About to walk out bc teen SD bullying DD
I've lurked on here for a very long time but I'm at the end of my rope and really need someone to bounce this off of. Great five year relationship with DH. His youngest and my DD are six weeks apart in age, similar interests etc. They were friends for years and all was good. DH moved to our town about two years ago (before we lived together). Ex-wife poisoned kids to where we live - said she'd never live here or send her children to our inferior schools. Lo and behold she moved here with the kids last year, with the SD starting school same grade as my daughter who has been in district since kindergarten. I moved here for the schools.
The year prior to them moving, my daughter was bullied by the mean girl clique. It made for a rough seventh grade. Making it worse was the fact that her long time best friend was the instigator, posting things about her on social media and spreading homophobic rumors about her (which my daughter didn't tell me until nearly a year later for fear of me losing my mind). It was a very hard year for my DD, mourning the friendship and what had happened. During the time, my SD was her confidant (mind you at this point they did not go to school together).
Fast forward you eighth grade and my SD chose to befriend and join the group of girls that bullied my daughter the whole year prior and began to join in, effectively leveraging her friendship with my DD to make her way up the social ladder by belittling my DD and sharing her secrets etc. Her new BFF? My daughters long time BFF who ditched her. The two girls continued the bullying campaign. It culminated with my daughter ending up in counseling and medication and suicidal thoughts.
My DH and I sat both girls down and my DD told her how she was feeling and confided about counseling and meds. The SS admitted everything but would give no reason for her behavior. She subsequently refused to come to our house bc 'we made her feel like a piece of shit'. And the next day she went to school and told everyone what my DD confided during the family meeting.
Shortly thereafter, my husband made the mistake of telling me his ex told him that the SS would not come to our house bc of me and 'my crazy daughter' and that was all I needed to hear. I packed up her belongings and told DH until that child as well as the family had counseling she was no longer welcome and he couldn't live with that, he knew where the door was. Upon recommendation of her therapist, I put my daughter in a different high school so they would have no contact.
A year has gone by now, and DH has done nothing to help move forward. He has not scheduled any counseling (and after I spent $4000 on counseling for myself, my daughter and her medication to figure out how we can work they this from our side better, so I am not scheduling this appt. It needs to come from him in my opinion. In the meantime, his kids refuse to see him if I'm present and goes along with it. Holidays? He with his kids and I'm home. Vacation? I'm not invited. It's like having an affair with a married man.
I sit here and watch this go on, a 15 year old controlling our household and he allows it and I've brought it to his attention. He harbors resentment for me having his daughter leave, but I did what I had to do to as a mother to protect my daughters mental and emotional well-being in the absence of my DH holding his child accountable. Meanwhile, he buys her a car, sends her on vacations to Mexico all the while saying he can't force her into counseling.
With every day that goes by, my resentment and anger build. My DD has three years to go before college but I don't know if I can't hang on that long and frankly who knows if anything would be better after that anyway.
i need help and input from people who have been there. Am I wrong? What can I say or do to move forward? I don't know what to do and it's eating me up. I love him but I can't live like this and I lose a little more respect every day. What happens if hie lost a parent? Am I persona non grata at the funeral? I just don't know to do anymore.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Grrrrrr!
Lets talk facts.
Fact: Your SD is a POS. Her repeated behavior proves it.
Fact: DH is an enabling failed father, repeated failed husband, and a failed man.
Fact: Bullies respond to only one thing. Pain. Part of your SD's treatment should be mixed martial arts training IMHO. For a few reasons. Most importantly to build her confidence. A close second, to beat her Stepsisters' ass when StepSis or her POS friends pull any shit. And I mean.... beat.... her.... ass.
I was the target of bullies from ~6th grade until 8th grade. That is when I experienced the epiphany that getting hit or otherwise bullied hurts whether I was fighting back or not. So, I started inflicting reconstructive surgery inducing pain on the tormenters who made the mistake of bullying me. It took only a single incident of my standing up for myself and sending one of the two assholes who attacked me in that instance to the hospital for reconstructive facial surgery to have his bottom lip reconnected to his face and stabilizing a number of his teeth that stopped the bullying. My social standing immediately amplified and even the kids who thought they enjoyed fighting would get out of my way rather than tormenting me.
After that I attended 4 more schools through high school and at each school someone would test me to their chagrin. I never initiated conflict but I made sure that when I was targeted that the person who started it ended up bloody and in the hospital. I did not always come out of it unscathed but the message was clearly delivered that I would not be bullied.
Now for your DH. He is a bully, he may not be bullying you or your daughter physically, but he is certainly bullying you both emotionally, is gaslighting you and that makes he and his entire shallow and polluted gene pool a write off including his genetically corrupt prior failed family breeding experiment.
Take every penny possible, re-key the locks, put he and his toxic spawn homeless under the local over pass or better yet, living with his XW and get on with your life. Take the unassailable position of making it perfectly clear that he has made the greatest mistake of his miserable failed life by failing to step up as your equity life partner.
Take care of you and take care of your DD.
Tolerate no crap.
IMHO of course.
Yep your DH is the problem
Allowing his daughter to be a mean girl to yours is unconscionable. I'd have zero respect for him.
Talk to a lawyer. Get an understanding of what you can expect in a divorce. You don't have to go through, but at least you'll have an idea of what you can expect in a settlement which might be helpful to know.
This. And would he really
This. And would he really like to have the court hear how his daughter bullied your daughter while he did NOTHING but buy her a car and send her on an international vacation?
Thank you for reading. Yeah
Thank you for reading. Yeah he's the type of guy who just buried his head in the sand. I've been saying for years his kids need therapy - well before any of the nonsense with my daughter. Obviously it's more pressing now bc the damage from his first family is now a eeping into mine and I worked way too hard for my daughter to ensure she did. It have this sort of dysfunction in her life. I could've stayed married to my ex if I wanted that for her. My Dd and I both want to move at this point and he refuses bc he's concerned his ex will be thrown out by her bf and get this - he doesn't want his daughter to have to change schools. It's ok mine did though BECAUSE OF HIS CHILD. I've been hanging on to hope that he would schedule some counseling whether it's for me, him, both of us or our kids to no avail for a year. SD refuses therapy - she says she's been angry for years and she's doing just fine and doesn't need therapy - but go ahead, buy her a car. What is that?!!! So I'm the irrational one who can't just get over it while I watch this child be given trips and a car without even a condition that it comes with her going to counseling. We live in a small town so the kid and mother paint me as some horrible person so I'm vilified now. I'm the wicked stepmother for throwing her out. And he is content to just stay the course we are on because he's afraid if he holds his kid accountable she will shut him out. I'm just done.
Yea, you should be done.
Yea, you should be done.
Get out of the crappy little town. Away from crappy husband, skid and his ex.
So his daughter pretty much
So his daughter pretty much had your daughter on the verge of suicide and he's mad at you and your daughter because you hurt his little ferals fee-fees! How badly have you been gaslighted by this family to believe you and your daughter are the problem here?
Leave him. He's not a
Leave him. He's not a quality individual, and he's not prioritizing you. What kind of marriage is it if he spends his holidays with his "other" family and leaves you alone? What kind of man allows his daughter to bully his wife's daughter without imposing severe consequences? That is seriously messed up. I suspect resentment on both sides will eventually kill your marriage, but why let it die a slow death? Show your daughter she matters and get out.
Men just don't get the mean
Men just don't get the mean girl thing. They don't grow up with it , they grow up fighting like Rags described in vivid details. I've raised 3 daughters to adulthood with one more to go , bd11. When my oldest hit middle school, the first books about mean girl bullying came out. She's 28 now. Mean girls raise mean girls. I've seen it and experienced it all over again in my 30's. Now it's called relational aggression.
Ive dealt with me share of this crap and it's obvious to me that your man has no idea he could lose everything by not muzzling his precious little putbull daughter. Line your ducks up and hit him hard.
DH and I have daughters a year apart. SD stole BD boyfriends. War between girls is not easy on anyone.
They sure don't. I've done a
They sure don't. I've done a LOT of reading about relational aggression and DD learned a lot thru counseling. Now she says she pities her SS bc she says girls only do that to other girls when they themselves are damaged. I don't know that DD will ever get over watching her long time BFF and her SS now being BFFs and comparing notes and sharing secrets she had previously confided in both. It's really painful for her and frankly for me too. We were friends with this family. We used to vacation together. My DD was just heartbroken. It hurt more than being ditched by the BFF in the first place.
What is the school doing?
Just a thought, has the school not dragged both these pos parents in and told them in no uncertain terms their kids a vile bully and to sort her out?
School said it was a family issue
Initially we tried to deal with the issue at home only bc I was hopeful I would not have to resort to going to the school over my SD's behavior. When that did nothing, I went to the school and spoke to both guidance and the school resource officer about my concerns and also to make them aware that after I packed up SD's things and had the SD and ex wife pick them up, the ex-wife had started to make suggestions that my DD was violent and could hurt SD (which is ludicrous; I wish my kid had more of a backbone). When I heard that from the ex, immediately my concern was that she and SD would concoct some false accusation against her so I got out front of it. I also petitioned the school district to have my DD go to another school in the district bc of the situation and my DD's doctor wrote to the school district recommending the move. The school district denied the request saying it wa a family issue. I wasn't always a fan of charter schools, but I sure am glad now that I have one here since I withdrew my daughter after the district's response and she now attends a public charter high school.
How is your daughter?
I'm trying to follow this - she switched schools - is she doing better? What is she doing over summer - assume she just completed freshman year? Middle school can be brutal for girls. Your SD sounds like an evil c**t from hell and I would have done exactly what you did. I might have ended up with charges against me - I'd have gone nuts. I agree with people here that in some ways your DH just doesn't get it, but I think this is one of those cases where he should be able to understand the pain his piece of shit feral offspring has caused your daughter. If he loves you then this should cause him pain too. If he cannot try a lot harder....I would have a hard time staying married to him.
DD is thriving
Thank you for asking - DD spent a year in counseling to learn to be more assertive and establish boundaries. She is now at a new public charter high school where she is happy and thriving and doing terrific academically (last year in 8th grade her grades plummeted for the obvious reasons). And she has a group of girlfriends who are just quality kids. She's like a different kid.
As for me, you can take the girl out of Jersey but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl lol...the SD going to school the next day and telling everyone how my daughter was crazy and on medication made me lose my mind. DH was flying to the U.K. for work when this all went down and I had that child's room packed in trash bags before DH's flight landed at Heathrow.
At the time I threw SD out my mother talked me off the ledge from going over and dragging her and her mother out of their house by the hair and beating them silly. I don't go to my local grocery store bc I'm truly afraid if I run into the ex wife they will be taking me out in cuffs. I'm honestly surprised at the degree of restraint I've maintained, but as time passes and my resentment at his inactiion grows, it's becoming increasingly difficult to not bust out with 'YOUR DAUGHTER IS A F***KING C**T!!!'
I think DH is just scared of losing his kid if he does anything she doesn't like and she adamantly refuses counseling.
YES!!! I was going to say -
YES!!! I was going to say - tell your daughter to beat the F&C*ing crap outta her and it will stop. But that is the Jersey Girl in me.
This is one of those
This is one of those situations where you 100% have to put your children above your marriage. I would never be able to look at, let alone respect a man that would allow my child to be hurt like this.
You did the right thing by leaving, you just need to finish this and finalize your divorce. This man does not care about you or your daughter- what kind of husband is that?
My DH also parented out of
My DH also parented out of fear with my SD which has increased the alienation. At the time when I lost my mind the gifts that he lavished on SD were absolutely insane. All the begging, reasoning, calmly laying out facts how his grovelling was detrimental to his relationship with SD and impacted ours yielded no results. So I gave him something greater to fear from me. Which is the only way someone like him can be spurred into action. It has affected our relationship because I still resent that it was the fear making him act rather than his desire to protect me and DD. In your situation though I think too much time has passed and I can't see an outcome where your DD won't end up resenting you if you advocate reunting with her abuser - even if they agree to go to counselling. It's too little, too late.
Oh - at this point I want my
Oh - at this point I want my child completely left out of it. No amount of counseling would make me think it was remotely ok for DD to have any contact with SD. It would be strictly so that I can be in the same room as DH and his kids and we can be cordial and say hello, how are you....what he does for his daughter and her damage is no longer my concern. If she grows up to be a disordered adult, I really could care less now.
If she grows up to be a
If she grows up to be a disordered adult and you're still married at that point you will care because it'll affect you. Your DH's moods will correlate directly with how happy SD is with him. If he feels frustrated or angry at her behaviour he'll unleash it on the safest outlet. It'll be like having a third person in the marriage pulling all the strings.
Another thing to consider is assets, retirement and wills. If you're staying together for financial stability, would it affect your retirement if DH splurges on SD or would you be better seperated? Are your assets currently in joint names so that if something happened to you DH and eventually SD would own everything?
You raise a good point about
You raise a good point about what happens as SD gets older. From what I've seen thus far SD is growing up to be like her mother, who spent her marriage effectively bullying her husband and kids. It would make sense though bc she's modeling her mother's behavior.
im not concerned about finances - mama has a prenup and our finances are completely separate. I learned that from my first marriage and the shakedown my ex husband attempted
You've told your DH what you
You've told your DH what you need to help you "get over it." You need him to take responsibility and make an appointment with a therapist. And he won't do even that. So you've got several things to "get over" -- the situation with your DD and his inaction. You KNOW this is not what love looks like.
I knew at some point that I'd divorce my ex. I knew it on my wedding day. Took me 10 years to get the courage and the plan. Please don't wait that long to go live a great life where you can go to the local grocery store without fear of homicide.