Revenge is best served bluntly
Oh how eventful this weekend has been, revenge can be sweet. So half term holiday and as always had the SD. Usual the 5 days pans out of me feeling like I am in the way, not welcome and then used as the butt of any jokes. Well not this time! I had prebooked activities for me and SD. Two reason really. One if I am to spend the next god knows how many years with this child in my life I need to make our relationship bearable, so some quality together seemed a good start. Also to show dad what it is like to be on the receiving end of feeling unwelcome and being the butt of the jokes. So anyways, dad has had to deal with being called names, poked and prodded, pushed out, SD not wanting to hold his hand, SD calling him names, running away from him and to me, telling him to go away. At one point he got so fed up he stormed off and had a mini temper tantrum. Saying he was very upset, didn't feel like we wanted him there was sick of being picked on and called names and we needed to not be so mean to him. I subtlety said it is not very nice when people make fun of you and make you feel unwelcome. We agreed to be nicer. So now only a day and a half left till SD goes back to mum, things seemed settled, dad seemed to have got the message, he managed about 24 hours, then they started again, so I quickly turned the tables again, and pointed out that if he wants to play this game I will. Anyway only time will tell if he has learned his lesson, but I will not go down without a fight. When we got back after taking her back, he said he felt like he had hardly spent any time with her, as it was all about me.
Why play this game at all? I
Why play this game at all? I’ve told my DH if he wants to allow his kids to triangulate me this way he can deal with them solo & I’ll do my own thing. I refuse to engage that way, it’s exhausting. I draw the line when skids have talked about pulling my bio into their little ring, abso-f*#king-lutely not boys.
I agree with Monkeysee. I
I agree with Monkeysee. I would not play tit for tat in the games. Gives stepkids too much power altogether, and it's a childish thing to do, anyhow.
This isn’t revenge
It's game playing, using a child as a pawn.
If your DH isn't smart enough to figure out how to treat you well when the SD is over, if he himself is so immature that he uses you as the butt of his jokes, why do you think he will be smart enough to figure out you are (misguidedly as the posters above have said and I 100% agree with them), trying to 'teach' him a lesson?
Setting this whole situation up as some sort of revenge fantasy will only muddy the waters between two people who instead need to learn to communicate clearly. Setting clear boundaries and disengaging will get you father than weird game playing.
Using the child to punish your SO for his poor behavior is wrong and a horrible way to treat the child as well. The kid isn't blind. She will figure out eventually, if she hasn't already, that she can be an a$$ to whoever isn't showering her with presents and attention in a bid to get the other one of you to do more.
Stop it. Be an adult. Get yourself into counseling to learn better communication skills, stop game playing, and figure out what's appealing to you about being in a relationship with someone who doesn't know how to parent or communicate.
This child deserves better than being taught to triangulate two adults because the two adults would rather play childish games.
Why are either of you
Why are either of you allowing this child to be rude and unwelcoming to the other one?
I get what you were going for
I get what you were going for, but it falls flat. All you did was teach SD that you support her being disrespectful to her dad, too. And all Dad realized was that you DO treat this as a game and will suffer in it because he thinks it's fun/funny.
If your goal is to show your SO how it feels to be left out, you can do that by living your life without his input when SD is both around and not around. Call him and her out when they are being disrespectful. If they call you names in public, ask why they think it's funny and ask complete strangers to explain it to you in front of them so that your SO actually gets embarrassed.
Though, if you're at the point where you're looking at revenge, and talking to your SO isn't working, then it may be time to consider counseling or leaving this relationship. It's absolutely not okay for him to teach his daughter that being disrespectful is okay. If he doesn't grasp that, then he doesn't have a lot of respect for you, either.
This sounds exhausting.
This sounds exhausting.
So if i’m understanding things correctly.
Your husband and sd do this bullying teasing thing to you and your way of addressing it is to do the same with sd??
aren’t you and hubby/partner meant to be a united team supporting and respecting one another and so if you feel he isn’t respecting you and treating you like shit then you adress the issues and make sure he changes his attitude behaviour and that of his kids so you are not disrespected.
Just because he and sd tease you doesn’t mean doing the same to him with sd makes things any better. Acting childish and playing these games doesn’t get you anywhere. You need to address this as grown ups even if everything comes out of your mouth bluntly its better than playing these games
This won't end well for
This won't end well for anybody, once you and DH start using his child to hurt one another it's game over.
I don't agree with involving the kid, but I get it
My DH is oblivious to any bad behaviors, rule breaking, or disrespect from his kids or from himself. He doesn't see the other person's point of view until he has to walk in their shoes. Really. I've even asked him to pretend/imagine X and he just keeps repeating "but X isn't happening to me."
So, I get it that the only solution seems to be to put him in exactly the same situation so he can get a clue. However, it's not okay to involve the kids specifically and encourage their bad behavior. That I didn't do. I did jump on situations where the skids, on their own, did the same thing to DH that had happened to me and point it out to DH. Please do not foster the bad behavior in the next generation. Your skids are actually more malleable than your DH. Really. My skids have learned some manners and good behaviors that DH still does not do, or DH started only after realizing he was the one person in the house who was not doing the thing.
This is a whole other level
This is a whole other level of fuckery right here. Using the SD to get revenge and show your H how it feels to be left out. The time and energy you invested in that is crazy and the fact that you felt the need to do that is mind boggling. If this grown ass man doesn't know how to treat you his WIFE than you should consider divorce.
Playing these immature games gets you nowhere and you are just feeding more into the dysfunctional triangulation.You both are modeling to this child how to manipulate and use people.....smh
I'm on the fence on this one.
I'm on the fence on this one. DH needed the lesson and to feel the pain that he has perpetrated against you. Using the Skid as a weapon, not cool.
As others have said, first of
As others have said, first of all you are encouraging the child to act all kinds of bad. Point maybe gotten by SO, but probably not, but there is no point gotten by the child. if anything you have enabled the child to think they can be disrespectful to the BOTH of you.
And I think what you really want is your SO to take you seriously. If you elevate things to this form of juvenile game playing, he won't take you seriously and he'll feed into the game. So then there will be real and substantial feelings involved but he'll still think y'all are playing. Not good it's like mixed signals you're sending.
Plus how long do you think you can keep up turning his daughter against him? I don't believe you can keep that up for very long at all. And then it will inevitably turn back on you, and he'll be like haha I'm winning the game now, while your very real feelings are being hurt.
What's the point? At least one of you should act like an adult. I don't mean to be harsh, but there it is.
Thanks for the honest advice,
Thanks for the honest advice, I would agree that pitting SD in the middle is not the best and honestly it wasn't a decision a made lightly. But I was becoming increasingly concern at how he was allowing his daughter to grow up thinking it is ok to be nastily to others and tease and pick fun at them whist he justified it as she just having a it of fun. It is only fun when you are laughing as well. I had raised the issue many time before and it didn't change. Anyway, Hopefully lesson learnt in one swift blow, this weekend has been much better, we had time to talk since her last visit and I have explained why I took such a strong stand he has agreed it is not nice to be on the receiving end of not being wanted and her being nasty he has said that he doesn't want her to grow up thinking she can tease and make fun of people for fun. So this weekend Any slight nasty comments have been swiftly dealt with and we have kept a united front on what is acceptable behaviours. She has been much happier for it and so have we.