My 22 Year Old Stepdaughter Lives at Home and I’m Unsure How to Handle Her Behavior

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I’m pregnant after 15 years of being a stepmom, with my third child. -OP

Maybe she is just tired of babies being popped out into her space for the past 15 years?!

Do you think divorced men should always cater to their first set of kids needs? Give them all the attention and time? That isn’t a positive, it creates entitled children. Divorced men should be allowed to move on.

Move ON from the mistakes were made kids from first marriages? Wow.

No, that isn’t what I implied. The first set of kids shouldn’t be made to think, that the world revolves around them, that is all. Their father marrying another woman, and having children with her isn’t the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to them.

Sometimes it is. If there’s not enough attention and money for more children without shortchanging the first family, don’t have more kids.

+1 it is actually a very big deal for those first kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She had been traumatized and you are focusing on chores. She was, what, 20 when she moved in with a 35 year old?!? Something REALLY bad happened there. If your husband won’t get to the bottom of it, you need to.

What you can control:

- try to talk to her every day
- ask her to do things with you. It’s ok if she says no. Just keep asking. Don’t expect yes. Just keep asking.
- ask her to go places with you. Same thing…don’t expect yes, just keep asking.
- Stop doing things for her. No laundry. No cooking unless it is family meals and she eats with you.
- start seeing a therapist.

OP said she was 20 when she married her DH when he was 36 so the trauma of whatever happened with stepdaughter moving in with an old guy at the same age is clearly not resonating with these parents.

Yikes.

Was she closer in age to her husband, or her step-children?

[Anonymous]

Sorry she’s interfering with your baby making. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She had been traumatized and you are focusing on chores. She was, what, 20 when she moved in with a 35 year old?!? Something REALLY bad happened there. If your husband won’t get to the bottom of it, you need to.

What you can control:

- try to talk to her every day
- ask her to do things with you. It’s ok if she says no. Just keep asking. Don’t expect yes. Just keep asking.
- ask her to go places with you. Same thing…don’t expect yes, just keep asking.
- Stop doing things for her. No laundry. No cooking unless it is family meals and she eats with you.
- start seeing a therapist.

OP said she was 20 when she married her DH when he was 36 so the trauma of whatever happened with stepdaughter moving in with an old guy at the same age is clearly not resonating with these parents.

Yikes.

Was she closer in age to her husband, or her step-children?

Poor daughter

The father sounds awful

[Anonymous]

You need to help her get back to school. Walk through the steps with her. First find out what classes she needs to graduate. See if any can be taken here and transferred or online at her school. She may not be able to handle full time, but start chipping away at it. It sounds like she needs more parenting and not less right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


What specifically is he doing, though? You've been asked many times and haven't said even one action that he has taken.


He’s talked to her multiple times about her behavior, and has asked her to be more productive, work, go back to school, or do something, but she doesn’t listen. He’s tried multiple times.

Talking to her is obviously not moving the needle. He needs to take away the car, phone, etc. Whatever else he is paying for. I agree with the PP who said that obviously there was a lot of trauma associated with the boyfriend breakup that she is self-medicating through these challenging behaviors. She needs high structure (i.e., take away the car and show tough love) coupled with high nurture (force her to see a therapist to process the breakup and how to move forward and ensure that she understands that her family loves and cares about her). But it is obvious that "just talking" isn't getting anyone anywhere. OP shouldn't be in the position of having to dole out the tough love, since it is easy to villainize the evil step mom. Dad needs to take those actions.

And then when step DD blows up (as she probably will), OP can step in and play "good cop" to encourage her to take more positive steps. As frustrated as OP is, the more strategic response is to sit down with stepdaughter and say, "I want to treat you like an adult. It seems to me that since your breakup with X, you have been having a difficult time getting back on track. I'm not your parent, but I am part of your family and I want to support you in getting back on track, so let's strategize regarding the steps that can help you get there---therapy, job, etc. Do you have the resources to send her to something like an outward bound or similar type program to try to give her a positive challenging change of scenery and to get out of her own head?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laundry is the giveaway that this is a troll. That makes no sense. Why would OP be doing her laundry?

She’s very lazy, and didn’t do laundry even as a teen, so she’s gone back to that routine.

Then let her wear dirty clothes. There’s almost nothing you can do in this situation other than disengage and tell your DH to deal with. It seems like including her in a family meal that you cook for everyone is probably not a big deal? If she leaves her stuff around your house, throwing the garbage bag, put it in a room and close the door. This is how my mom handled us when we were lazy, sloppy teenagers. And tell your DH to step up and figure this out.