- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Blended Families
slpullen2013
member
Problem with my SO's 22 y.o. Daughter
slpullen2013
member
I am 27 years old and my SO is 45, he has a 22 y.o daughter that is very disrespectful when she talks to him. I have a problem with how she treats him, but he seems to let her get away with it. What I really don't like is how she refers to me as if I'm not there and it's always negative. I don't know his daughter well enough for her to pass judgement on me! And I feel her negativity towards me will spill over to my baby (due June 4). Now the a**hole in me wants to pound her into the ground, but I need a more tactful way of dealing with her. I've told my SO that I don't want her at my baby shower and really don't want her around our baby(hate to say that being that I have half sisters I love dearly). Any suggestions on this dilemma are welcome.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Problem with my SO's 22 y.o. Daughter
I add that I am familiar with how these scenarios work. My SD is 7 years younger than me. It's not easy and it certainly isn't fun.
I wouldn't suggest any sort of confrontation (referring to the ahole in you wanting to pound her into the ground).
When you say her father allows her to treat him a certain way, unfortunatley that is between the two of them. You can only allow her to treat YOU the way you want, you can't control their relationship. Apparently he is fine with their dynamic. Do not try to change that. She has been his daughter far longer than you have been his SO/wife. (I don't mean that snarky at all).
From someone who tried to "help" a father daughter relationship - trust me...stay out of it. You will be the easier scapegoat if you try to intervene.
As for how to deal with her regarding her treatment of you. I don't know how often you see/talk/interact with her so it's hard to suggest much. If she is local to you and you do dinners, family nights, etc there is more finesse needed vs. if it's a once a year Christmas get together and phone calls.
If it were me, I would go about my business enjoying the pregnancy and focus on that. Don't invite drama and chaos, focus on the baby and getting things ready. REALLY and truly it is NOT worth it to get entangled in the other dynamic with SD/DH. Leave it to them.
I only want to say that I somewhat disagree with the advice about how your SO allows SD to treat him being an accurate predictor of how he will be with your baby. That relationship depends a lot on how much they lived in the same home, how the divorce was and how present he has been in her life. I can say from experience that my DH is totally different with my bios and our bio than he is with the skids. In my case, DH had expressed frustration with his relationship with his children well before we were dating. The patterns there were set largely by DH's exwife, who from birth told the children they were accidents, unwanted, their Dad did not like them, etc.
My advice is therefore....don't let how SO is with his DD affect your parenting together in any way. Don't think about it. How often is SD around? What does SO say about you asking that she not be at the shower or around the baby? Is there a middle ground? As an "ours baby" myself I wish my parents had protected me from my middle half sister, who told me my birth ruined her life and took it out on me my entire life, whenever she could without my parents noticing (for instance, I would beg not to stay with her for a weekend, but they would take me so we could have "fun"). She was 18 when I was born, and my parents had no idea until I was an adult and finally told them how things were when I was a child. For our "ours" baby, unless and until the skids have a relationship with DS, they will not be left alone with him. But we do want to foster that relationship and do try. The key for us is to not force anyone to feel any particular way. It's not working well so far, but it's better than pretending blending just magically happens. If you can be non-threatening and real around SD, and take a deep breath before dealing with her - if you are true to "doing the right thing" in time things may improve. I see no chance for improvement with a hard line against her, and see an opportunity to alienate your SO from you and your family if you try to exclude his family - SD.
When I met dh, he was 44 and I was 30 - not a big diffrence in the ages for the OP and her SO. And we have children together, too (we are married, but I don't that necessarily means I deserve more respect than a SO and mother or his children)! Just because there was a large difference in our ages doesn't mean that anyone had the right to treat me with disrespect. The daughter doesn't have to LIKE the fact that her dad is having a baby with someone close to her age, but that doesn't mean she gets to talk rudely to the OP!
Unfortunately, if her dad allows such disrespect towards himself and hasn't stepped up for you, it's unlikely that anything is going to change. He doesn't want to "rock the boat" with his daughter. I would re-consider this relationship. You can hope that the 22 yo matures and kill her with kindness along the way, but unless your SO is willing to stand up for you, she may never learn manners.
As for dealing with his daughter, I would call her on whatever she says. You don't have to give her a beat-down. Just say "wow, SO'sD, why would you say something like that?" Let her answer.
X's daughter was very disrespectful to him, and to me as well. I put up with it - or rather tried to manage it and control it for 5 years.
I'm getting divorced next week.
Listen to Illumine. Please.
There is NOTHING you can do about your relationship between the two of them. That's up to them.
And here's something for you to consider. As the previous poster stated, you are so close in age, you could be SO's daugther's friend. She may be disrespectful because she does not respect her father. And I can see why. Maybe you are the exception to the rule, and you can make your age difference work, but if you are going to marry him or be involved with him, you need to also accept the issues that come with it and be prepared to deal with it as an adult and not want to pound his daughter into the ground.
My DH is 11 years older than me so I have less of an issue with the age and more of an issue with someone that says they want to pound their SOs adult child regardless of the situation. If someone ever said that about my children I would leave them in a heartbeat because I do not think that decent adults even think to want to pound people.
What maturing do I need to do? I haven't been anything but nice to his daughter. I've never been rude to her even when she's been rude to me. I've asked him to stand up for me because I wouldn't feel right having a fight with his child. Now I will say from a lot of you ladies responses there are people with major issues about someone younger dating someone older, which is stupid. He's not a pedophile, I'm not a male order bride, I'm not taking his money. We met, we fell in love with each other, we decided to have a child together. I didn't break up a marriage or anything like that. His daughter comes around to beg for money, so she feels like this child is going to take whatever money she wants. That's not cool. And pounding his daughter into the ground is how I feel, I've never done that or said that to her or him.
This is why people should get to know each other and sort out potential problems before getting pregnant. It is all good and well that you fell in love but now you are pregnant and trying to change his relationship with his daughter that him and his daughter might not be ok with changing. If you figured this out before you were bringing another child into the situation then you could have decided if you could live with it or not, and if he was willing and wanted to change it. The only person that can decide if it should be changed is him, you can tell him it bothers you and why but then it is up to him regardless of you being pregnant with his child.
And wanting to pound someone into the ground is NOT a normal adult reaction as I said above, it makes you sound like you have anger management issues if not more even if you can control it.
OK ladies you all make valid points. I will keep your thoughts in mind
And you just proved my point my point.
Your DH allowed his exwife to create a pattern where he was portrayed as the bad dad.
Do you HONESTLY believe that if you were to leave him tomorrow, that he would fight for your children? It is so easy to say that a partner has changed WHILE you are still together. Because he doesnt have the need to fight.
Hell, my DH sucked at parenting my SS, but was an amazing parent towards SD (he had custody of SD). I niavely thought that when we got custody of SS, he would parent like he did with SD.
NOPE. He continued on his path.
And I also niavely thought that he would parent DD like he parented SD.
NOPE. He is falling into the same patterns as he did with SS.
It is taking couples and family therapy to get him to make those changes. But I know that if we were to divorce, he would go back to his divorced daddy guilts.
My XSD is a real "winner", much like your SO's daughter. Never have I thought I want to pound her into the ground. Figure of speech or not, it comes off really ugly.
It's like my SD saying once that she wanted to punch her SS's in the face. Really??
I think saying things like, even if you have no intention of actually doing is very telling.