Horrible little step daughter.......how can i change the way i feel?
I have now known my OH's kids for 2 years and they come over twice a week and its fine, the older one who is 15 is a lovely girl, polite pretty and pleasure to be around and i really like her being here. The other one is horrible, i hate to say it but i have to let it all out!
She is 11 and with attitude she wears the most awful clothes and seems to think she is 18 with what she wears, all black and pink and big hooped earrings she wobbles her head side to side with attitude and is very much i want i want i want!
She shouts dad at the top of her voice when she wants something, he could be upstairs in the garden anyway, if she wants a drink, something to eat want to know what the time is etc she calls him and he does it! It makes me sick!
She drops something on the floor she and calls dad and gets him to pick it up. She wipes her hands on our furniture as i see her do it and leaves wrappers around the house she gets in a mood if you say something she doesn't like - then waits for everyone to ask her whats wrong.
Well i don't, i just leave her in a mood if thats the way she wants to be. Basically she is a spoilt brat and gets what she wants when she wants and it would appear mummy lets her get away with whatever she wants!
I dread her coming over and just wish she didn't feel well or something so she couldn't come i know this must sound mean but i am giving up my spare time to spend with a child i hate and i don't know how to make these feelings go away!
My OH is a bit scared to tell her off as he only sees her twice a week he doesn't want her to think that every time she sees him he is telling her off so i know it is hard for him but its terribly upsetting and i just don't know what to do.
I sympathise with how you
I sympathise with how you feel. I love my stepson to bits but really dont like my step daughter. She is extremely attention seeking, she tells lies so often its virtually impossible to know when she is telling the truth and is revoltingly clingy to me and her father. I know she will always come over however sick she is as she cant stand the thought of her brother getting attention. She has gone so far as to try and convince him to ask to go back to his mother's before now. I can't advise on how to change your feelings as I am pretty sure I am not going to be able to change mine! My OH also struggles with the fact he only sees the little darling twice a week, although he does tell her off. I spend the entire time she is with us counting the hours till she leaves and trying to find a way not to have to be with her. The only advantage I have found to her unacceptable behaviour is one of the more serious lies she told recently was telling her mother I abandoned her in the middle of a mall, that gave me the perfect oppurtunity to say I was not prepared to take her anywhere and be alone with her in future as I dont trust her not to lie again. I now get to go out shopping without having to either take her with me or rapidly think up an excuse. Sorry I cant help you but it might help to know you aren't alone by any stretch of the imagination!!
Thank you so much for your
Thank you so much for your reply it is nice to know that there is someone out there who shares my feelings.
I think part of it is that she doesn't ask me... she will wonder the house looking for her dad to ask him to get her a drink when i might be right there..He was out at the end of the garden yesterday repairing the pond and she went down to ask him for something to eat when i was already in the kitchen.
She asks him if she can borrow a hair brush or shampoo and i think to myself what are you asking him for as he then has to ask me when is she gonna get it.
i too count down the hours and get quite excited when time is up and he takes her home. We are trying to start out own family however with no joy yet and i really don't want her being too close as i don't want my children to end up like her.
I feel the same way
I have one of "those" SD's (10) as well. She has daddy wrapped around her little finger. She can do no wrong in Daddy's eyes and is so sneaky, entitled and manipulative I can't believe it. She puts on this total innocent sweet little act, but I can see right through it.
I agree with you StepAside, my DH is doing her no favors by overlooking her behavior. She goes into a rage if something doesn't go her way and somehow works it out to look like the victim while DH and other SD try to appease her. It makes me sick and I truely think she's going to be a horrible person when she gets older. And I have no doubt that Daddy will always believe her problems are the fault of someone else and never his or her own.
I'd have no problem in letting my DH let her grow up to by this way, aside from the fact that he's very hard on my BD, has a lot of double standards. Sits in his glass house and throws stones so to speak....
SD is much the same, she
SD is much the same, she will ask her dad for things, but normally its only because she thinks she will get a more favourable answer from him. Drinks, towels, clothing etc she will ask me for but something like borrowing something that belongs to me or asking for sweet treats she will ask her dad. He will always tell her she has to ask me if its something that is mine and he is almost but not quite as strict as me on the sweets, I just think its part of her way of testing to see whether or not Daddy will support me. He used my £16 a tub conditioner on her once and boy did she go overboard telling me because she thought it would cause a problem between us, it didnt but she has to try. My response to her Dad and to her is she is old enough to get it herself so she should stop being so lazy - she is 9. So now she gets her own drinks, she is still expected to ask for food though. I was always a very independent kid, my mother would not have expected anything less of me god forbid she had had to take care of me
so I find SD asking me to pick out her clothes or tie her shoes in a double bow when she is 9 shocking. However, BM is a bit of a control freak and insists on picking out the clothes they wear each day so its no wonder! Best of luck with starting your own family, I cant have kids so wont have to worry about SD's influence on them but I do worry about her spending time with my nieces and I do worry about her encouraging my SS who is younger to tell lies.
Does anyone have a suggestion?
Everyday, I'm at my wit's end. This morning, I just needed to hear that someone else was suffering along with me, and I stumbled across this site. It's almost eerie the similarities!
I am currently not married, but have been cohabiting with my boyfriend for the past five years. He has a daughter who is now 15 and has been a constant mess since I met him.
The worst part of it all started when she was 11-12 and I began to suspect she was bulimic. Every time she came over to the house she was whine and cry to go out to eat in a restaurant, and my boyfriend, as the guilty and honorable father, would always acquiesce. I began to notice, she would eat an entire adult meal, and then conveniently visit the bathroom before we left. Then, as soon as we got home, she would be asking for icecream or smoothies for dessert. Needless to say, she is very tiny and waif-like, and her mother (the horrible stage mom type) had her enrolled in dancing, singing, performing, "modeling," and all other kinds of situations that could put her at risk for this kind of thing. So I said something, and said something, and said something, over and over again, until her father finally took it seriously and began the long path towards getting her help, even in the face of her mother adamantly denying the constant vomiting (which both she and her father witnessed first hand).
Well, long story short, she is 15 now, and no longer binging and purging, at least in our presence, though I secretly think her and the mother have worked up some sort of negotiation to keep her tiny and "popular" in the acting/modeling game. But who knows?
Unfortunately, her behavior has increasingly become way out of control for me and I have no clue what to do. She has all the traits of becoming a horrible person: she screams, cries, throws tantrums and slams things around. She lies, about EVERY thing. She's been caught cheating in her classes, has been written up for calling a girl a very nasty name, and is, in general, just a terrible person to be around. Generally, I just say nothing when she is over, unless it's completely neutral. The few times I have said something it's twisted into me being a terror - like when she was throwing a fit on a Monday morning because she couldn't find the paper plates for her school project. She was screaming, crying, slamming my kitchen cabinet doors while on the phone with her mother who was working her up into a tizzy. I yelled across the house, "THE PLATES ARE IN WITH THE PIES" only to find out later she told her mother "I hollered at her for nothing" and then, of course, the mother calls my boyfriend to talk to him about how I should behave around her little B**** princess.
Just last weekend, she lied and said she couldn't find the website for her online homework, when the truth was, she lost her password. Why even lie about that?!? Did she not think I would go online and get the correct web address?
Well, now it's summer vacation time and I'm just ready to throw in the towel. Thanks to her father's VERY generous monthly child support payments, her mother took her to the Cape in Massachusetts AND on a Disney vacation. Now, it's our turn, and we don't have that kind of money because we're giving it all to the BM. But his daughter can't seem to understand this!
She came over to our house after these vacations and basically demanded that my boyfriend take her to Savannah, GA and Washington DC. Now, I wasn't there at the time so I don't know what he said, but he said, he didn't say yes. And when he told me about the plans, I said no, we don't have the money, and he agreed, so we began planning something a little more low key. Then last night, she called him up and basically told him that he already told her yes, and then pitched a fit and hung up on him when he said he couldn't afford it. This angers and confuses me, because I know she lies all the time, but I'm wondering if he did say yes, and he's the one lying because he got himself into a tight spot. Now, I don't even want to go with them on vacation, but I've never gone on the summer vacation before because of his daughter's behavior and this was going to be our first real vacation EVER!!
We're not married, and we don't have any children together, and I don't have any children at all.
Sometimes, her behavior and the stress it causes in our relationship makes me want to leave altogether. And his inability to deal with her outbursts and lies is making me look at him in a whole other light, because it makes him seem like a weak person and a bad parent.
So, should I go on the vacation, or just let her rule the day like she always does? Am I an idiot for thinking this could ever work out? I feel like we talk about it all the time, and generally, he just agrees with me, and then goes right back to old behaviors. I get so tired of paying for the decisions he made in his life!
Whew! It felt great to vent all that, and it was only the tip of the iceberg. Does anyone have any ideas with how to deal with a situation like this?
i agree with sd's
my sd is the same, manipultive little child. I too count the seconds until she goes home. SS is fine and gets along with biokids great. When sd is here she torments biokids to tears until I ship them off to my parents. I want seperation of the kids, when sd is coming me and my kids will not be here. I did not bust my a** for 8 years raising great kids, so in 1 weekend 1 lttle shi*head can undo everything.
It must be frightening
It must be frightening really that you bring your own children up correctly and some little child csn come along and we a bad influence!
What i don't understand is why the mothers let them get away with it!
She lets her dress like a little tart covered in cheap tarty clothes and full on make up at 11 years old, now correct me if i am wrong as i do not have kids but that to me is rediculous she looks like a little girl who is playing dressing up but it is not my place to stop her going out in public like it.
The trouble is though when we do go out people who don't know us will think she is mine and its embarassing!
You do not need to change
how you feel. And don't expect the child to change either. Is DH the one who has the power to bring a balance in your home and to stop this spoiling.
this conversation with DH?. Have you let him know that you do not have a problem with SD15 but that he is parenting SD11 out of guilt, which sets the child to failure in the future?
If you have talked to him about it, he probably thinks either of these:
A) YOu are wrong, you are just seeing the negative on his daughter. Which doesn't really make sense, because the fact hat you find the other daughter pleasant to be around speaks volumes.
You also have the option of disengaging. I don't do this, because it is just not how DH and I are. I wouldn't be able to just "go with the flow" and not voice my opinion, or not tell SD what to do or what not to do. I need to enforce the rules in my house. But for some people here (such as Crayon and others) this seems to work.
Let him be the parent, when she act up, when she needs discipline, let him be the one handling her, and you step back. This might work, unless he just doesn't care about what she does.
He does care....
OH does care he just gets worried that he doesn't want to be telling her off all the time or she won't want to be coming round anymore- i totally understand that but the trouble is he doesn't notice some of the things! such as wiping dirty hands on the sofa etc!
I do try i really do, i know how they like crispy creme doughnuts so bought them both a doughnut today for when they come round only the one i bought was not good enough - even though it was the same one as she chose last time i bought them!
She is a pretty little girl and when she is ok she is lovely but that only happens about 5% of the time!
Maybe i just don't have enough patients!
You are not going to change
You are not going to change the way you feel, and shouldn't. You are healthy. OH is not. The problem is not the child here, it's the father. The only feelings of yours that are likely going to change is the level of respect you have for your husband as you continue to witness him be emotionally exploited by a bratty child on a power trip. No healthy person would have patience for watching their husband allow himself to be treated this way by their child. I would focus less on blaming yourself for not accepting unhealthy behaviors, and focus more on figuring out how and if you can endure the situation with your marriage and sanity in tact. Would he consider seeing a therapist? Hearing his guilt parenting is doing more damage than good from a therapist instead of you prevents him from resenting you. A therapist has no agenda, so he can't be upset with him/her for telling him to stand up to his daughter and be a parent instead of a slave. Hopefully he'll get some help so he can be a better father.
"There comes a time when you have to surrender the idea of what your children could be to the reality of who they are."