Dad, what's for dinner? I have to ask YOU
Me: Come home from work. Walk in to room where kids are all hanging out. Say "Hi". My BS says hi, Skids say nothing. Awkward as usual. (Have gone down the road of them being told how rude it is when someone says hi or bye and they don't respond. Gave up on it, they just don't care about being rude or about my feelings).
Me: Change out of work clothes, start making dinner in kitchen. In and out of kitchen the next hour or so, CLEARLY cooking, you can smell food, etc.
DH: Walks in the door coming home from work. He comes to greet me in kitchen and chat. SD walks over and says, "Hi Dad. What's for dinner?".
ME: Thinking to myself, "Really, SD? *AGAIN*? You know damn well I am the one who cooks dinner. You have seen me cooking and walked by and seen what I am cooking. Yet you have to come ask DH what's for dinner AGAIN, like he is the one who cooked it."
DH to SD: "SD, see what's on the stove/on the plates? That's what we're having." (He is embarrassed that SD is snubbing me once again and acting like I don't exist and acting like he magically walked in and whipped up dinner in 5 minutes and I have only been flitting about the kitchen for an hour for no apparent reason).
SD: "Okay!" smiley face, walks away.
Again, feels good to vent. Who the hell else has these bizarre experiences besides a step-mom.
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Oh, yeah been there done
Oh, yeah been there done that! Also after spending an hour cooking a meal-while my dh wasnt home, was downstairs, was asleep and ss was in the same area as the kitchen-have him thank his dad for the meal! My dh would say, "SS you know I didnt cook this" and ss would laugh. Haha. Isnt that cute?
Ugh, SS would laugh when DH
Ugh, SS would laugh when DH said that? Nice.
I *wish& my DH would say that to SD. I mean, should I actually tell DH, this is exactly what I want you to say to her? I've talked to him about this and he is clearly embarrassed when she does it. But he won't directly call her out on it.... and I haven't said to him, "When SD pulls that crap, you need to say XXXX".
Your DH needs to nut up and
Your DH needs to nut up and deal with this situation. He should sit her little ass down and explain to her that going forward, she will be polite and treat you with respect.
DH used to do this too. This was one of the major reasons I nearly left him. Because he was too big of a p**sy to stand up to his kid and tell her she was behaving like a spoiled brat. I explained because he refuses to address her behavior, that he is telling her that it's okay to treat me like she just scraped me off of her shoes.
Bad behavior is like cancer, ignoring it isn't going to make it go away. Otherwise the tumor will get bigger, spread and eventually kill the relationship.
^^^^THIS
^^^^THIS
omg. i posted before reading
omg. i posted before reading other comments. sd always did the same damn thing. thank dad for what she knew i cooked. every f'g time. even after gagging as if it was the most disgusting thing ever put in front of her, she would eat it then thank fdh.
This happens a lot. Not just
This happens a lot. Not just with dinner of course but what a prime example. This is where I know I should correct my BD13 but I choose not to.
When SS7 who is the one for me that treats me like crap pulls stuff like that... In your example up top, before DH could answer him, BD13 if in earshot would say something like, How would he know? He just got here, DUH.
bless her heart....
Anyway - SD13 and BD13 often get angry with SS7 (DH never does, he'd just answer for him which to me enables SS7's right to ignore me and pretend I don't exist)
Often SS7 will THANK DH for dinner (we require the kids to say thank you - but he will call out DH specifically) to this often SD13\BD13 will reply, um yeah, thanks for nothing (jokingly) to DH then thank me directly or sometimes they will say, thank you 3Fam\Mom putting the emphasis on MY name to point it out to SS7 he is an ungrateful moron.
Those are just the dinner examples.
However, DH doesn't help the situation at all, for example, if I get something for each of the kids, DH will take credit for whatever SS7 gets, receive the thanks and not even point out it came from me. End result - I don't get anything anymore.
The ungrateful list goes on and on and one - somehow SD13 didn't seem to fall victim to how SS7 is - same BM, same BF - so its just SS7.
You are SO lucky you have
You are SO lucky you have people in your house sticking up for you! I would love that. That made me smile just hearing your 13 years olds speaking up for you!!
"However, DH doesn't help the
"However, DH doesn't help the situation at all, for example, if I get something for each of the kids, DH will take credit for whatever SS7 gets, receive the thanks and not even point out it came from me. End result - I don't get anything anymore."
i could have written that myself. fdh always happily sucked up the credit from sd for anything i paid for. i called him out on it one time. right after she moved in here, and i was the only one working, we were out grocery shopping. it was october. sd decides she needs new snow boots. fdh had lost his job the month before, so i was doing everything alone. i did not have money for f'g boots. he came to me and quietly asked if "we" could get them for her. i said "does she really need them right now? there isnt even any snow on the ground." he was all hurt that i wasn't going to get them. i stupidly told him fine, tell her to get them. $30 that i can't afford, but sure! so she runs back and gets them and says "thanks dad!" he's all smiles and beaming and says "you're welcome!" i swear for the first time in my life i knew what seeing red really means. finally i couldn't take it, and i turned around to him right in front of sd and said "what are taking all the credit for? I'M the one paying for them!"
it wasn't meant to be an insult about him losing his job in any way. i was just so sick of her assuming everything came from him (even if she saw it come from me :? )and him letting her think it. i'm surprised she didn't thank him for giving birth to her little brother that she heard me in agony while delivering!
WOW!! Please tell me that
WOW!! Please tell me that she got some sort of punishment for that junk?
Ummmm... NO. Skids get
Ummmm... NO. Skids get "punished" maybe once a year(what a laugh) if they do something really bad (like when I checked internet history and found that SS was looking at porn) or when SD hit SS really hard once. DH believes in gentle talking-to's and warnings. Don't get me wrong. Skids aren't bad kids in the usual sense. They just are incredilbly rude and inconsiderate to me in very quiet, passive agressive ways.
thats exactly how my SD10
thats exactly how my SD10 is... rude and disrespectful, but in a quiet and subtle (sneaky) way. it kinda was making me feel petty and like it was just me...until I came to this site (and also read Stepmonster)and found out that its NOT JUST ME being sensitive or making something of nothing!
I love it when DH and I are
I love it when DH and I are standing side by side together and SD goes "Hi dad!". She can't even just say "Hi", she has to throw on the "dad" to make sure we are all clear she isn't saying hi to me, only dad.
Isn't it great! DH gets uncomfortable and embarrassed because he knows how horribly rude it is. ONCE he said "SD, Marty is right here too...."and SD goes, "oh... hi..." in tiny, flat voice.
Yeah ss is expert on this.
Yeah ss is expert on this. My favorite would be in the car when *I* was transporting him back and forth to visits. "hey dad" "guess what dad" "dad, did you know..." Every. Single. Comment was prefaced with "dad".
My dh often used to be clueless. He would address it if he noticed it, caught it. But sometimes he just didnt. I didnt have a problem telling him about it later and what my expectation was for him handling it
However, my ss is such an ass it was pointless. Back when he visited regularly and dh would pick him up, ss would always manage to come in the house prior to dh-dh would be getting stuff out of the car, smoking a cigarette, whatever-ss would come in and walk right by me. Sometimes 3 or 4 different times. Then dh would come in and say, "ss did you greet hismineandours?" and the response would be "yes, dad I did". I'd call ss out and say something, "oh, cmon ss dont lie" or "yes, he did greet me if you count the telepathic greeting I'm sure he said in his head". But, at this point, dh protective instincts or perhaps jsut clueless instincts would kick in, and he'd say "Oh, maybe you just didnt hear him honey"-all the while ss is standing ther with a shit eating grin. It was all a big game to him. Finally I stopped asking my dh to talk to ss about speaking to me, or greeting me, and I just avoided ss myself.
He no longer lives with us nor visits-so not something I currently worry about. But I remember how incredibly insulting it was to be completely disregarded in your own home. It is a passive form of aggression and IMO I would have preferred a little outright verbal aggression over this.
i know how that is, too. any
i know how that is, too. any time sd would say anything at all, it was always "dad" either before or after what she had to say. i'm sure it meant nothing to him, but i knew damn well that it was her way of making sure i knew she was NOT talking to me.
My favorite is when you offer
My favorite is when you offer them something they want or need (food, beverage, jacket, sunscreen, bugspray, whatever)and they either ignore it or say no thank you. Then they go tell Dad they're hungry or thirsty or cold or whatever, so he comes and gives them what you just offered. So then it's like you were neglectful.
Yep this used to be SD when
Yep this used to be SD when she was 10. I would clearly make dinner, serve the dinner and then SD would say "Dad thanks for dinner."
sd20 was the same way. always
sd20 was the same way. always asking fdh questions that she should have been asking me. why am i doing this, why am i doing that? why am i laughing, what did i say, who called me on the phone, on and on and on. same thing with food. and she liked to play musical chairs about what she liked and what she didn't. last week, sloppy joes were good. this week, since she can plainly see that *I* am cooking them, they are worthy of gagging noises from her. fuck you, sd. don't eat then. sloppy joes happens to be one of your dad's favorites, so that is what i'm making. you can have a pb sandwich if it doesn't suit you.
she pulled crap like that all the time. another thing she did that grated on my nerves is thank DAD for dinner after i did all the work and she damn well knew it. never said a word to me. but if fdh did the cooking "dad! this is AMAZING!!!!" about made me sick. anything he made was always AMAZING. i'm quite sure it was less a compliment to him as it was a way for her to make sure i knew she was capable of compliments but just wouldn't do it for me. like i give a shit. i don't care if that bitch likes my cooking or not. my life would be so much happier if i never had to see her again, so yeah, her liking my cooking is really NOT something i'm concerned about. but i do understand how damn irritating that crap is.
here's another thing. about
here's another thing. about skids thanking stepparents. sd refuses to thank me for anything, ever. that's perfectly fine at this point since i stopped doing anything for her almost 4 years ago. i brought it up to fdh once about her only thanking him, even when she knows damn well it isn't him that did something for her. his piss poor head in the sand response was "well it's just habit for her to thank me. i'm the only one that ever did anything for her". i asked him "don't you think at 16 it should be 'habit' for her to thank ANYONE who does something for her???" he actually tried to defend that bitch never recognizing anyone else and always giving him the credit for everything. how the hell do you even try to reason with that kind of twisted logic?