What if you don't like your stepchild?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Sorry in advance for length. I’ve been in a relationship with a single mom, and I love her very much.

The issue is her daughter (7 yo), who is very challenging to deal with. I used to think that stepkids would be like the kid from Jerry Maguire, but this girl is anything but. She’s thrown a crying tantrum about…I’d say 2/3 times I’ve been around, and even when I’m not, I sometimes hear them when I’m on the phone with my GF. All about pretty trivial stuff, like she wants to wear a different shirt or shoes, or she doesn’t want to go to bed. Or she’ll make some jawdroppingly appalling requests for a kid her age – one time she was still in her shoes, laying on the couch playing video games and she asked her mom if she would take off her shoes for her. GF didn’t, but the fact that she even asked, I think, sort of flicks at how much she gets away with.

Further, her grandparents live with her and take care of her occasionally, and they have literally no boundaries. The kid cried and threw a toy or something at her granddad because she couldn’t wear what she wanted to play outside, and she didn’t even lose her play privileges! She just got a “say sorry and think about how you would feel if it were you” lecture, and they went back outside. That’s all that ever happens – she gets a lecture and then is free to do whatever she was doing before. She thinks nothing of telling a car full of adults to stop talking so she can play a game on her iPad.

Additionally, this kid just basically ignores me unless she wants something. I admit I’m not super comfortable around kids because I’m not used to interacting with them. But I at least say hi when I see her and she just stares straight ahead like I don’t exist. This has happened literally every time I’ve greeted her, even from when I only casually knew the GF before our relationship. My GF just handwaves it away saying “oh she’s shy,” or that the reason is that I’m giving out a vibe that makes the kid uncomfortable, but I feel like it’s just not normal. I talk to all her similar-age school friends when they’re hanging around and they all interact with me without issues.

My GF wants me to love her kid if we are to be in a lasting relationship, and I want to. But she’s made very clear that in the future if her kid doesn’t like me, we are probably finished. I don’t think this kid is normal. GF tells me that I don’t know because I’m not a parent and she’s just like any other kid, but I just don’t know about that. I fear that the first time the kid throws a tantrum about me, I’m gonna get kicked to the curb, because the child’s feelings are accorded so much deference.

Are we doomed? Am I being unreasonable? Would appreciate some feedback. I don’t want to lose this woman, but I just can’t do this for the rest of my life. Will things get better?

2

Honestly I would say run. Especially given that the GF/Mother gave a sort of warning about if the kid doesn’t eventually come around to you, that tells me you’re already doomed. I am married with three kids and the oldest is my step-daughter from my wife’s previous year long marriage. I’ve raised her since she was 2, and her biological “father” if you want to call him that doesn’t come see her, and is a deadbeat that doesn’t pay child support.

Theoretically we should get along, I’ve been there almost her whole life, but we don’t. I don’t know what it is exactly, we were closer when she was young. I think some of it is that my Wife wants me to be her Father figure but if I tell her to so much as clean her room or something, she claims I’m being mean so she basically sabotages and under-minds the whole relationship dynamic. I love her, but there are a lot of aspects of her personality that I don’t like. I am extremely affectionate and loving with my biological children and I spend more time with them than my wife, but if I try to show affection to my stepdaughter she seems to reject it, I think she has some issues about her actual father, I think maybe she feels rejected by him and even though I’m there for her, I think she craves that connection with her real Dad, he see’s her for a couple hours on her birthday and Christmas, so twice a year.

As a child of divorce myself I understand to an extent, I don’t want to force it on her, I hope in time, maybe when she is a little older that we will be close again.

3

I went through a similar experience. Hooked up with a mom and 8-yo daughter. SD tried everthing to drive me away from her mom’s attentiion. Total scheming brat. One day mom had SD and a neighbor friend spending the day, and mom got called into work, so asked me if I’d mind watching the girls for the day. Sure.

I said let’s go on a picnic, go in the fridge and find something to take along. Like what? Anything. They packed a hamper. We went to a big city park with a river running through it. Got out of the car, I said “Here are the rules. Don’t go where I can’t see you.” I brought a book. When I’d look up, Id see a head peeking up over the river bank, but there wasn’t enough water to drown in,mostly rocky ripples. End of the day they looked like the Talon Children captured by the Karankawas, mom had to put them in the bath tub with a pair of tongs, but there were no wounds that wouldn’t heal… ** But they learned that trust is a two-way street, and they knew if I could trust them to follow rules, they could trust me to make fair ones. **

We became instant best friends, in a couple of years I discovered that I loved SD more than I loved her mother so we went our separate ways, but we’re still best friends 30 years later. She considers me the only father she’s ever had.

4

If the girlfriend is giving her daughter that much power over you and your relationship, I would DUMP THE GIRLFRIEND WITH A QUICKNESS!

The right way to do this is all adults MUST have the same rules/consequences for the kid. That includes the grandparents. And you must all discuss these things like adults - be willing to all go to parenting classes or counseling. Be on the same page.

Sounds like everyone is doing their own thing and not willing to work together. (Not going to work!)

5

Helping a step-child become a well behaved part of your new family dynamic is going to take a lot of work. You can’t expect the 7 year old to do the heavy lifting in terms of bonding and making the ground rules you can all live with. It’s nearly completely up to you and your SO whether you want to put the effort in to make it work. It’s a little worrying that three quarters of your post is blaming a 7 year old for relationship challenges.

6

Your GF is right, pretty much.

The kid may well be spoiled, but in a pretty normal way. You could do something about that, but only if you cared about her and were committed to the project.

Yup. This belongs to the adults. ReticulatingSplines’ post shows no evidence of being willing or able to provide anything close to the ~50% responsibility that would be required.

7

and yes that’s a normal 7 year old these days as the one running around me in his grandmas house right at this second is remeinding every day…but theres problems concering the parents …

8

She says she feels like she can’t criticize the grandparents’ parenting because they’re already giving up so much to take care of the kid while she’s at work.

Blaming is not exactly the right word; it’s pretty clear that this 7-year-old has our relationship in her hands whether I like it or not. I will admit that the behavioral stuff irks, me like nails on a chalkboard. I don’t know to what extent it’s a discipline issue and to what extent it is my issue to get over. Probably a little of both.

That said, the bromide about effort is overly facile; I know of stepparents who put in tons of effort and their stepkids still hate them. I don’t want to be that in ten years.

9

This part is obviously untenable. Bad for the kid’s own growth, damaging to any adult relationship around her.

But what have you, RS, done about this? Have you even had a serious (like, hour-long, focused, private) discussion with your GF about this specific point?

That’s near the beginning of the kind of commitment that would be necessary.

10

Yes, of course we have. Hours upon hours. Basically she does acknowledge that she has overcompensated for some guilt she’s felt, but that basically I’m wrong generally about parenting - that I’m too strict and not caring enough. She honestly feels like punishments don’t work with her daughter because she’s too stubborn, so that having a discussion about every offense is the right course of action. And then she’ll call me in tears the next day because her kid is giving her a hard time and she was never like this herself as a youth. This kid plays her entire family like a fiddle and I have to either accept it or leave. That’s what’s frustrating.

11

Yes, no, and no, respectively.

You now understand one of the reasons most second marriages break up. I don’t think it even matters if the child is spoiled or not - the fact that you have little experience with children means you are going to have even more trouble than usual fitting into a family that contains both you and your girlfriend’s daughter.

I assume you aren’t the first boyfriend* who has appeared on the scene. I assume the daughter thinks that [list=a][li]She doesn’t have to behave decently around you, because you will be gone anyway, and/or [*]She doesn’t want you around, so she doesn’t behave decently around you.[/list]I suppose you could stick around long enough that the child comes to believe you are there for the long run, but that will probably be a matter of years if it ever happens, and you will be walking a tightrope the whole time. If you and your girlfriend decide to commit to each other, you need to agree on rules that you both will stick to, so as to present a united front. This will be very difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult. [/li]
I would not be at all comfortable living in a situation with someone who behaved as this step child does, and as the step-father/boyfriend it will be very hard to be the disciplinarian, especially without very firm back up from your girlfriend. And it does not sound likely that she will give it.

Good luck to you. Have you spoken with your girlfriend about this? It is very hard not to sound accusatory when bringing up the subject, but talking about expectations and standards of behavior without being accusatory is exactly what you need to do, if possible.

If - biggest little word in the world.

Regards,
Shodan

*I assume this is a hetero- relationship, but I doubt if it makes any difference either way.

ETA -

ISTM that your chance of long-term success, already slim, have just left town. Sorry.

12

It is hard to bring it up. She really is trying her best, and she’s exhausted and just gives in sometimes because she doesn’t want to fight that day. I get it, I really do. But it makes the next time harder. I know I’m not a parent, but the solution seems so straightforward. Not easy, but straightforward. Of course the kid learns to test boundaries longer and harder when you occasionally (or perhaps even rarely) give in. Easier said than done, I know.

We just see things so differently. For example, the kid frequently interrupts our conversations by yelling over us, and that upsets me. And I suggest maybe we should ignore her until she learns to wait. But my GF says “Why do you have to be so dismissive? Why can’t you just enjoy that she wants to share something with us and include us in her life?” I just don’t see things that way. I’m not saying I’m right. We’re just so different.

I’m not trying to bash my GF. She’s a wonderful, decent person. One of the best people I’ve ever met. I wouldn’t even be considering this if that weren’t the case.

13

I hesitate to be speciifc on this topic because it would not benefit relationships in my own family were this post to ever come to light. Suffice it to say, my husband and I both have children of our own, both of us struggle with the other’s children and/or parenting ideas. We’ve been married ten years and I don’t think we’ve ever fought about anything else, but we can hardly discuss the kids.

I agree with Shodan.

14

Finding common ground on discipline is a struggle even in marriages where it is both parent’s first marriage and they’re still deeply committed and in love and the children are their natural biological children they’ve raised together since birth.

So it’s going to be tough for your situation no matter what. If it’s going to work for you all, both you, the mom, and the grandparents are going to have to come to some general compromise agreement on how to deal with discipline, and back each other up. It doesn’t mean you all are identical every single time (heck, you won’t even be perfectly consistent yourself), but you’ll all agree on the general concepts and most importantly back up what the other one does. And, frankly, that compromise will probably be closer to her than to you, given she’s been there and you haven’t, but she still will need to be able to move a little bit towards you and back you up.

Can’t say I’ve been in your situation, but I think the best thing is talk through it. I think you don’t even need to do it as a ‘if we get married’ kind of thing, but even as a ‘how are we dealing with this right now?’. And the good news is it sounds like you’ve already started.

15

If your feelings toward your potential stepchild are not “I like this small person, and I think I could come to love them”, you should not marry this woman.

16

You’re doomed. For a lot of reasons. First is that this child is 7 , and you apparently don’t have children of your own. Doesn’t mean you’re being unreasonable , but in my experience non-parents who become step-parents of kids over a couple of years old have difficulty adjusting- and if the father has never been around, the kid will also have difficulty adjusting to the idea of the second parent. That’s even before you get to the grandparents who want to spoil the grandchild like all their friends do, but don’t realize that you can’t do that when you live with the kid. Then there’s the mother who can’t criticize the grandparents - you can’t expect anyone to take care of your kids exactly the way you would, but it’s one thing to accept that Grandma might provide a couple more cookies than you would and quite another to accept them providing no discipline whatsoever.

17

Personally, I find the behavior of the mother that you describe even more irritating than the behavior of the child. It sounds like the mother dismisses your feelings on this topic, so it doesn’t sound like there is much you can do there to try to help make things better. If you two have discussed the possibility of marriage, maybe suggest family counseling (including you) as a way to help both of you decide if things can move forward or if you should part. But the mother’s current proposed solution that you just let the kid run over you as she is used to doing sounds like a nightmare to me.

18

sounds like they let the kid run the household. No good can come from that.

19

I apologize, I didn’t mean to make it seem like she dismisses me out of hand or without a care. She does care that I’m happy. And I think she’s really trying to compromise, but where we break down is that she honestly seems unbothered when her child does things like interrupt conversations (again, attributed to: she’s trying to share her life with us and include us), or when the kid calls her mom up from downstairs to fetch her something that’s about two feet next to her already (attributed to: kid misses mom and just wants to spend more time with her).

Her approach is that those behaviors aren’t “wrong” in the same way hurting someone or stealing is wrong, so she tells me she won’t correct those things. I suppose that’s true. But they’re just so irritating and I don’t know how to fix the way I feel. I wish I did.

20

This is unacceptable to me. I would tell the kid to not interrupt when other people are talking. I would expect mom and grandparents to do the same.

If they felt it was OK for the kid to do that, then bye bye as we will never agree on what is proper behavior.