Is it irrational to be so irritated by this?
SD 23 is very silent...should this really bother me so much, or why does it? It's not like she's being loud or intrusive or throwing things around. Who gets upset about someone not being loud???
She comes into a room silently so that you don't realize she's there unless you look up (I'm always heads down in my work on my laptop). She's just suddenly there. Today she came in like a wraith and somehow managed to open and close cupboard doors and even take out a plate to make her lunch without making a single sound, right in front of me.
I don't know if this is natural to her, if she likes almost creeping up on people, or if this is another hangover from the evil stepmother and she's afraid I'll blow a gasket if she makes a sound or is noticed--not that I ever have.
I'm trying to figure out why it irritates me so much that someone is not loud. Because it feels creepy as if someone's trying to sneak around? Because it feels like her behavior is implicity accusing me of being the evil crazy SM who will blow a fuse if I notice her when I've never done such a thing? Just because it's so unnatural?
Do I need to figure out a way to not be bothered by someone who is literally doing nothing, making no sound at all, or is this weird?
TBH, it is a bit irrational.
Taken at face value, SD's actions show someone who is trying not to annoy/interrupt you while you are obviously working and on your laptop. If she had come in banging cabinets and rattling pots, I'm sure that would have been annyoing. Even if she had come in and simply said "Good Morning," would it have been considered an interruption? Maybe that's what she thought. Perhaps she is in a bit of a "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation.
I mean this with the utmost respect ... It seems you have very complex feelings towards your SD and she senses them. Rememer that 95% of human communication is non-verbal. That includes facial expressions, body language, etc. Even when another human being just tenses themselves, others can "feel" it and will react accordingly.
In my honest opinion, I think your SD does have redeeming qualities. She does NOT appear to be purposefully evil in her actions towards you. You've said the two of you do have interactions which are enjoyable and fun. That is certainly something you can build on. What is different when the two of you are having a positive interaction...is it because others are around and it acts as a buffer, taking the tension away?
I can only say that based on my own experience, two decades into Step Life, that what your SD exhibits at least has some redeeming merit. I hope you can find a way to build on that.
You're absolutely right. Well
You're absolutely right. Well, 95%. She's done this moving like a wraith thing from the start, along with the whispering, even when I first moved in with them (when she'd been sent home from college over covid), when I went in fully expecting things to be good.
I agree that her other behaviors snow ball till everything irritates me and she definitely senses that. So, yes, I need to figure out how to not be so annoyed by things that aren't inherently terrible. I have wondered if she likes the feeling of being so silent and having people jump in surprise, so it helps to hear an outside perspective put pieces together and say it likely isn't that.
You're right. She does have redeeming qualities. She's not a bad person at all. What's different when we have good interactions is that they happen before she pulls another 'I'm too helpless to do anything' move.
Sometimes those moves are merely annoying and if DH is there he'll call her out on it--kindly, but he'll tell her yes she can do whatever it is. But twice her helpless act has had potentially very bad consequences for my dogs.
Someone else said basically she's going to play helpless with anything I ask her to do. I'm not asking anymore. End result is things like this morning--we have a dishwasher being delivered. It was time to take care of the animals, but DH had to make a quick run out. So we both just acknowledged that I would take care of them when he got back. Because why even bother asking SD to come downstairs and just let the guy in.
I've been entirely on my own and self-sufficient since I was 18. I was raising two kids at her age and married and I have a very low tolerance for adults who act helpless.
I just really don't know how to get over my own irritation at this stuff, especially when I realize that I am part of the problem because this creeping around is in response to my irritation with the justified stuff.
It’s somebody invading
your space. You are in a certain zone working everyday at Home. Now someone else is in that zone.
Can you mention to her, even
Can you mention to her, even humorously, that her silence when she enters a room surprises you? Or ask her if she can say something when she enters a room? I think this could be done/expressed very light-heartedly, and hopefully she will listen.
Yeah one of my SKIDs would do
Yeah one of my SKIDs would do this, hide and watch. It was creepy and felt off. Any possibility that your SD can live on her own? Once I finally got a chance to have a house that didn't have everyone else running it or hiding in it - quite literally controlling space, mood and everything - I could finally breathe. I could never go back to the days of the past - they really ran the roost.
She's lived on her own since
She's lived on her own since we moved away from her town in 2021. She's just here for Christmas. In all honesty, things were going pretty well long distance and I was looking forward to her arrival.
Any polite person would
Any polite person would acknowledge you in most circumstances when entering a room you are in. This is what would bother me. The disrespect of being ignored.
She will sometimes
She will sometimes acknowledge me with this weird little hunched up shoulders and 'cute' little tiny hand wave really close to her chest and cutesy 'smile' that all reminds me of a 5 year old child's behavior. It looks like how anime or cartoon characters give this 'unsure' smile and little wave if you've ever seen that. Honestly, she probably has and that's what she's copying.
I admit I have a negative response to it (of a baseline necessary hi and going back to my work) because the childishness of it drives me bananas that goes with so many of her other childish, immature behaviors. At her age I was married, self-sufficient, raising two children, pregnant with my third and pursuing two careers in two areas.
So yes, sometimes she says nothing and it's true as someone else said that part of that is me, that she can tell I'm irritated with her and doesn't want to bother me. But in pondering it, the real issue is that even if she does say hello, it's with such a childish manner.
She wants to be an adult when it's fun but at other times wants to retreat into this childish, poor little me, look at how little and cute I am behavior.
For the record, today was a little better. Not sure if her dad sad something or if she figured a few things out, but I went to work on a part of the house (we recently moved) and told DH he needed to watch the puppy and SD actually did step up and do some watching of the dogs, letting them out, even cleaning up after the puppy when he peed on the floor again (in the past, she's let me know I need to clean it up and even helpfully stood above me while I do, pointing out where I've missed a spot! Okay, it's MY dog, I don't expect her to clean up after it, but I also don't expect a juvenile young adult to stand over me telling me how to clean up). Point is, I see it as a huge step forward that she actually just saw the need and cleaned up after the dog while I was working on something else.
Alone, not necessarily a big
Alone, not necessarily a big deal. Taken with ... the rest of the story.... likely some brooding manipulating bullshit.
This is it. It's part of a
This is it. It's part of a bigger picture. I DO need to try not to be irritated by little things just because I'm already irritated by serious things.
The bigger picture always comes back to her not wanting to grow up.
And I think part of my irritation at the creeping around silently thing is that it makes me feel like I've been cast as the evil SM who will blow up at her over any little peep when I literally have never done such a thing. It's like...what have I done to make you feel you need to creep around like a little scared ghost? It feels like a false accusation by implying with her behavior that I'm prone to exploding at her if she comes to get a little piece of cheese from the refrigerator.
As I said above...today was a little better.
Maybe she thinks
It's the polite thing to do? As far as not disturbing you, I mean. When she suddenly appears in the same room as you do you acknowledge her? Say 'hey, what's up'.... anything? I don't know the full extent of the relationship but maybe she's a person who needs someone else to be the starter.
This absolutely is part of
This absolutely is part of the problem. I've known her since she was barely 14 and she wasn't like this then. She became like this after her experience with the SM who married DH when she was 18 (it was a very short marriage in part because of how SM treated her). SM forbade her being in about 2/3 of the house and made it clear she didn't want her even in the small parts she was 'allowed' in.
I think part of what bothers me is that it's been over 3 years now and she's still behaving as if I'm the 1st SM who's going to chew her head off for breathing or existing although I never have. Yes, I've had previous frustrations with her behavior (much of which I believe results from this SM) but I'm beginning to be at the end of my rope with being treated as if I did that to her.
She's 24 now, living across the country on her own, but I can use a simple thing like, "hi, what's up" in future.
I'm still trying to think if or how to address with DH some of this. If/how to ask him how to discuss with her ways to behave more responsibly like not just letting the dog run free while I think she's put him safe in the pasture. He knows over the past 3 years I've had frustrations with her behavior and I hate the 'imbalance' that he's mostly been very approving of MY kids...and yet the irritation at him that he's sometimes gone off on rants about one of my sons who has done an awful lot to help us.
I only went back and read
I only went back and read your first blog to see if your SD had been abused in her past.
To play devil's advocate, I had a very abusive father who couldn't stand any irritation coming from me whatsoever. I wasn't allowed to make even normal noises. I had to whisper because the way I enunciated words was supposedly too sharp and irritating to my father's "nerves." Doing dishes irritated my dad because if anything clanged together he'd freak. Turning the tap on "suddenly" irritated him so I had to move and speak slowly. As a young adult I got let go from jobs because I wasn't forward enough and my voice was so under developed that I sounded like I was five. Your SD was abused by her previous SM and from the way you describe her behaviour and how she's waved indicates that she's apologetic for her existence. She has been programmed that she's a bother and annoying. It's really hard to act normal after it's been drummed into someone. Has your DH ever gotten counselling for your SD?
Anyway, I just wanted to give a possible different perspective. I'm thinking back to when I was a young adult and if someone needed to tell me that my skulking around was an issue I would have had no problem if someone just said that I'm a viable person in the house and have every right to walk into a room so please make a sound when I enter because the other person gets startled. Then chuckle about it. Is she super sensitive as well? I'm not saying that someone can't pull the stealthy ninja entering of a room as a power play but it could be from a past abuse.
That was my first thought as
That was my first thought as well--she is making herself small or invisible for some psychological reason. Abuse, lack of confidence, fear, something.
I can relate
My youngest SD would do this all the time. It was made me feel uncomfortable but in her case she clearly didn't want me to be there. She'd talk to her sister or dad but it was quite specific to me. I tried making conversation, not making conversation and ultimately just went with it. I'd usually acknowledge she was there (as I thought it also modelled that's what you do) but most of the time left her to it. For me, and we are all different, it left me feeling a bit bad that someone didn't want to engage . Not that it was personal to me.
I have two step parents and always made conversation with them (and still do of course) when I see them. I do appreciate it can be hard to find things to say and I wonder whether this is where it comes from? Is she silent generally or very chatty with others?
I still do sometime just start talking, tell a story or volunteer information to see if it leads to a conversation. I'm also aware that each family had a different 'normal'. When both parents are chatty they can be used to others making a conversation. Or if parents are quite (my mum can be very quiet) then comfortably moving around in quiet can be familiar. Is she uncomfortable, would you say?