My spouse has a daughter from a past relationship. The grieving mother left the child with her father and went abroad with her lover. This lady has already had two more children with her new spouse, and that is why she does not really need her daughter. She calls the girl no more than twice a month and sends her presents several times a year. The daughter misses her mother very much, but her parent does not visit her, nor does she invite her to her house.
At first the girl lived with her mother-in-law, but then her husband’s mother found it hard to cope with her, after which her grandmother sent her granddaughter to her father. I was sure that I would be able to take a stepdaughter. I did what I did to make the girl accept me and make friends with me, but then I realized that it was an unrealistic task and I would never be able to find a common language with her.
No matter how hard I tried, the child is still a stranger to me, she completely ignores me and doesn’t even respond to my requests. She acts like she is the mistress of our home with her husband, and all she does is complain to her father or mother-in-law about me, and then they tell me off. They believe that I have to indulge the girl in everything, they argue their demands with the fact that I will also have children someday. Neither grandmother nor father ever scold the child for anything, they do not notice all her nastiness and rudeness. My spouse’s daughter is growing up very capricious and spoiled.
Of course, I am happy that my spouse does not quarrel with me because I cannot find a common language with his daughter, but he keeps asking me to be more tolerant and loyal to her. My spouse works very hard, and he only comes home from work late at night, so I have to take care of his daughter, whether I want to or not. Despite the fact that the little girl is twelve, my mother-in-law forbids me to leave her home alone.
The husband’s mother herself does not want to stay with her granddaughter, she can’t be asked to look after her for at least a couple of hours, but she constantly reproaches me for not paying enough attention to my husband’s daughter. My grandmother doesn’t care that I have my own life, work, and needs. My mother-in-law is sure that if I have become a stepmother to her granddaughter, I should take full responsibility for her.
Maybe if I wasn’t constantly pressured by my spouse’s relatives, I would be able to form a more or less even relationship with the girl, but at this point I have regretted the fact that I once agreed to live with my stepdaughter a hundred times over. It makes me angry that my spouse’s daughter is slovenly, uncaring, and lazy. I realize now that I could never love and accept her as my own child. If I had thought it would turn out this way, I would not have married this man. I can’t leave my husband now, since we are about to have a child together. I have already begun to think that I need to do something to make the child want to move in with his grandmother.
