After thinking long and hard..
I stayed up for a long time last night just thinking, thinking about my responses on here. A lot of y'all are right. I just needed help to realize things. So I am going to try very very hard to do the best I can.
She is only 3, we are strangers to her. She is scared of us, with help of her mother. I need to show her she is loved here. If she pushes me away I will let her and try again later. Maybe if I just consistently try to show her love and compassion she will realize I am not mean. It will be a change from now when she would push me away I'd say fine and not even bother.
As for the discipline, I should not be the one who always does it. It isn't fair to me. If he doesn't step up and make me be the only one doing it she will think Daddy never punishes me or fusses, he is so nice. But ____ punishes me and she is mean.
I personally think fdh needs to confront bm about her telling sd3 we are mean, be bad at our house, you don't have to listen to them, daddy loves me more than ____. And the constant "I am your wife" "let me speak to MY husband" "this is MINE AND MY HUSBAND'S daughter, NOT yours, so don't try to be" Like it didn't know she wasn't mine. Maybe she will stop, maybe not(probably not) but she needs to know we know sd3 doesn't hate us for what we do, but for what she does. It is mentally hurting sd3, your mom saying these people are so mean and horrible then you have to go tho their house without the person she looks to for comfort and saftey, her mother.
If things never change with how she acts after a long time of trying to be better and more understanding and she ends up 12 still hating me and acting up, thats when I will say oh well, I tried. She may just need a lot of time and will eventually see things for what they really are. It will be a long process, we only get her eow which is not enough time.
I want to say thank you to all who made me realize the harsh truth. She needs consistency and effort towards helping her, not just I give up.
Honestly I don't agree with some who say I am not a stepmom cause I am not married. Not everyone gets married but still plays the role of a stepmom. I am not just a bystander, I will be involved. We are getting married in a few months. Also, just cause I have a children by 2 different men at 22 when I am not even married yet doesn't mean I am a slut. I have slept with 2 men in my entire life. I am mature and a better mother than a lot of other 22 yo I know. We don't live paycheck to paycheck living on foodstamps like most young parents. When not working we are home with our kids, not partying like expected. All my old friends have kids now, and they constantly party and don't care if their baby is at home crying cause mommy is never there. I am not like them, far from it. I have no friends anymore, cause I always said I can't go out and drink every other day or even every other weekend, because I chose to be a full time mother, not p/t. And I don't need drinks to have fun. I'd prefer to take the kids to chuck e cheese or something.
So thanks to all, harsh or not. It helped and we have lots of time to work on everything. We have to be patient.
Well done!
Well done!
Oh, I forgot something else I
Oh, I forgot something else I wanted to say. I need help with this issue as well. I am thinking she is mean to the baby because her mother thinks it a competition between her and I to have the better, prettier child. She isn't really mean to my son. He can hug her and she willingly hugs back. But when it comes to dd1, she wants nothing to do with her. Shoves her, takes things from her says she is ugly, etc. Dd1 can't understand what she says now, but she will eventually. Her bm comments on pictures of the 2 together saying "My daughter is the most beautiful child. She is perfection, nobody compares." <-- Her EXACT words. And when we were at the hospital with sd3 and bm was there we where going through pictures and came upon a pic of dd1 and I said "aww your baby sister is beautiful just like you, you look just alike." BM loudly says to sd3 "not one bit, you are way prettier." I think if bm keeps it up sd3 will start thinking it really is a competition and be mean to the baby when they get older. It is not her fault she has been taught this. But how to I try teach her they are both pretty, that they are both loved, and she can't be mean without fussing or time out. I am afraid that if I punish her for something that she is being taught by her no.1 teacher in life(her mother) she will resent me and it will not work because she believes everything her mom says, you are supposed to listen to your mother. Idk. I don't want her to become snobby and narcissistic.
Hey honey, well done on your
Hey honey, well done on your working through things (and being a big enough person to take on board things which may have been hard to hear at the time!)
I agree with you about not having to be married to be a stepmum. I live with my partner and we have no immediate plans to marry, we are defacto and we are BOTH still step-parents.
I don't know what you can do about the issues with sd and dd apart from building healthy self esteem in your own child and giving sd consequences for acting out and mean talk?
I guess you could try to find an age appropriate way to explain that EVERYONE is beautiful in their own way, and being nice inside is WAY more important either way. Try and build some empathy in her and get her to understand that the things she says are hurtful and she shouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
Good luck, as you say dd is too young to get it ATM but one day she will.
Unfortunately there isn't a lot you can do about BM's nastiness, others with more experience of PAS may be along to give you some hints or legal advice re that.