SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
cruella49

Grown Stepchildren Showdown

Cruella49
10 years ago

I've been married to my husband now for nearly nine years and we've been together since 1998, living together since 2000. When I met him, his kids were both in their early 20's; the son was married and the daughter soon to be married. My husband's divorce was the result of his ex-wife having an affair. It was devastating for him and, I'm sure, for the kids as well. He'd been divorced nearly four years by the time we got together.

His daughter, now nearly 40, has always been somewhat ambivalent toward me. I could always sense an underlying spite from her; she and her mother are very close and she feels like her mother didn't do anything wrong fooling around on her father. She wants her mother and father to be "friends" to which my husband just laughs and says it will never happen and he wishes his daughter would stop expecting them to "play nice" one day.

On Saturday night, my husband went over to his daughter's house for dinner. She'd invited us the week before and I was down with a stomach bug, so he went alone. When he arrived, it was obvious she'd forgotten she asked us to dinner. My husband said he felt like a total jerk, just showing up to what amounted to being unannounced. He said he didn't mention anything to her about the dinner invite, but he stayed for dinner anyway.

When he got home, he relayed the story to me, and mentioned several times over the course of the evening how stupid he felt, showing up like that; "odd man out" is how he phrased it. I could clearly see it bothered him that she'd forgotten. After all, it was for his birthday allegedly.

I stewed over this overnight and the next morning, yesterday morning, I messaged her to say she'd invited us to dinner on Saturday and her father felt like a jerk coming in "unannounced" because she'd forgotten. I went on to say that I didn't "want any more dinner invites"; I was done having to see her father's disappointment over her actions.

Around 6 o'clock last evening, she showed up at our house, wheeled into the living room and apologized to her father, and then instructed him to come out into the kitchen where I was so "he could hear this." She then went on to say: I've never liked you, this is the second time you've tried to destroy our family, this isn't YOUR house, it's Dad's and I lived here longer than you have; you've always treated me and my brother like crap; and, you are no longer welcome in my home.

My responses are not fit to print and border on a tirade that is way too long to share.

After she left, my husband and I went to sit down, take it all in. I apologized for going off on her like that in front of him. His response shocked me. He said "My kids wouldn't have liked anyone I married. That's just how they are." He went on to say that it was his ex-wife's actions that destroyed his daughter's idea of family, not me.

We're good, me and him, but there's no fixing what happened between me and her. At least I know my sense about her not liking me or having a grudge of some kind was spot-on. Yay me.

I don't know what to do moving forward except love my husband and have our life together like we always have.

Comments (12)