In re SD12 - Advice please!
Hi.
Any advice from someone who has experienced something similar would be appreciated.
DH and I each have a daughter from a former relationship (his is aged 12, mine is aged 5) and we then also share a baby daughter. His daughter (SD) comes to him every second weekend and in school holidays.
DH and I have been married for two years and he and SD's BM parted company over a decade ago. They were never married and weren't together very long. Though there were various other GFs before I arrived on the scene, I am DH's first wife. SD's BM also had many BFs, has never married, suffers from bipolar disorder and is living with a man with whom she has now has two babies in quick succession.
SD seemed lovely, to begin with, and I truly thought that we were going to have the perfect blended family, notwithstanding her extremely dramatic, immature and annoying mother. SD was also openly supportive and encouraging of our getting married and seemed genuinely to care for my daughter and I.
About 6 months ago things changed...
SD started lying to us all, manipulating, stealing money, stealing and misbehaving at school and getting involved with trashy boys etc. We confronted her behaviour and thought that it was resolved.
Then, out of the blue, she told DH that she wanted to "emotionally disengage" from him and would no longer be coming to us because she wants him to exclusively take her out and spoil her on her weekends with us, like it was before we were in the picture, and he wasn't doing so. She outright laid fault at my feet. To DH's credit, he didn't cave in, but the result has been that she has since not come to us. Every weekend BM has sent a snotty msg saying: "Don't waste your time and fuel coming to fetch her, she doesn't want to see you". DH has ignored same. Later, BM started msging that he would be permitted to see SD on a Sunday afternoon for an hour or so, provided it was exclusively the two of them and to take her out for icecream or some similar spoiling. He ignored those msgs too.
Today, when DH phoned SD, she made a point of only asking how he and her half sister were, but never bothered to ask how my other daughter and I are (after all I have done for her!). When he asked when she will be coming to us, she informed him that she has still not decided when she will come to us again and can't tell him when that will be, but that he can fetch her after she's finished writing exams and take her out for icecream. I wish you could've heard her. It sounded like a well rehearsed little speech.
I feel extremely resentful and honestly do not know what to make of this situation or how to handle it. I completely distrust SD now and feel so used by her. I haven't relayed all the details herein, but I get the distinct feeling that her mother has a hand in this and that the two of them are trying to cause a split between DH and I. SD has always been Daddy's only child and little princess, but now he has another daughter and a wife. I feel like they are trying to manipulate him into choosing between her and us.
How am I meant to react when SD does eventually come to us again? What is expected of me in the circumstances? I have treated this child better than my own. I tried so hard to make her feel special and wanted and part of our home... only to be treated this way. I am so hurt, angry and offended.
Hi and thank you for your
Hi and thank you for your response. I will certainly do some research on PAS. The change came about more or less when DH and I bought a house, which followed shorty after the birth of our daughter. So, yes, it does seem that our increased unity may have been a catalyst.
LOL - yes - I was going to
LOL - yes - I was going to say - red flags for me as soon as I saw you share a baby daughter!!
My SD was fine and dandy with me and my dd's until her dad and I bought a house together, while we were just renting it was all ok - nothing permanent, as soon as we moved in to our own house she became hellish.
I think that was the catalyst for her too.
If your DH wants any kind of
If your DH wants any kind of relationship with his daughter he should nip this in the bud now. No 12 year old should ever get to decide visitation. He should file for contempt every time she refuses.
^^^^^this
^^^^^this
Note - she will not be found
Note - she will not be found in contempt if Dad doesn't bother trying to pick his child up.
I know how you feel I have a
I know how you feel I have a SD who is 16 years old and starting up crap just recently. BM hates my guts and always has, I never did anything wrong to her but I know she poisons the kids against us and says stuff about us. Which is sad, wish there was something we could do about it. We don't say anything bad in front of the kids about BM and never will. We do have that book called Divorce Poison and it's great, but really didn't tell us anything we don't already know. It's really hard to go after the BM legally about how she poisons the kids you have to have a lot of evidence and even then it's still hard to say if we would win the court case. My best advice is to keep doing what your doing and just let DH handle his SD and BM. I know easier said then done, I know how hurt you must feel that she didn't ask for you and want to see you. Please understand this, it's all coming from the BM and not really the child. The BM is putting things into her head that are not true and getting SD to turn against you. The only thing I hope for is when the SDs are older that they realize what their BM done and then realize how we didn't say anything bad about her mom. Being a step mom is the hardest thing especially when you invest so much time with them in hopes of acceptance, love and respect in return. I feel my step kids are caught in the middle and don't know what to do, but love their BM and want to make her happy so then they hate me because she does. I am going on 5 years of being married and I thought it was starting to get a little better but then it took a turn for the worse just this last couple of weeks. My post is the one called "Advice ASAP" on here. There is another book out there that has been very helpful to me it is called "The Smart Stepmom" by Laura Petherbridge. I definitely recommend it, it has helped me out so much. I also started going to counseling three years ago and that also helps with my step mom issues. I am new on this forum, but so thankful I found it. I want and need to chat with other step moms badly that are in the same boat as me. Hang in there, your not alone...
Thank you to all who have
Thank you to all who have responded here. I have done some reading up online about PAS and all the indicators are there. I think I am going to approach a clinical pyschologist concerning the way forward, as this has a ripple effect.
The first thing that your DH
The first thing that your DH needs to do is call the police and have BM arrested for kidnapping his daughter. He needs to file a contempt motion against her for her manipulation and denial of his visitation with his daughter. He needs to go get his daughter in accordance with the CO and have the sheriff there to back him up when he picks her up. Every time if necessary. He needs to never tolerate interference with his COd visitation schedule. Zero tolerance has to be his constant response to BM's manipulations.
Visitation is not at the Skid's discretion, or at the CP's discretion, it is at the NCP's discretion. The court order is a legal document that is the best tool for beating the opposition in to submission when they step out of line. Your DH needs to realize that his X is not reasonable and will not work with him so he needs to protect his daughter from his X, destroy the X completely so she never again makes the mistake of interfering with his relationship with his child and take the perspective that BM has only one choice and that is to do what she is told when she is told to do it in accordance with the CO. Your DH needs to be the enforcer.
We dealt with similar crap from my SS's SpermClan. Though in our case it is the NCP's clan that was toxic as my DW is the CP. They would manipulate and load SS up with their revisionist lies regarding the relationship between the SpermIdiot and my DW. They were never married which mirrors your DHs situation with SD's BM. SS is the SpermIdiots oldest of 4 out of wedlock spawn by 3 different baby mamas. Which is also similar to what your SD's BM has done. SS-21 is an only child in our family. His mom and I met when SS was 15mos old and married a week before he turned 2yo.
The SpermClan would refuse to return the Skid on time at the end of visitations. We never tolerated that crap. When they played games to keep him beyond the CO'd visitation period we would collect the Skid with police escort and make it a point to publically humiliate the SpermClan when we did it. The first time they refused to return the kid on time we entered their church during services with the police to collect the Skid. Over the years we collected him at a SpermClan family reunion and at family/friend gatherings at restaurants and community meals.
They finally gained clarity that we would tolerate no crap after their behavior started to impact SpermCrandMa's small business. She started losing clients who were in the legal profession because her name and the name of her worthless POS son kept coming up in discussions. She owns a cleaning service that does residences and offices and had a large number or lawyers and judges as clients.
We never denied visitation and made it a point to never badmouth the SpermIdiot or SpermClan around the Skid. To this day we guide him to speak of them in respectful terms and encourage him to stay in contact with them. Unfortunately he has no respect for them and even as a young adult he struggles with guild over his feelings about them and anger over their toxic crap over the years.
As for a 12yo telling her father that she is going to "emotionally disengage" from him... that is not a 12yo saying that. That is a 12yo parroting a BM who is playing PAS games and being a toxic POS.
The only way to fix this is for your DH to destroy BM with every legal tool at his disposal, confronting her with the facts of her behavior and sharing those facts with his daughter so that he can as much as possible counter the BM's toxic manipulation and arm his daughter with the facts she will need to protect herself from the shallow and polluted end of her gene pool.
As for your question on how to deal with SD 12 when she returns to your home for visitation, give her the facts. Let her know that she is a loved member of your family and that you are sorry that her BM has been manipulating her and caused her so much pain but that will never be tolerated again. Facts are not good or bad, they are just facts and they are the best defense against a toxic blended family opposition. The super ordinate fact in your situation is that BM has defied the visitation court order. I would make that fact the foundation of your BM war strategy and build with additional facts from there. Do not tolerate any manipulation from BM at all. No matter how small.
All IMHO of course.
The major difference in this
The major difference in this situation and the one of your wife/SS you presented is your wife was CP. Yes, a CO awarding her CP status does mean the NCP can be forced by law to return child to CP upon completion of a visitation...but that is not at all what OP is dealing with. In this OP's case, the police dept. is not going to enforce a visitation order and come rip SD out of CP's home. If Dad is being refused his visitation he will have to file contempt ....CP is not 'kidnapping' the child she has custody of. She's just being a PIA and a courtroom judge will have to be the one smacking her hand.
What's going on in this OP is BM is playing games and SD is being allowed to not go see her father. Yeah, it's bullsh*t, but it's not kidnapping and a call to police will not earn kidnap charges. Yes, a police could be used to assure the exchange is nonviolent (example a SF is threatening the father to kick his a** if father shows up at door and physically tries to drag kiddo out the door)) or a police call would be used if father had child and refused to return child at the end of his visitation weekend (by showing police Co that mother has legal CP and resides with mother).
Police will not come out and haul BM though if father comes for pick-up and kiddo refuses to come out the door. In this case, Dad isn't even trying to pick kid up. BM/SD is calling and saying 'nope, not coming' and Dad is basically then saying 'oh, ok, poor me' . What is going on would be considered a family court situation and father needs to march his buns down and file with the court contempt of the CO. Yes, the BM tries to ignore that CO enough to give a judge reason to remove custody from BM and grant it to father, it's a chance BM is seriously taking.
Think when a poster comes on here and says BM is p*ssed NCP father isn't picking kid up for visitation time and everybody answers that Dad has the right to visitation but BM can't enforce him to use that right and papa can waive visit...BM can't have Dad arrested in that scenario just because Dad didn't show up to insert his CO rights. Police aren't going to get involved in a NCP visitation squabble but they will enforce a custody order. They'll return kid to custodial parent (NCP has no legal rights to keep child, they are the noncustodial parent) and then let the parents duke it out in court.
The point is that dad needs
The point is that dad needs to nail BMs ass to the wall and not tolerate this crap. He needs to drag her to court and apply every legal means possible to punish BMs manipulations and to see his kid.
Obviously the police will not arrest BM for kidnapping but after dozens of contempt filings a judge may just jerk a knot in BMs tail and get her attention. Nothing will happen if dad just accepts the status quo.
When dealing with my SS's SpermIdiot and the SpermClan we had not only the advantage of being the CP household we had the advantage of DickHead being a regular guest of the police for stupid crap and the trump card advantage of my DW's BFF's father being the chief of police in their small town. DickHead was well known in that town for praying on teen girls and being a gang banger wannabe. The police were more than happy to supervise collection of the Skid when the SpermClan got stupid.
If the OP in this situation gets BM on the radar screen with the courts and the police for her crap he may be able to apply some pressure to get BM to pull her head out of her butt. The risk is of course that the OP will get a reputation for inappropriate calls to the police. He nees to get an attorney and go to war.
IMHO of course.
>The first thing that your DH
>The first thing that your DH needs to do is call the police and have BM arrested for kidnapping his daughter.
Except this leads the OP astray. Ain't gonna happen. Period. He can - and SHOULD - file for contempt. But only if he actually drags his ass to try and pick his kid up. Can't be bothered to do that? Then no court is going to find Mom in contempt.
Not sure if you can put this
Not sure if you can put this ALL on BM?? I believe, at 14, the kid is old enough to know what she wants and doesn't want. She's made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want to "engage" so maybe it would be good for her to take "time out" to be with her Mom.
In our case, SD13 has made it quite clear to us that she doesn't want to be a part of us. DH emailed her, went and spoke to her as well as SS, and has realised that trying to force her to come over, isn't going to work - indeed, it will actually worsen the situation. BM hasn't done anything to enforce it, has actually said nothing about it all - she's left it up to SD. Main reason for this is, because SD was a mini-wife to DH for most of her life. Since the age of 8, she has held herself responsible for DH and is having a very hard time dealing with him being in a relationship. She even resented her own GMA's authority and closeness with DH.
While we don't like the situation, we believe trying to force her to come over isn't the answer. We're hoping time out with just her Mom will help her adjust her attitude. Also, SS hasn't missed a visit - he comes over every single time and we have a great time - this is also a way of showing SD that she's being petty, selfish and entitled. This attitude is not acceptable in our home.