How do we tell the step kids they cant live with us?
Please HELP! How do we tell my step kids (20 and 16) that they cannot live with us? The oldest wants to becuase her mother has kicked her out and she is tired of living at her boyfriends house but we tried letting her live with us last year when she had the same issue and it turned out to be very very bad. Obviously she swears she wont be that way again and it will only be for a short time while she gets on her feet but we are so not chancing it again. She is 20, a high school drop out with no ged, has had no job since she turned 18 except 1 which lasted a month or less and is on probation for credit card theft... and on top of the HORRIBLE problems we had when she lived with us before, we are not going to enable her. As for my 16 year old sd she just use the "I'm going to live with dad" as a tool to get her mother to give her whatever she wants. She has "moved back in with us" twice, both times lasting about 2 weeks then gone home when her mom gave in and gave ehr what sd had wanted in the first place. And her attitude is terrible and dissrespectful as heck towards me! Not only would my marriage not survive her living with us again but I dont want to keep letting her use us to do whatever she wants at home because ehr mom is too scared of losing her to set limits aqnd rules for her at all. To the point of bm letting sd'd boyfriend sleep over night at their house because sd threatened to move in with us again if he wasnt allowed to. So they just CANNOT live with us, and need to be told they cant live with us but their dad is so scared to come right out and tell them for fear of hurting them or starting a big fight. How do we say no without being hurtful?
OMG I dont know how to say a
OMG I dont know how to say a big enough yes to that lol. And unfortunately his kids are all masters at manipulationg the guilt to get their way with him. BUT I am so lucky that he is agreeing not to let them live with us ever again. I can only PRAY he sticks to it. And telling them a short to the point no is apparantly not an option for him, he will do everything he can to dance around the issue so he doesnt have to tell them they cant live with us unless we find a nice way to tell them but I havent come up with anything yet.
I would prob scream "Hell
I would prob scream "Hell no!" }:) but if you want to be careful you could say 'Honey, I love you but you need to find your independence, make it work with bf, get your GED, and get a job. We knoe you can do it or if you'd like some input while you start on this part of your life. xoxo"
and "We would love to help you and your mom get along better so you dont feel like you have to threaten to leave whenever there's a problem." Then go pour a glass of wine...or 5.Because there is no way either of these two living with you would be good for anyone in the long run!
We definitely tried that with
We definitely tried that with 20 y/o sd but its always one excuse after another for why she hasnt gotten her life together. And she "just knows that with our support" she could do it... As for 16 y/o sd on the phone day before yesterday she was telling us how she and her mom had gotten in a fight because sd "went off" on her mothers fiance and called him names and screamed at him and her bm "Took his side again so I said Screw you I will just go live with dad if you keep taking his side all the time." To which i (she was on speakerphone with her dad and I) said "Well you couldnt talk to me like that with no consequences either if you lived here so that wouldnt get you anywhere" to which she replied "Thats not up to you thats up to my dad!" and my wonderful husband said "So, how did you do on your report card for the end of the year?" No mention was made of it again and it took me two days to even get the courage to bring it up to him about how he maybe shouldve handled that different. which was an arguement with him just like i had feared. We just need to find a nice way to break it to them that no, they cannot live with us ever!
Well if they push it that
Well if they push it that much I would say there prob ISN'T a nice way to say no. Sometimes no is just no!
I am worried you are right
I am worried you are right but I am so scared that if we cant find a nice way to do it it wont get done... and even worse that if we dont tell them upfront that they cannot that they will manage to "crack" him and he will agree to let them live with us again. I feel a FRANTIC need to do what I can to nip this in the bud now. I literally have nightmares about them living with us.
We had the same issue a
We had the same issue a couple of years ago when my younger SD was 12 - she told her BM she wanted to live with us - at the time she was having all sorts of problems at school etc. She seemed to think she had only to say she wanted to come and live with us for it to happen - however, my mental health and our marriage would not have survived this happening, and DH just told her that she was going to be living with her mother for the forseeable future. I would advise you don't get drawn into wrangling with the 20 year old about the ins and outs of it - just say no, its not happening. She has been legally adult now for a couple of years and should rightly be standing on her own two feet anyway. If you feel inclined, and are financially able, perhaps suggest you can help her with a proportion of the rent on her own place for the first 6 months while she gets set up.
As far as the younger one goes, it is obviously just a ploy to get stuff she wants and I would not countenance any more of this nonsense. Good luck.
I pray my husband will have
I pray my husband will have the courage to just say no. But sadly I really do not think that it will happen. I think as usual, I am going to be the one to have to sy it nd then they can all hate me even more and think their dad REALLY wants them to come and its only because of me that they cant. Which means they will try their best whenever they talk to him alone to guilt him into letting them come live with us. And the sad sad sad thing is sometimes when they do that stuff it works. I know even if he was the one to tell them a clear no they would still try to convince but I think that a hard no from him would really take a lot of their heart out of manipulating him into it. Or maybe it wouldnt even make a difference and it looks like I probably will never find out anyway.
I love it and am so with you!
I love it and am so with you! Thats why we moved out of state 14 hours away and into a one bedroom. BUT these girls are so... idk what the word is but they would happily sleep on the couch. Their general feeling is "I have a place to sleep when I visit why cant I just live there?" It just drives me freaking nuts. But that is why when we were looking at places I made SURE we only looked at 1 bedrooms and told DH i didnt want a 2 bedroom.