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Blended Families
fleafly82
member
unmotivate (adult) step-daughter...suggestions?
fleafly82
member
So my fianc? of 4+ years & I found out we were expecting a little one due this Aug. Shortly after finding out (2 weeks) his biological 17 year old daughter came to live with us because of the conflict between her mother & mother's boyfriend. Although we are not suppose to have animals in our rented home my fianc? let her bring her cat to live with us until she moved out, which was suppose to be Aug 15th. Since she's been living here, (7 months) she has washed her clothes a total of 5 times, always 1 load max when she runs out of underwear. She leaves heaping piles of dirty clothing strewn about on her floor mixed with half empty soda bottles, old food packaging & random garbage. She not only leaves dirty dishes in her room to pile up but does that around the entire house! She has never washed a dish of her own up until last week when I started hounding her more & her dad spoke with her about it for the 20th time! Everytime she eats 4+ a day, I end up having to clean her dishes because she will leave them sitting for days if I didn't do it for her. Her cat only poops 2 times a week but when it does, it goes on the floor of what is suppose to be our baby's nursery! Her father & I have argued about this issue for awhile & he tried a temp fix by buying a thick blanket for the cat to poop on instead of the carpet ( the cat usually poops right outside of the litter box). Now the cat has taken to pooping in other places & if I dare to bring up having the cat go back to her moms place or getting it a new home, she starts calling me a bi#ch & it causes her to hate me & start picking fights with me for several weeks typically. We can't get her to get a job because she has a million excuses or reasons why she can't or doesn't want to work certain places & she isn't going to go to college, so all she has done since graduation is literally sat on her but from morning till evening playing computer games, fb, or tumbler. I'm very annoyed because I was looking for all this to come to an end when she moved out with her boyfriend here in aug, but today she told me her boyfriends father was no longer going to be paying the 1st, last & deposit on their apartment because he now needed the money to get a place of his own since he was caught cheating. Am I wrong for feeling irritated about all this? What would you do? No matter how upset I get, I don't think that cat will be leaving until she finally moves out, which could be years from now since she has no desire to work.
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Re: unmotivate (adult) step-daughter...suggestions?
If I'm you, I get my things and check into a hotel. I'd come back when and ONLY when:
- she has a job
- she has cleaned up her mess
- the cat is taken back to mom's house
- the three of you have a conversation during which your fiance tells her that she will work and/or go to school full time, she will clean up after herself, and she will give both the adults in the home the respect they are entitled to
- there is a plan in place for future (is she working full time? going to cc? uni? back to moms?)
- you and your fiance have a discussion in which he understands & acknowledges that this is a problem he helped create.
If you & your fiance do not deal with this actively and firmly, nothing will change.
Yeah, all of this. How did you guys allow her to get away with this for so long?!
I could be wrong but what I got from it was that the step daughter was 17 when she moved in(since it was 2 weeks after poster found out they were pregnant and the baby is now due next month) so maybe she is 18 now?
I agree with other posters that she needs to be doing something, work, school etc and a lot of those things would definitely bother me. I especially would not be ok with things like cat poop on the floor often when there will eventually be a baby crawling around on those floors that you don't want to encounter cat poop(I know crawling is a long while off but if you don't address things there will never be a change.) I also would be concerned about having the cat, especially indefinitely, if you are not allowed pets in your rental. What would happen if they found out? I love animals but a pet is not worth jeopardizing your living situation.
I would also talk to your FH( and think about the fact) that once the baby comes you probably will not have the time or the energy to be picking up after step daughter, doing her laundry, making sure to find all her dishes do them etc. It could definitely end up leading you to feel some resentment.
If she is 18 I would say that you and FH lay out expectations for living in the household, chores, school or work, the cat, how adults in the house are to be treated etc and make it clear that if she wants to continue to live there then she needs to abide by them.
She gets a one month notice to either; find a job, enlist in the military or enroll in college. Then she gets 90 days to live rent free while she finds other housing to pursue either of those goals, then she is out. If she doesn't find one of the above in 30 days then she is out
It's this or you will have a 30 year old with her three kids living under your roof the rest of your life. Make a choice
Is the cat just pooping or is it peeing too? Cat smells are very hard to get rid of and cat urine can do a lot of damage. I will never own a cat again, but that's just me. I would give SD a time frame, like a week, to clean up after her cat correctly and to your standards. If things aren't done to your standards the cat either goes to mom's or a shelter but it has to leave. No excuses, no extensions, it leaves. You don't want to me dealing with sanitary issues in your house with a new baby. Once a cat messes somewhere it will usually continue to do so unless you can completely get rid of the smell. I may be completely wrong on this though. I'm currently dealing with a cat hoarding relative and that mess so I may be biased.
You need to make it clear to your FI that this way of living is unacceptable to you. He needs to be the one enforcing things with SD.I don't know how your family dynamic works but I know how this would be handled in my house:
If you can't take care of my dishes by washing the correctly then you cant use them. You need to buy yourself something else but I will now allow you to use my dishes.
If you do not do your laundry that's fine. If you are in dirty clothes you are not allowed it sit on my furniture. Piles of dirty clothes will not be allowed in my house. If I find piles of dirty clothes then I will be putting them in trashbags and in the trash 1 hour after I find them.
Piles of food trash are not allowed in my house. I will allow you to sleep in a bedroom with a door. If you do not respect this room and do not take care of it then you will no longer be allowed to use it. At night I would move SD mattress to a hallway/ living room for her to sleep on.
If SD is under 18 and chooses not to work then that's on her but she shouldn't expect to be able to do nothing and have everyone provide her with luxuries. If she needs clothes, buy her solid color Hanes, for food buy her only nutritious food, no "fun" snacks, do not allow her to use your electricity to watch TV, play games, listen to the radio, etc.
If she is over 18 you and FI need to decide what terms she is allowed to live with you under. Having a Job, cleaning up after herself, helping with bills? Give her 30-45 days to follow your terms and if not then she has 30 days to move out. Once again extensions or exceptions.
When is the lease up for renewal? I would tell your fi that at that time either his daughter moves out or you will. You can file to collect support for the baby and live in separate homes until you get married - if you want to be with a man with no b#lls to stand up to his adult child.
She is 18 and graduated this June. I had a job at 15 along with my license and a car & than by 18 I had my own place & attended college. I don't think it's to much to ask that she clean up after herself, get a job & plan for the future.
I like your suggestions, I completely agree & I'm very worried she will end up living with us as an adult never able to get on her feet. I guess I better think about setting up a timeline & how to bring it up to my fianc?. Thanks
Wait wait wait. You cannot put all tr blame on the ex when he spent four very important years absent from her life. Him being in college and working are just excuses as there are many DHs on this board that are good active fathers raising their children while in school and working. He is her father and if BM gets blamed for her child's behavior then so does he. And if he was an absent father then he gets more of the blame. I know my DH could have done things differently with SD but BM being absent from 13 on made for some issues.
Now you have to decide if you can be with him given the situation.