Support for Adult Stepdaughter

18 years ago

Today, I am writing asking for your advice how to deal with the relationship between my adult stepdaughter (28 years old, single mom with a toddler) and my husband.

I have three adult stepchildren. I have not had any problem with two older children, who are both married and live in different states. I moved in with my husband and his children a couple years after their BM moved out having affair for several years. (She still lives with the same guy in a different state.) At first, we were planning to date. But later, I offered to move in and take care of the household as my husband was often out of town on business. (I, myself, from a spilit family with three older half-siblings. From my experence, I believed that the teenagers needed some structure and support when there were no parents around.) We lived together for five years and got married waiting for the youngest girl to graduate from high school.

Two older ones moved on to post-secondary education, one still living with us and the other in the same town. But my husband and I had quite a difficulty raising the youngest girl. She initially moved in with her BM, but came back after a week. Then, she started missing school (elementary) as her BM called the school and gave permissions to do so, which continued into high school. She also allowed her grade 7 daughter to hang around downtown after dark. When my husband was out of town, I did not had much control over BM's parental authority. Problem kept raising on and on until finally she got caught by police, when the BM and my husband realized that the girl needed some serious attention.

The daughter, BM, my husband and I went through consultants. But, to this day, I really do not know if it was effective, as the BM and the daughter did not open their minds and talked about any issues. (The consultants' comments) After that, we sent her to a private high school so that she could sever connection to the local bad crowd. She came back home after two years, stayed with us for grade 11 and 12, and decided to take a year off before pursuing post-seconday education. When she decided to come home, my husband and I sat down with her and told her that I would have the same responsibility as her parents concerning her safety and welfare. In the mean time, her BM never visited her at the school and kept rejecting her to visit her own mother on holidays or in summer. There was no financial support, of course, even though the couple had a successful business.

When she became 19 years old, she wanted to have a private meeting with her dad and asked him to kick me out (as my job was over.) She believed that I had twisted and altered their good relationship, manipulated her siblings and other relatives to eliminate her from my world. At this time, I honestly thoght that I would be kicked out (or I would move out) due to the strong tie between the girl and my husband. But he told her to move onto her next step as an adult rather than victimizing herself forever. She took off to a college in other state, where her BM lives.

We supported her for her schooling, living, car, etc. for three years. Then before finishing school, she moved in with an older business man, had a baby (her BM never showed up for the birth.), lived a life of money high roller, and got dumped. What she had left was her own credit card debt of $20,000, which her ex paid off and a settlement of $100,000. I paid for her lawyer and my husband supported her living for a couple of month. Currently, she has a job that pays her $50,000 per year. Baby's day care has been paid by the ex.

Now, here is my dilemma. The stepdaughter comes up with so many grand plans involving my husband and me. Co-sighning her mortgage, helping paying her rent for a better place to live, quitting her job and going back to school and moving back to our place. Non-stop. So far, we have turned down all her plans. Each time, my husband and I have fliction as he feels so sorry for her single mom daughter and guilty for her miserable relationship with people around her. She even says that we are being selfish living in a nice house and traveling at times. (My husband is retiring soon.)

She just had a "private meeting" with her dad last weekend and I have not heard from him yet. Another grand plan???

Thank you for being patient in reading this crap.

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Comments (6)

imamommy
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
He needs to say NO to her. She's a grown woman and her own choices have put her where she is. If she knows that she doesn't have to make it on her own, she will keep coming back. If he worried about the baby, he could tell her that his grandchild is more than welcome to live there but she has to take care of herself. (If he's in a position to do that.)

My dad told us, once we were out doing our thing, having kids.

if you become homeless, your kids are welcome to be here but you are grown and should take care of yourself. A child can't.'

As long as others enable her to screw up, she will. I would feel sorry for her child, not her.
finedreams
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
sounds like BF's older DD-26. She isn't as bad but she has grandious plans involving her dad all the time. quitting her job and moving in with dad for 4 years and pursuing PhD. asking dad to retire in few years and move in with her to watch her kids. lol she has no kids, he is 50 and has no plans to retire any time soon. but she already made plans. then she makes announcements about engagement every few months. In a year and a half since I know BF she was supposed to get engaged about 5 times. last time she made announcement at Christmas that she is getting engaged on New year and wedding should be planned for summer so dad better starts putting money together. It is February and nobody is engaged yet lol It is seeking for attention, that's it. same with your SD, every time she makes plans it wires everytone up and she gets what she wants. Focus is on her. don't give in. 28 is old enough to have her own life
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Sorry, I was having a bad day when I posted that. In this case the ex does get a significant amount of child support from him even though she makes more money than he does and the daughter lives with us 2-4 days a week. She also gets financial support from her family and his family (they love her and only recently stopped shunning me). She has a boyfriend that lives with her part-time and she basically supports him (with the help our our money if you think about it...) She has the daughter enrolled in all kinds of activities like dance classes,swimming classes, cooking classes, etc. The daughter has lots of nice toys and clothes and goes to one of the best pre-schools around. She does not go without anything and is well loved and doted upon at both households. She is spoiled by both sets of grandparents, all the aunts and uncles, and even my own mother sometimes. When my significant other lost his overtime at work his child support stayed the same. Then when he got laid off his child support stayed the same. When she got a new job and started making more money his child support stayed the same. When we got our heat turned off for non-payment his child support stayed the same. We have 2.5 people living in our house but I pay 50% of everything while he pays someone else who makes more than him. That just doesn't sit well with me. We can't afford to pay our bills anymore and forget about ever taking a vacation or saving money. When he was with his ex they had a savings account, took nice vacations and were looking into buying a house. We're broke. There are other issues I won't bother going into here because it's too long and I guess I have some big decisions to make. He says he'll never get married or have more kids and I want those things. It feels so unfair to me that he did those things with someone else but won't do them with me. It's like someone else got it all and I'm getting nothing. But I have to accept a stepchild and an ex wife that will always be in our lives and I have no choice but to make sacrifices for them. I love him and his daughter and I get along fine with his ex but I am clearly the least important person to him.
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CM, You and your husband need family Counselling in a big way. You and your husband have not set any boundaries with SD, and she is taking advantage of that. As a result, your family is in Codependent Chaos. I wouldn't want to live there either. A counsellor can help you know why you and your husband do not Believe you are worthy of respect and why you are willing to be doormats For a disrespectful SD and why you are willing to become more and more estranged from your kids. Why are you rewarding bad behavior? Why can't you set boundaries? Why are you willing to be treated with disrespect ? Would you allow SD to be disrespectful to a teacher or minister? Why do you put up with it for yourselves ? Are you afraid to let go of her? This will take some hard work. Good luck.
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I have some of the same problems with my adult step-daughter! She has never really accepted me as a step-mother in her life nor has she ever accepted my children! She has always be so jealous of my kids. It is obvious how she has acted over the years. I have been married now for 15yrs to my hubby and I love this man so much. He and I are true soul mates. He is the nicest man on earth. Honestly they world be a better place if we could all be like him. She was very obese when I met him and I feel that had a factor to do with that. I always watch my weight and never get over 130lbs and then its time to go down to 110 or 115. My daughter is beautiful I mean drop dead beautiful inside out. Just a loving person. I have three kids and he has two. They were both adults when I married him. No excuse to be so rude to me and my kids. Never introduce my as a step-mother ever. That to me is very rude. Well his daughter felt like we were taking her dad away from her and she was married mind you. both of them were. I love my husband but I do not care for his daughter at all anymore. Last weekend I took a dog she didn't want up to my daughters house, it was a Yorkie but it really looked like it might be a mixed Yorkie. Anyways, my daughter has a Yorkie but her friend had two females and wanted to breed on of them. So my step-daughter sent a pic of the dog to my daughter and my daughter said to bring it up. Now all this time we're thinking it is a registered AKC Yorkie but I don't think it was. She didn't have any papers on it nor any shot records on it. Point is that girls dogs only weighed 4lbs and this dog weighs about 12 to 15lbs! Really a big dog for a Yorkie. So I told my step-daughter we would be bringing the dog back and she got mad. I tried to explain to her why but all she said was bring my fn dog back. I told that was stupid to get mad over a dog and she then call me a B---- and then it has went from bad to really bad. She told me to never talk to her again. Well that is fine with me. She did say some really hurtful things to me but calling me that was way out of line I think. She is so jealous of my daughter is isn't funny. I guess because she is a doctor and my step-daughter isn't anything. She never responds to her dad's text messages when he write her nor even answers the phone but she loves him and will always be there for him she says. That's a joke. She told me to delete her number and never call her again. I will do that but I told her who does she think is suspose to call her when her daddy is in the hospital for something. He has parkison's! Does she not realize that I am his wife and I can stop her from even coming around one of these days as he get's worse. I don't know that I would but she will never do anything anyways for him. It will be my daughter that will step in an help cause she has said she will. His daughter has a lot of issues. Told me to get off drugs and they drugs she is talking about is diet pills that I get from the doctor to keep my weight down. But she went and had her stomach stapled so she could loose weight. I will not let myself get that far out of shape to go do that. Now to me she isn't any better than I am for what she did. Jealousy is what her biggest problem is. I cannot stand her now and I refuse to ever talk to her again. She has no respect what so ever for my husband or me. I do believe she was wrong to call me what she did no matter what I said. Words are words but when you stand cursing your parents or step-parents then you have gone to far. My dad always said you respect an Adult that is older than you are no matter what. She is 33yrs old and I am going on 55. Does anyone have any advice to help me out. I feel so hurt and left out.
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luck36
Original Author
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Hi, guys. Thank you so much for those follow-ups. This was my first time to participate in any type of internet forum. I wish I had this system handy when we were REALLY in the middle of raising teenagers.

Your comments were very helpful, especially in helping me talk back to my heart and rethink about the situation. I have to focus on dealing with our marrige expecting my husband's retirement, which has been very nerve racking to him.

Believe of not, I got a screaming phone call from the mother of the BM (grandma, I mean) to go and pick-up the baby to help out the SD, simply because her daughter (BM) was not available. She said to me, "It's about time for you to do something to help the SD out!" Truth was, according to the olders SD, the BM got involved in a huge argument with her boyfriend regarding if she would take the SD and the baby. Is there anyone sane in the other family?

Anyhow, at this time of my life, I should start feeling less guilty of taking their dad away from the children...

Thanks, again.
finedreams
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
I bet you BM's BF said "NO" to SD moving in with them. It is OK to help children, even grown children, it is OK to take them in and it is OK to help with grandkids, but it is not OK when they think they are entitled.
ceph
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
You've precisely summed up what I think about adults and support from family members!
That it's fine to need help, it's fine to help. It's important to have an open enough relationship that you can ask for help or feel comfortable being asked...
But the trouble all begins when one party thinks they somehow are entitled to having everyone else take care of them and their troubles.

It sounds like your SD has a LOT of entitlement issues, so my advice would be that whatever you do to help her, be FIRM on the limits. Set the limits very clearly, and in advance, and stick to them like glue.
Adults with entitlement are a lot like young kids IMO - if you give them an inch, they want a mile, so you have to be very clear on that they only get one inch, and that's final.
luck36
Original Author
18 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Didn't I say, "Non-stop"?
My husband will be back home tonight, so I still do not know how the meeting went. However, here are new findings about SD's life style, just learnt this morning.

The SD has obtained another credit card since her old debt was paid off by her ex a year ago, and made several payments on two cards this month, which sums up to $9,000. All the payments were solid figures like, "$2,000, $4,000", ball park. Now I don't know how much she owes. However, it is way over her monthly income. (Don't even ask me why I got this info. Long story.)

In the mean time, she tans herself regularly and gets her French nails perfectly done. Oh, yes. I am venting now. During her college years, the SD spent out support money to get breast augmentation to look like Pamela A. (her idle) and hired a personal trainer to participate in a body building competition. No wonder she could not finish the schooling. Even though she came home with enormous breasts, my husband and her older brother (SS) were both in big time denial, saying, "She always had the figure."

The SD comes home and stays with us w/baby on holidays or in summer. At first, my husband warned me not to give the SD hard time with rules and discipline, as she should relax and take good rest from her single-mom life. Then, she took off to downtown all day to party and hang around with friends, and came home like 4:00 a.m. She slept in until 2:00 p.m. only to get ready for another partying.

Wife of my SS (visiting then) got very mad about SS and my husband's defensive attitude for SD, as we were taking care of SD's baby all the time. We confronted the boys and gradually made SD to stay w/her baby. SD totally believed that she was giving us an opportunity to have a quality time with her baby???

Whatever that is, I cannot have her back here to be a full time student. She will leave the baby to us (me) and either study, sleep, party, etc, like normal STUDENTS do. I am not sure about this "upgrading her education for her future career opportunity" idea. The lost income and cost of living for two years is very expensive. Landing on any better paycheck to pay off all the lost money and keep up with her life style will never happen.

Anyhow, I am not looking forward to seeing my husband tonight, only to have another friction about the SD's plan... BIG SIGH.

Support for Adult Stepdaughter

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imamommy

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Support for Adult Stepdaughter

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imamommy

finedreams

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finedreams

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luck36
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