Passive Aggressive Step-Daughter - 22
First, I must start off by saying I am in a long term relationship, we are not married. We have been together 5 years, 1 of which we have lived together.
He has a daughter who is 22 years old. I have a son who is 17 years old. My son gets along great with my partner, Glen. Unfortunately, Aylen and I do not get along.
It started when Glen and I first go together, she was 18. Glen tried to arrange a time where we could meet, but she never seemed to have time, for a full year! No time for dinner, movies, amusement parks, nothing...
She finally buckled when he invited her to SF to go shopping for clothes for her birthday. A bit of a spoiled child (only child, only grandchild) she responds well to gifts and being showered with attention. When I saw her for the first time, she refused to look at me. Instead, she looked at her dad, everywhere else in the room, but never at me (even when she spoke!?).
As we walked around SF, she made a point of squeezing between her dad and I so she could walk next to him. Soon I was not only excluded physically, but I was excluded from the conversation too, as she directed the discussion back in time to topics when her parents were married. I realized I was up against a nasty little bitch, but I didn't realize how passive aggressive she was going to be.
It took many years to get her dad to recognize his daughters behavior. Why do men struggle to see that their little princesses can display a Wicked Witch of the West personality? I mean, come on, they can display the green face, bent nose, and broom scooter with 220 volts shooting out the end.
The final straw that broke my back was on a family vacation with Glen and I, both kids, and his brother and his wife. What a disaster! She iced out my son out for the rest of the trip because one night we put them together in a hotel and he turned on the television too loud and woke her up. Granted, he is a teenage boy and he needs to be told...hey, buddy that is rude. But, did she say anything? No, of course not. Passive approach in the moment, and then a silent aggression will follow. That was the start.
Then my son came down with a very bad double ear infection, which switched up the bedding arrangement. He was down with a fever so he was in bed for a couple of days. She became miffed that she had to give up her bed for a sofa bed because he was sick. And, to make it worse, her Uncle (my partners brother) backed her up. Well, that is when I lost it.
In a completely inappropriate way, I got in his face and told him he had no children, thus no experience or right to tell me (a mother) what my child needed or didn't need at that moment in time. And, I will do whatever it takes to make my child comfortable, and he better not get in my way. Then I marched over to where Princess was pouting in her soon to be relinquished room, and layed out the facts, offering a fair solution of a 50/50 split of the room time. Of course, she declined this offer because it is easier to be silently aggressive than it is to be mutually cooperative.
From that point on, I have not been able to forget how she treated my son, how much it hurt his feelings, and how he tried to talk with her and she simply acted like he wasn't in the room. His brother is just a piece of crap in my opinion. Along with being openly mean, he is someone I have no desire knowing.
It's been 2 years since the trip, and I've vowed to make another effort with his daughter (for the sake of my relationship). Glen invited her over with a new boyfriend, to get to know him better. Again, Aylen was openly passive aggressive. I guess I thought maybe the couple of years would have changed her, I guess not. After running out of conversation starters, to receive 2-3 sentence replies and no where to go, I gave up and busied myself in the kitchen. Soon, I began hearing whispers. I glanced over and saw the two, head to head, in a busy side bar not far away from me in the kitchen (AS IF I WASN'T EVEN THERE!). This went on most of the night, but only out of the company of her father. When her father walked in all the whispers stopped and talking resumed at conversation level. After her father and the two circled the conversation around math and science, two areas where I cannot provide input, I felt excluded from the conversation in general. So, I left the room and settled into a chair with a good book. When they left, I said goodbye and was happy to see the visit come to an end.
I don't know what to do. I tend to avoid confrontation. I don't know how to deal with a socially immature girl. She tends to be guirkey, socially naive, socially immature, shy, and a bit odd. Even with many years of work on my part, I feel she doesn't want a relationship with me, so why invest all my time?
Yet, I feel like I need to put an end to this stupid insidious behavior in my home. How do I do it without letting my inner tiger shred her head off. Because, after all this time, and all the bullshit she has pulled, I'd take great joy pulling every one of her hairs out one by one. (I am allowed a rant or two)
Looking for feedback. One counselor said it was my job to deal with this. I feel it is his job to deal with this, it is his daughter, not mine. She has no reason to listen to me, and I think it will only make things worse.
Thoughts? Ideas?
Please don't shred, just offer helpful advice. I'm tired and beat.
Best to all,
Susan
I think you need to ask
I think you need to ask yourself some choice questions and then perhaps these answers will lead you to what you must do - be that continue ignoring or challenging both your partner AND sd.
So is this something you can continue living with during your relationship with your DH? Can you continue to ignore it? Does it affect your son, and does this bother you?
Although my skid is considerably younger than yours, when he was little he would be really sneaky and refuse to speak, look or interact with me. Most of this was down to PASing from the BM, but it didnt help that he wasnt told his behaviour was unacceptable by my DH.
Unfortunately you will find many SM's experience similar issues with their skids which involves the accompanying complete head in sand from DH. Problem occurs in how you decide to approach this - so many of our partners LOVE LOVE LOVE to pin the responsibility and chip on shoulder onto us.
So impo, from my experience I would start to do this. Firstly have some nice things to say about sd to DH, then when you see her and she pulls shit like whispering while DH is out of the room - loudly exclaim to her and bf with large sunny smile on face "It's rude to whisper and exclude me from the conversation..." when they do it again "HAHA, what did I tell you...whispering again!" Then when DH comes back in tell him "my my every time you leave the room, these two are whispering, its like dining by myself!"
If she is sulky and out of line, like she was on holiday, then call her out immediately. Don't pussy foot about her. Make sure this is done in front of DH.
The reason I have outlined some aspects you can assertively challenge in DH's presence is because this has a twofold effect. 1) You are letting sd and any of her guests know you are not going to put up with rudeness but you are doing so graciously (which will kill sd and not provide DH an opportunity to say you are being mean/impolite to sd) 2) you are informing DH of this bad behaviour, how uncomfortable it is making you AND providing evidence/examples of sd's passive aggression towards you without nagging him.
I would also bring your concerns over how your relationship with sd is developing to DH. DO NOT be annoyed that she is behaving like this. Be sad, disappointed and hurt, that even after all this time sd obviously dislikes you, seems to go out of her way to exclude you, doesnt wish to even respect you in your own home. Dont be confrontational with DH, just ask him to help sd develop a better relationship with you by supporting you more, and being aware of these things that she does. Place this onus on sd with DH, but from the POV you WANT a better relationship with her (even if this is exaggerating, and you only want her to be at least polite, civil and respectful towards you and your marriage and you will never forgive her for her attitude). Ask DH if he would like you and sd to have a better relationship and when he says yes, ask him for his support of you then and to start addressing some things - because as sd respects DH she will likely listen to him more (again even if this is stretching it).
If DH doesnt react well, I wouldnt lose my temper - play the LONG game. Tell him calmly and nicely, you are disappointed he doesnt have your back and isnt interested in helping his daughter come to terms with you, so you guys can hopefully go onto having a much happier relationship. Then walk away and leave the seed to germinate and continue with the first aspect of the plan anyway.
JIMPO.
If you go in from a softer approach and also do the above challenging that you can as nicely as possible, DH will likely also see what you mean because you have let him know.
First off...You might want to
First off...You might want to change the names...to protect the innocent an guilty...This is an open board, and with a "google" of that unique name...she's bound to hit this post...If those names are real, of course...
How does your husband feel about his daughters response to you? I totally think that it's HIS responsibility to integrate his daughter into your home. She was pretty much an adult when you met her, so you don't have to deal with her on a lot of levels, but your husband should be requiring her to respect HIM by respecting you...
This is yours to figure out and deal with, I do agree with you counselor on that BUT I only agree with it from the angle of how you deal with it within yourself. Like I think it's yours to deal with and fix with how YOU respond to her...Not trying to fix and deal with SD...
I'm a pretty big personality, and I don't have problems with dealing with conflict...I'm at the OTHER end...I'm having to learn how to pick my battles, but I will say this as somebody on the other end of the spectrum. If you're going to choose to address it, you have to have a point, purpose and desired results going in...You can't just go in all willy nilly with some personal axe to grind wanting to just tell SD off. That's why I asked where does your DH stand in the equation. If you TRULY want to work on the relationship, he's got to see, understand and support/agree with your perspective...And you have to want to work on it CONSISTENTLY for as long as it takes...
If you want to go there, I'd sit my DH down, and outline maybe one or two concerns (more than that, and you'll appear to be attacking his kid), and have a POSITIVE desired result that you want (peace in your home, a relationship with SD, or whatever), and it needs to be something that CAN benefit everyone involved (not just you...unfortunately). If he agrees and is on board, then I'd have HIM institute some sort of discussion...One that is VERY non confrontational and one that wont make SD think she's being attacked/ganged up on...
Honestly, I think your DH needs to take a lot of responsibility for the relationship not being at least respectable. He's probably not aware of what you're truly feeling (if he did, he wouldn't have let it go this long OR he's avoided it), and he needs to 100000% be trying to help you...
Suanrad So very sorry for
Suanrad
So very sorry for your situation. I too have been there - for 8 years. Last August I banned 29 year old SD from my home due to the same sort of behaviour and more as you are experiencing. My husband can see no wrong in his daughter and it IS HIS responsibility to sort it out, NOT yours. But as with many, many others on this site, these dads don't do anything other than enable this type of behaviour in their daughters.
I spoke to my husband about this and told him how I was feeling for 8 years, I cried over this, I hurt over this, and I was devastated by the way my husband stood up for her against me every single time, he found excuse after excuse for her behaviour, and worse still blamed me. I just didn't like, I took it the wrong way, he didn't hear her say that, he didn't see her do that and so on, and so on.
Banning her from the house is not the ideal solution, but for me it was go insane or get rid of her from my life. Please feel free to message me if you wish as I feel you are very much following in my footsteps.
Suanrad, I have a 32 SD who
Suanrad,
I have a 32 SD who has been extremely manipulative. She is an only child, spoiled rotten and divorced with two kids. I've been married to her dad for 3 years, while her parents have been divorced for over 20 years. She is the nastiest, most immature and manipualtive little b!#@$% that I have ever met.
Her first issue with me was when we didn't invite her mother (my husband's ex wife) to our wedding. Imagine that! There have been times when she's been nice, but that was when she wanted something (most recently using my credit card to rent a car while she was on vacation). In the last three years, she has stuck her tongue out at me, given me the finger and just been plain nasty (yes I did say she was 32 years old). It's really kind of sad that she has children of her own and displays this kind of immature and silly behavior.
Like you, I have cried and hurt over this. I have finally had enough and decided to totally disengage. No more buying birthday and Christmas gifts for her or her kids or doing anything else. I've also banned her from the new home her father and I recently purchased. I agree that this may not be the ideal soultion, but like you I need to rid her from my life.
I married her father, not her. I think she's truly pathetic!
Well done so far. You have
Well done so far. You have only lost it a couple of times. It is hard on your body, your spirit and your mind though. My SD is similarly passive aggressive at 15. We have her 50% of the time. The problem is that if you keep holding it in, you suffer mentally, if you say something then it can come out incorrectly and if you blow up at the wrong time you look bad.
I sympathise.
After a while in my situation I read "Stepmonster" by Wednesday Martin. Also I realised I was unhappy and my marriage was at risk even though we love eachother so I saw a counsellor with my husband. She was practical and helpful. She was recommended and is very experienced with blended families.
I have not solved my situation though but have made some great inroads to my mental resilience and to my husband's grip on reality where it comes to his SD. I had to do something because the negativity from my SD is so intense for 50% of my life that I felt my marriage would fail though if I did not take some action. As time goes by, I was worried that my little boy (nearly 4) would start understanding more and get hurt. I feel your pain about your son who is no doubt a good person like you. One day let yourself have a really good cry for how that feels. Try to let it go then. I bet he is a wonderful young man regardless. Life has dealt him an elder SD card and sounds like he had to learn people are yucky and reject you in too personal a way. Very sorry for you both.
You sound like a good, intelligent decent woman who may not have come up against this type of manipulative person before. The closest I had come was at work where I can play dirty or hard as I like. In my case this is a child and I cannot do anything hurtful. I agree with the other post that points out, your SD is an adult.
A friend of mine has an SD with an overindulgent Daddy and and angry Mummy. Her truth that she explained to me is is that unfortunately these girls and boys are not like you or me or a child raised with parents who set boundaries. The Dads do seem to especially indulge the daughters after divorce. Maybe the daughters (just like you and I would have if we could have) learn how to get money and attention from Daddy so easily that it is not even a challenge.
I am not saying it is your fault at all. I am saying though go find some really smart counsellor who gets it and get your own mental bubble and a great strategy.
You have described the rude
You have described the rude behavior my SD was dishing out. She is an only child also, and completely self-aborbed / entitled. In December I asked nicely for SD and hubby to speak up instead of having those side line conversations they immediately started screaming at me, accusing me of making them uncomfortable, being too touchy, etc. etc. DH ran out of the house and left me alone to defend myself. So the nice approach does not always work, and you will not always have a DH who is brave enough to confront his daughter. You have to ask if you really want a relationship with SD bad enough to take the abuse (and that is what it is) again. I have learned that respect has to be mutual or someone gets hurt. Since DH and SD have so little respect for me I do not think it is worth any effort on my part to resolve our differences. For the time being SD is banned from my home. If they think it is worth it to change the situation then maybe they will do what it takes - it's up to them. But I don't see a day soon where SD will stop blaming me for something I didn't do, or that DH will openly support me in front of his daughter. It's their loss. You may not be able to change them but you CAN change how you deal with this and what you will put up with.