New to this place and don't know what to do.
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Hello, everyone I am so happy to have found this place. I recently was told by a acquintence about this place. It's great I can finally share my feelings about my soon to be step daughter without her father finding out and causing so many problems. I love her but she is a deiceptful little brat and is always trying to get my children in trouble, then my fiance and I always end up fighting. What should I do? I can't punish her, but he can punish my kids. She is always trying to get my son in trouble and it works every time. I know that my son is not always the one causing the problems.
Welcome!
First, I'd not promote him from fiance to husband unless/until you can come up with a discipline plan that is enforced evenly across the board to all children by both of you. Your biggest problem, as you probably know, is the daddy, not the daughter. It helped us to come up with a written plan for rules/punishments that applied to all five of our children and that we could both enforce evenly to all kids. You'll make more headway with the girl if her dad teaches her to respect you and to do that, he can't undermine your efforts to discipline. One of the rules on our list is no tattling and we take it very seriously.
~ Anne ~
"Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries."
(Truman Capote)
Anne's first sentence says
Anne's first sentence says it all...'first, I'd not promote him from fiance to husband..." If he can't treat the kids the same now he sure won't do it after your married. This would be a big issue for me and I wouldn't marry anyone that didn't treat my kids the same as his.
that explains it
Hmmmmm......your comments might explain why I've been engaged for 5 years and still have no plans on actually setting a date for a wedding! I just can't bring myself to do it when we have daily issues with the skids. They totally disregard anything that comes out of my mouth, day after day and their dad doesn't help much to enforce the rules. I make my comments daily (as well as ask them daily to do the same things) but it doesn't change anything. It's usually me who has to ask them (yet again!) to do something and then I usually get a big sigh or some sort of smart ass remark or attitude. It's to the point that I'm already pissy before I even walk in the door each night!
Quick question - why can't you punish/discipline his daughter? Is it that she just doesn't listen to you or have you just conceeded to let him deal with her? Most of the problems my fiance has with his son stem from SS not listening to something I've asked him to do. That is ONE thing that my fiance has finally learned (and of course because it was a suggestion from the therapist - sorry that's another blog!) is that he HAS to stand behind me when disciplining or requesting the skids to do something.
Don't go into this marriage knowing that there is a problem. You don't want to regret it. If you already have these feelings about your soon-to-be SD, they aren't going to get any better just because you signed a piece of paper. It just makes it more difficult to remove yourself from the stress and aggravation when you've had enough!
Double Standards............
Sounds like a real double standard to me. You either need to agree with your partner to discipline ALL kids equally, or that you will deal with yours and he will deal with his.
Preferrably, all kids should be treated equally. Good luck.