I would have offed myself by now if it weren't for my dog! I'm glad you have one to reduce your stress.

If you can, instead of saying something cheeky to him when this happens, try to just be honest without the snark: "I gotta have the music for distraction - the dynamic between you and SD makes me really uncomfortable."

It might still start a fight or maybe he'll just ignore you, but at least you're giving him an opening without putting him unnecessarily on the defensive. Like, try to start the conversation at a lowest possible level of tension.

You should probably just talk to the shepherd about it. You can always count on the dog to back you up no matter what.

Snark happens to all of us. It's a thing. Marblefawn has it right, though, with "try to just be honest without the snark: "I gotta have the music for distraction - the dynamic between you and SD makes me really uncomfortable." That is a great suggestion!

The snark happens because the situation is annoying. Disengagement is more for you...to calm, to bring peace, to lower the snark.

Bringing your honesty allows you to relay what you are feeling on a much calmer level. When we can't really speak our truths, we stuff them and the snark is released

The honesty will help to make you feel heard and the more you practice it, the less snark will be waiting to pop out of your mouth because you will finally feel comfortable enough to say what you mean. It is very liberating as the only one taking this avenue of freedom away from us is ourselves.

DH may get mad because it is either not true for him OR it hurts him on some other level. I have found that when I speak what is true for me, it does not depend on how DH feels about it. It is MY truth. I don't need to pick and choose my truths based on DH's reactions. It is okay to say when something makes me uncomfortable. He doesn't have to like my truths but I get to speak them...that right there is power for ME. That control alone, being able to share a piece of myself, makes wanting to use less snark much more attractive. I am no longer the attacker in DH's eyes, just the speaker with my own opinion. The side effect to this is that DH may also learn to speak his own truths as well and a new, better form of communication begins...

This really does appear to be a stepfamily issue... I hear about overly physically affectionate daughters on this forum and in other places all the time, but never once in my entire life ANYWHERE have I heard a mother complain that their daughter is too affectionate with her husband. Its always a stepmother who sees an issue where there previously was none.

I was not an affectionate child. I didn't like being hugged, and I was uncomfortable with touch. My sister on the other hand, was really really affectionate. Mostly with my father, since my mom is like me, she also doesn't really do hugs or cuddle. My sister and my dad were always massaging each others backs, or cuddling, or sitting touching each other, etc. I on the other hand could tolerate an occasional hug and that was it.

And nobody thought this was weird. Not my mom, not my aunts and uncles, not housekeepers, babysitters, my parents friends, nobody every said anything about it. And then my parents got divorced. And my dad remarried. My sister was 10 at the time, I was 14. And my stepmother completely flipped out about it.

All of a sudden, everything was an issue. The fact that my dad walked around the house in his underwear with 2 daughters was inappropriate, the fact that I might walk from my bedroom to the bathroom in a bra and panties while my dad was upstairs was inappropriate. The cuddling my sister was all of a sudden super inappropriate. One morning my stepmother caught the two of them sitting on my sisters bed watching television and flipped out like she'd caught them having sex. Eventually even my occasional hugs were a problem to her.

This gradually got worse over a period of several years. My stepmother would rant and rave that my dad must be sexually interested in his daughters. And that my sister and I were interested too. She wanted me out of the house, and I felt in part it was because she felt I was in competition with her for her husband. (In a biological sense this is somewhat true, since women who live together will eventually begin menstruating together to reduce competition, their monthly cycles will line up.) I used to overhear huge fights over him running his fingers through my sisters hair or vice versa.

After years of nagging she ultimately gave my dad a complex over it. He got so afraid that he was doing something wrong he completely stopped being affectionate with both of us. He wouldn't even sit on the same couch as us. Once when I was a teenager I ran away from home, (to Disneyworld, yes I really did this) and he came after me (forced me to pick him up at the airport in Orlando and drive him 1100 miles home) and he refused to share a hotel room even though I had a suite. What was worse is while he was there we went to the parks, and my father was actually embarrassed to be seen alone with me because somehow my stepmother had worked it into his head that other people would think we were dating. (I was 19 at the time.) He actually voiced this to me, kept giving me a hard time over my clothes (it was 100 degrees out) and how close I stood to him while we were waiting in lines. At night we went to clubs and I tried to get him to dance and he refused. He was too worried about what other people might think.

Finally they got divorced. My father remarried to another woman who cuddles her adult son the way he cuddles my sister. All of a sudden there was no problem anymore. My sister is now 30 and married. My father and her still cuddle when she visits. And he's allowed to walk around in his underpants again.

My SD17 also does this to her dad.

My SO and I went to the restaurant she works at, and during her break, she came to see us at our table. There she was, standing beside her dad and playing with his hair :sick:

beyond a certain age getting cosy with a parent is unhealthy. i had one sd in her late teens who was hanging all over her father.

she looked like a young mistress to onlookers.