What I dislike about you...everything
I really really really dislike SD10. I can’t stand to look at her. I cringe at her laugh, and she laughs at everything.
I get irritated that anytime DH stands up she follows him like a dog, running down the hall when he is going to the bathroom waiting by the door. He goes to the kitchen, and you can see from the living room, but she has to get up and stand next to him. This leaves little to no room for me or our son to get any affection from DH when SD is over. I want to be able to hug my DH without almost hitting or stepping on her. Then after I hug him, she is all over him with hugs and kisses and laughing. I’ve even heard him tell her that she needed to give him space and she doesn’t.
Also the smell of her makes me want to puke. She showers and is clean for a 10 year old but she has this nightly sweating (yes we all have it) that stinks so her entire room stinks. We keep her door shut when she is not there so our DS2 doesn’t play in her room but 2 weeks with the door shut and the smell penetrates everything. She also wears the horrible perfume. It smells like it is more for an adult then for a little girl. She gets in the car and I have to unroll the window so I don’t gag. Her coat reeks of it and it gets on my coat when they are hanging on the coat rack. I had to move the coat rack into the laundry room just so I didn’t vomit while walking past it in the hallway. I asked her one time if she was wearing perfume and her response make me laugh. “Oh my mom got some perfume for Christmas and it came with a travel bottle so she gave it to me.” No wonder it smells too old for her. My DH told her SD10 that it made me sick because I’m sensitive to smells. I have mentioned to my husband that her smell makes me gag and he is stuck with not knowing what to do about it.
I also hate that at 10 and 8 years of divorced parents and split time she still mopes around for the entire time and cries at night because “I miss my mom.” I thought that it was just a phase or that she would stop the older she got but it seems to come and go for no reason. We have reduced her time at our house as well as made other changes to make things more comfortable for her and it stopped for 6 months now she is back at it.
Infuriating to have someone in your home that you can’t stand. I wish it was a mother-in-law that only came for the holidays and not EOW.
I no longer ask for her to do
I no longer ask for her to do any chores or clean her room or do her laundry due to the arguments that it caused between my DH and I. Even now if someone starts her laundry and I get it in the dryer, once it is done if I ask her to take it to her room I get the look and talking to from DH. So I have now come to the conclusion that he will deal with her room/laundry etc and I will find the peace between DH and I more important.
I open her window to air out the smell.
We tried the calling thing
We tried the calling thing and it made matter worse instead of better. She would cry for hours both on the phone and off. It was much more disruptive than her crying in her bedroom at night. It ended up being a crying fest for the entire night.
DH told her that she could call her mom if she was happy during the phone call and after. He would then ask her if she could stop crying and she would say no. So the phone calls stopped. I support DH with this because I saw how they actually had the opposite effect. We both got to the point 6 months ago that we told her that if she was that unhappy that she could call her mom to pick her up. I think that we will quickly get to that point again.
She sounds almost exactly
She sounds almost exactly like SD14. I feel for you
She is a very scared little
She is a very scared little girl. She's almost lost her Daddy who now spends most of his time away. What if he goes away for good, for ever? She's afraid to let him out of her signt.
You've got this mans attention for probably 12 out of 14 days. Can't you let her have him for two?
I think you're problem isn't the little girl but what she represents. Your husband cared enough for another woman so that he made a child with her and you're reminded of that with every visit. I understand that at a basic instinctive level but come-on you're an adult and you knew that going into this relationship.
Go and get some personal counseling so you can let this girl try and keep her Daddy without having to deal with you also.
Meanwhile disengage from her which will help you stay out of her life. Read this for a understanding and tips on how to go about this: http://www.steptogether.org/disengaging.html
she sounds like a pain in the
she sounds like a pain in the ass. i'd DIE to have skid only EOW though. mine is here DAILY driving me insane!
I think there is a lot of
I think there is a lot of validity to what OCC is saying. She misses her dad. I think getting some counseling (for you) sounds like a great idea.
My ss14 has always been
My ss14 has always been hideously stinky as well. A combo of urine, cigarette smoke, and just dirt and bo. He also truly had the most hideous gas that could ever exist. And I'm not kidding. It made my ds throw up once when they were on the school bus. His uncle (on bm's side) spanked him on a car trip once because he kept passing gas. I have never in my life smelt anything worse. I can only assume that he must have some sort of food allergies or something because it was completely unnatural.
And by the way, I dont think op is the problem here. If the kid is stinky, she's stinky. It's just a fact of life. Why would op like to smell a stinky kid? I'm not sure how counseling is going to help her enjoy stinkiness more.
I get the irritation of
I get the irritation of dealing with a SD who hangs all over DH! I don't feel that DH neglects me at all when SD is over, but I do feel that SD sees our affection as threatening. If we're holding hands walking in a store, she'll frequently get in between us and grab his hand instead. When we go out to dinner, she race ahead of me to sit next to DH. I do see her as needing lots of reassurance from DH. However, enough is enough! Following someone to the bathroom!?!? I think she definitely could use some therapy.
You mention a battle over chores. Weigh the pros/cons. Do you want to be the one doing all of the picking up after SD? Do you plan on doing all the picking up after your DS2 when he is older? If not, how do you plan to explain the different standards to him? If getting her to tidy up after herself is this hard at 10, think how it's going to be in 5 or 6 years? Try disengaging in order to get your DH to help enforce the household rules.
In terms of the smell.....ugh..... sorry! I like PP's idea of your "allergy" to enforce showers and clean clothes as soon as she arrives in your home. Depending on how far you take the disengaging, your DH will be doing pick ups/drop offs with out you.
What is the deal with Skids
What is the deal with Skids and the horrible clinginess? I have a 5 yr old SS and he does the same exact things you just described except he goes into uncontrollable fits of rage if my husband so much as shuts the bathroom door to take a pee. He beats on the door and screams, follows him so close anytime my husband moves that on more than one occasion my husband has tripped over him. I personally think it has NOTHING to do with wanting to be close to their father, blah blah blah, I think it is all about control and domination, or at least it is with my SS. He has ODD and it is his sole obsession to control my husband's every waking move. It drives my husband crazy, but u know what? He does NOTHING about it. He sets no boundaries he does not correct him he does not make him stop, he just takes it and feeds SS fire even more because he is getting that domination that he craves. Makes me insane.