BS and I do whatever we want to do. She's in her room and DH is on the couch. I stopped trying to do that family crap with them because it was obvious that I was forcing it upon them. Now I'm the bad guy because I don't give a good rip now!
Comments
I just don’t know where to
I just don’t know where to start. My weekends when SD13 decides she wants to visit suck. She comes to our home and sits in her room (door closed) with laptop (talking to mysterious friends that DH and BM are to blind to even give a crap), tv, phone and ipod . . . totally ignoring the world around her. She is very withdrawn and barely speaks to anyone. She acts as if she just really doesn’t want to be bothered. She does nothing for herself . . . she doesn’t cook/feed herself . . . she doesn’t do her own laundry . . . . BM does everything because she doesn’t have “time” to show her. SD13 in the meantime walks around like an awkward zombie. DH thinks I should be picking up the slack, I however think differently and here’s why . . .
I have my BS13 and I was a single parent up until I married DH 2 years ago. My ex-husband totally abandoned our son. I taught BS how to take care of himself . . . he can cook . . . he can clean . . . he can do his own laundry. I had too because I was in school fulltime and worked fulltime after my first divorce (got divorced while I was pregnant). BS isn’t perfect but I wouldn’t trade him for the world. He and SD13 are like night and day. I have worked very hard to train my son and I feel that DH and BM have dropped the ball. DH thinks I should be like Mary Poppins and just fill in for BM. SD shows up when she wants to or when BM says he can get her. So how am I supposed to have any sort of impact?
When I tried SD13 showed me through her attitude that she didn’t want to be bothered. If we took her shopping she would walk 10 steps behind us with her hoodie on. If I took her to the movies she would sit 2 seats down from us. Took her to a restaurant once without DH and she sat at a different table, well who has time for that shit right. When I tried to bring these things to DH attention he got defensive even though he witnessed half of it. DH would stop speaking to me for up to 2 weeks. I got tired of it and I disengaged before I knew what disengaged was! He was excusing her behavior (BM is a bad mother . . . she’s just shy) and I wasn’t having any part of it. I wasn’t raising my kid like this and he and BM could have at it.
Here’s the current problem. BM and DH never and I mean never make out of school plans for SD13. Every single holiday I ask DH what’s the plan for SD13 while I’m making plans for BS13. The answer I always get changes at the last minute (BM’s doing) and DH is stuck trying to figure out what he’s going to do with SD while he works (he could take vacation time). This happens every single holiday people! DH sees the pattern but he just ignores it. His main goal in life is to make sure that SD knows that he will go to the ends of the earth for her and she could apparently care less, even if it costs him his marriage. BM could care less about any of it. All she wants is for SD to be out of her hair for a while (let’s say 3 week Christmas break).
I should have known that DH was sugaring me up for something. He was extra nice last week. Took me to lunch several times and activities in the bedroom have been out of this world. Hugging, Kissing and all of the above, I felt like we had turned over a new leaf and we were getting on track with making this marriage work. Then he took me to lunch Friday and dropped the bomb. SD13 wants to spend her 3 week Christmas break at our house. Well that was fine with me, but of course my next question changed everything. “So DH what’s the plan . . .are you taking off some time from work”?? His response “NO, she can stay alone; she stays alone at BM’s house all the time”. I guess I should also add that Friday (yeah the day he dropped this on me) was SD’s last day of school. I asked him if he really thought this was a good idea. I told him that SD doesn’t even come out of her room. She doesn’t eat until someone cooks for her (she’s never even turned on the stove). She’s not familiar with this house (we live an hour away from BM and we work an hour away from home) and she doesn’t visit regularly. I reminded him how twice I have set off the security alarm (testing it but I was really testing her) and SD says she never heard it and never came out when the siren is right outside of her window. He says well your dad and SM live close by they can keep an eye on her. REALLLY???? She doesn’t even speak to them until Thanksgiving (buttering them up for Christmas). My dad calls her the ghost that comes to visit. Besides my dad and SM have their own lives to live and I would not dare even ask them to keep an eye on her when she’s never acted like a grandchild to them even though they (we) have all bent over backwards trying to accommodate her, so no this isn’t going to work. Once again DH and BM strike and I’m the bad one.
DH spent the weekend being a complete ass. He isn’t speaking to me (kinda figured this one). He tried to give SD13 cooking lessons (tried to teach her how to fry an egg) she was all whateva! Oh DH also refused any meal that I cooked (so I stopped cooking). He and SD ate out all weekend. I guess this way I couldn’t say I had to cook for SD. I guess he also told her she couldn’t keep her room door closed all weekend. She kept it cracked just a bit and every time someone headed up the stairs you could hear her laptop click closed (my house is nothing but a WI-FI hotspot to her). I’m so tired of the freaking games. Oh and before you ask BS13 doesn’t get out for break until Friday and then my sisters are in town so he’ll be hanging out with them, my dad, and my mother. I got it covered. If SD13 knew how to act she could do the same, but she continues to show us that really doesn’t want to be bothered and guess what now nobody wants to be bothered with her. We even had a birthday party and dinner for my dad last night, DH and SD refused to come down. I thought this was particularly rude but that’s ok even though we thought it was sad we still had a good time. I’m just tired StepTalk . . . . I’m tired of being the bad guy. How did this get to be my fault? BM nor DH made any plans . . . and I’m not your go to person for this one. I don’t trust this little girl and she’s not mature enough. Also DH could take off time if he wanted to. . . I kind of get the feeling he’s trying to one up BM or something or he just didn’t want to say no. Why is it ok for him to pick a fight with me when he won’t pick one with her? MY DH is threating to leave over this one. He says I’m really showing him how I feel about his daughter. WHAT!
The next time he says he's
The next time he says he's leaving I'm gonna ask him why he's still here!
You are correct. I took off
You are correct. I took off a day (Wed) for Thanksgiving for this very reason. SD13 was going to work with DH everyday he wasn't off that week. I was like why not just take a couple of vacation days? He didn't want to that so the kid sat with him in his office all day. I called her when I got ready to go home one day to see if she wanted to leave early with me she declined saying she was staying with her dad. I was like ok. DH worked until about 9 pm that night!!!! So be it I asked.
Well I started to feel bad for her (I don't know why . . .she doesn't care) and I took a vacation day so she could have that day off. She stayed in her room all day and didn't speak. WHen I mentioned it to DH he said I was trying to take credit for taking care of SD. WHAT!
Sunny it's crazy!!! I also
Sunny it's crazy!!! I also mentioned other things that I had done with with SD13 that he didn't know about (you know since I'm such a bad person) for instance last christmas she saw a gift that she wanted to get DH and didn't have enough money . . .I went ahead and paid for it and told her to keep her money (as soon as BM found out she had she was gonna take it anyway). He was livid and said that I shouldn't bring up the things I do for her, that I'm trying to take credit for taking care of SD. I was just trying to prove the point that I try and she never responds so I guess I should stop trying and let he and BM handle it.
GEEZ!!!
If she is not even mature or
If she is not even mature or responsible enough to cook anything or do laundry, why does he think she is mature enough to stay home alone? I wouldn't have ever left SD in my home alone. Not even now and she's 22!
SD13 was given adult status a
SD13 was given adult status a long time ago!
We even had a birthday party
We even had a birthday party and dinner for my dad last night, DH and SD refused to come down.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
:jawdrop:
I would be livid. How rude.
Agreed!!! ^^^
Agreed!!! ^^^
let me tell you what I am
let me tell you what I am hearing from my ex in reference to my kids: MY girls are 14
"They dont come and do any chores."
recently my ex moved 45 minutes away, my girls have now went from being with him 10 days and nights a month to every other weekend for about 48 hours each time so 4 days. Why in the hell would they come to his house and do chores? They arent even there long enough to create a mess to clean up.
What they will do is clean up their own mess, if they eat the dishes are put in the sink and rised out or washed and dried or in the dishwaser. If they take a shower they leave the bathroom clean. However I disagree with a child who spends this kind of limited time at a parents home being assigned to clean the bathroom during the 48 hours of visitation time that he has them every other week.
"all they do is sleep all day"
Yep they sleep all the time at my house too. On any given day with in 1 hour of them getting home from school you can stop by and find them asleep.
"they are on the computer, or their phones constantly"
yep your right they are, in addition to them being on their computers for play time they also carry their laptops to school all day and carrying a huge course load as they are honors and in academy programs that yield college credits.
"they dont hug my wife when they leave"
well dxh they dont like your wife or her kid
I think we as parent expect to much out of kids who visit our home occasionally. We expect them to walk in and fall into place into a home and family they arent familiar with.
Dont expect much more from a 13 year old girls then you are getting. Keep in my she probably lives a very quiet life and is now thrust into your house and probably doesnt want to be there. Dont make your life stressful because of it.
In regards to a sitter or someone to stay with SD. At 13 I think that is crazy unless she is completely untrust worthy which isnt what I am hearing. What I am hearing is she is lazy. Big difference
This is too funny! SD13
This is too funny! SD13 doesn't even do these things at her own home. I'm in no way asking her to do these things in mine! I don't need her too. What I do need is for her to be respectful to adults and speak when she enters a room and stop sitting in the corner acting as if someone is abusing her. The problem in this case is her FATHER!!!! He nor BM expect much from this kid.
I'm so sorry that you took away from my blog that I want SD13 to do "chores" at my house or that I'm expecting for her to be anything other than a teenager. The purpose of this blog is for me to vent that my husband thinks it's ok for his "UNTRUSTWORTHY" daughter who interacts with no one (including him) to stay in our home (a home that she only visits for wi-fi access) unsupervised.
Totally agree! I could not
Totally agree! I could not imagine 2 (14) year old girls at the same time.
Rising you are so right. He
Rising you are so right. He has made her behavior ok because he acts just like it and has allowed it. I feel like I'm done. I'm tired of going through this every single holiday. This isn't the first time they've refused to participate in family activities when they didn't get their way. Somewhere along the way I just started to ignore it and kept moving forward but this is getting ridiculous.
I posted this on someone
I posted this on someone else's blog and I will again... I just.don't.get it. WTF is the point of SD being with you for 3 weeks, if your DH is just going to work and she is left home alone the whole time? What because that's what SD wanted, so you musn't tell her no? So that your DH can feel better about himself because SD "chose" to want to stay with him? WTF is it?
My DH does this crap. If skid wants to come over, then the world stops and we all bow down, jump for joy and then.... skid comes and sits in his room 95% of the day and interacts with DH maybe an hour total out of the day. WTF is the point???
The answer to all of your
The answer to all of your questions above are YES. That's exactly it. Sometimes I have a hard time putting it into words and expressing this but this is exactly what it is!
We stopped the games. If SD wants to sit in her room all day that's her freaking business. BS and I do whatever we want to do. She's in her room and DH is on the couch. I stopped trying to do that family crap with them because it was obvious that I was forcing it upon them. Now I'm the bad guy because I don't give a good rip now!