Help Me bond with stepdaughter!

[Anonymous]

Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

Why?

Why are you so threatened by a child?

You haven't grasped this in the 11 years you've been with them or since you've become a mother, but it really isn't all about you.

She needs this. Your husband needs this. Take a step back. There will be time for you to get involved later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

So let him have a chance to be her amazing dad, too. That means you back off.

[Anonymous]

I became a stepmom when my SD was 18 (though I was in her life since she was 15, and the divorce appended when she was 12.)

My biggest advice to you to "bond"...that is, begin to heal the damage you caused, is to encourage and facilitate as much alone time as possible between your DH and his daughter. This girl has been terribly, terribly hurt, and she deserves as much time as possible to form some kind of trust relationship with her dad. If you not only aloe this but encourage it...dinners alone, outings alone, whatever she is open to...there is a small chance that maybe some day she will see you with a modicum of appreciation. For now, though, you have done terrible things to hurt her, and it is understandable if she prefers to keep you at arm's length. I would not try to force more closeness between you. Your job is to help her get closeness with her dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

Wow, you're not getting it. You took away this child's father. You allow him to be a great father to your kids but not her. She should not be forced into your family and should be allowed time alone with her dad. When she's ready and you can show her you can treat her well, then she can join family events.

[Anonymous]

I am the above stepmom PP, but the more I think about this, the more I hope you can't be real. You aren't really so casual about ruining a child's relationship with her dad out of spite toward her mom, right? And now think you can be chummy with her?

[Anonymous]

Don't worry OP, he will replace you and step out on your kids too someday. History has a way do repeating itself only this time you knew it would happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the above stepmom PP, but the more I think about this, the more I hope you can't be real. You aren't really so casual about ruining a child's relationship with her dad out of spite toward her mom, right? And now think you can be chummy with her?

She's not. She's putting herself in it to find more ways to keep them apart. She's setting them up to fail. Can you imagine how daughter will feel to see her 1/2 siblings treated better and have a dad that was taken from her.

[Anonymous]

There should be parallel outings. She should DEFINITELY have alone time with her dad----buy a bunch of theater tickets with meals after as a gesture. It will relay the enthusiasm you don't feel, so it will serve as good cover. Then plan FAMILY outings for ALL OF YOU, things to do TOGETHER, AS A FAMILY. I'd opt for a bunch of cultural events (theater, dance, music) since they are of predictable length and offer more food opportunities (light chat...community).

Fake it, honey.

P.S. You need Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

It is actually painful to read your posts, OP. You sound like you destroyed the sacred relationship of a father and child for your own selfish purposes, and are now being forced - because of your husband's wishes - to accept this poor child into your home, and you're trying to find the most personally advantageous way to technically go along with their wishes, but REALLY block them from developing a real relationship. I am almost never an OP basher but this is just evil. Evil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a big fan of:

"I said and did things in the past that I regret. I'm glad you reached out to us and I hope that we can start from scratch."

Excellent. But remember, OP, that 17 yr olds are manipulative and there are house rules that everybody lives by. Good luck.

Really you think imposing house rules is something to be considered given OPs behavior?!

OP, my niece is in shoes remarkably similar to your step daughter. Her feeling is that she's angry and conflicted about her feelings with her father and she does at want anything from her stepmother except not to be forced into a relationship and for her stepmother not to interject herself into the relationship and for her father not to interject his wife into anything. All she wants is the freedom to develop whatever relationship is possible with her father without any interference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here! Thank you all for your thoughts. I am not going to step back so she can have alone time with my husband but I will include her in our family activities. We do have two other children together and my husband is an amazing dad to our kids. He takes care of them, usa very loving and present dad and our children adore him.

It is actually painful to read your posts, OP. You sound like you destroyed the sacred relationship of a father and child for your own selfish purposes, and are now being forced - because of your husband's wishes - to accept this poor child into your home, and you're trying to find the most personally advantageous way to technically go along with their wishes, but REALLY block them from developing a real relationship. I am almost never an OP basher but this is just evil. Evil.

+1

[Anonymous]

Hopefully, the father will start fathering his DD without the OP's influence or permission. Your stepdaughter is about to be 18 and you won't be able to boss her around like you did with her father.

You don't seem interested in bonding with her at all. However, you do seem solely interested in making sure that your husband doesn't bond with her either.

[Anonymous]

Has OP held a gun to her husband's head for the past 11 years? If not, then he bears the blame for not making time for his daughter the past 11 years.