You need to completely disengage from ALL responsibility for this child.

Your DH sleeps during the day and expects her to nap for hours and hours. Absolutely selfish. Hurting animals and threatening to hurt the baby, regardless of the excuse "she is only 3" does not wash with me and is inexcusable. When she does stuff like this, your DH should be coming down on her like a ton of bricks and disciplining her. The fact he doesnt is a massive red flag and anyone can tell you you think your life is a nightmare now. Well its about to get worse when baby gets here, you will have less patience, less time, more responsibility and will be wanting to protect your vulnerable child from this debacle of a situation.

You need to decide what your priorities are NOW. Personally my advice is to start formulating a plan how to 1)minimise your stress 2) put you and your child first before your DH and sd and 3) put your sanity, health and happiness as number one.

The above may be difficult for you to face up to, as no one sets out to "put themselves first" but your DH is doing this. His daughter is not a priority, if she was he would be parenting her and putting what is healthy for her and his pregnant wife above what he wants. He doesnt. He doesnt want to change and you cant force him to, so my advice is to look at what you CAN control, which is yourself. How you react, what you are doing now, how you are behaving, how you are enabling DH to continue being selfishness (helping him out with sd is actively enabling DH to continue on his selfish path).

Make this man accountable for his child alone. He wants to sleep during the day? How can he is you are out. SD refuses to eat? You dont cook dinner, DH does.

I can tell you something for nothing, if my DH stood by while his child hurt animals, threaten our child and refused to address it by correcting her, explaining to her why she doesnt do x and what she needs to do. Getting her to apologise to you when she is naughty and putting punishment in place (e.g. time out/no treats and a smack on the bum) then I would refuse to have that child in my home. I would not stop my husband from seeing his child but I would put a stop to that situation...your DH has a choice, change or alternatively these are the consequences.

So many stepparents feel like they have no alternative but to let their partners run the show when it comes to when the skids come over, for how long, how arrangements are made and they get no say. This is NOT true. Having a child does NOT give you free reign to disrespect your partner, guilt them into silence, use and abuse them and your home. Its so disrespectful! Tell him NO when it comes to extra time, he cant handle the time he has her now and it sounds like a massive amount of the work is pushed onto you. So stop helping him out, you dont have to you know. You DO have a choice and you can ignore DH's tirades or blackmailling attempts, you dont have to engage with him over that.

As for telling you to leave. Its effectively telling you "its either MY way or hit the highway..." you are in an meant to be in an equal PARTNERSHIP but you arent. Its on you to re-adjust that as your DH will only get worse, they always do. Time to give your DH a taste of his own medicine, your rules or leave. Personally I would be considering something extreme if I was THAT fed up. When you get to the point you dont care thats when you tend to be the most proactive.

Would DH be open to couples counselling?

My advice is to calmly and sweetly disengage. So when he expects you to have sd tell him "no, shes your daughter. You refuse to address her screaming and misbehaving. Thats up to you, but its also up to me whether I want to endure it. I dont and I dont have to as she isnt my daughter..." then walk away. She does something wrong "DH sd messed up x, can you please clean it." she wants attention "go see DH"...make DH accountable for his actions 100% while you go for a nice hot bath or see friends.

You need to completely disengage from ALL responsibility for this child.

Your DH sleeps during the day and expects her to nap for hours and hours. Absolutely selfish. Hurting animals and threatening to hurt the baby, regardless of the excuse "she is only 3" does not wash with me and is inexcusable. When she does stuff like this, your DH should be coming down on her like a ton of bricks and disciplining her. The fact he doesnt is a massive red flag and anyone can tell you you think your life is a nightmare now. Well its about to get worse when baby gets here, you will have less patience, less time, more responsibility and will be wanting to protect your vulnerable child from this debacle of a situation.

You need to decide what your priorities are NOW. Personally my advice is to start formulating a plan how to 1)minimise your stress 2) put you and your child first before your DH and sd and 3) put your sanity, health and happiness as number one.

The above may be difficult for you to face up to, as no one sets out to "put themselves first" but your DH is doing this. His daughter is not a priority, if she was he would be parenting her and putting what is healthy for her and his pregnant wife above what he wants. He doesnt. He doesnt want to change and you cant force him to, so my advice is to look at what you CAN control, which is yourself. How you react, what you are doing now, how you are behaving, how you are enabling DH to continue being selfishness (helping him out with sd is actively enabling DH to continue on his selfish path).

Make this man accountable for his child alone. He wants to sleep during the day? How can he is you are out. SD refuses to eat? You dont cook dinner, DH does.

I can tell you something for nothing, if my DH stood by while his child hurt animals, threaten our child and refused to address it by correcting her, explaining to her why she doesnt do x and what she needs to do. Getting her to apologise to you when she is naughty and putting punishment in place (e.g. time out/no treats and a smack on the bum) then I would refuse to have that child in my home. I would not stop my husband from seeing his child but I would put a stop to that situation...your DH has a choice, change or alternatively these are the consequences.

So many stepparents feel like they have no alternative but to let their partners run the show when it comes to when the skids come over, for how long, how arrangements are made and they get no say. This is NOT true. Having a child does NOT give you free reign to disrespect your partner, guilt them into silence, use and abuse them and your home. Its so disrespectful! Tell him NO when it comes to extra time, he cant handle the time he has her now and it sounds like a massive amount of the work is pushed onto you. So stop helping him out, you dont have to you know. You DO have a choice and you can ignore DH's tirades or blackmailling attempts, you dont have to engage with him over that.

As for telling you to leave. Its effectively telling you "its either MY way or hit the highway..." you are in an meant to be in an equal PARTNERSHIP but you arent. Its on you to re-adjust that as your DH will only get worse, they always do. Time to give your DH a taste of his own medicine, your rules or leave. Personally I would be considering something extreme if I was THAT fed up. When you get to the point you dont care thats when you tend to be the most proactive.

Would DH be open to couples counselling?

My advice is to calmly and sweetly disengage. So when he expects you to have sd tell him "no, shes your daughter. You refuse to address her screaming and misbehaving. Thats up to you, but its also up to me whether I want to endure it. I dont and I dont have to as she isnt my daughter..." then walk away. She does something wrong "DH sd messed up x, can you please clean it." she wants attention "go see DH"...make DH accountable for his actions 100% while you go for a nice hot bath or see friends.

p.s. I would go far as to say I would refuse to be around her. So no family time. NOT until DH changes and things improve dramatically!

Why bother staying with a man who has pretty much said you can go along with what I decide or get out?

Who cares how he raises his daughter? Pack your stuff and leave his ass with his screaming kid.

I had the same problem. My dh and the ILs spoiled his kid rotten for nearly a year after the divorce. Everyone felt soooooo sorry for her, doted on her, literally the kid had someone up her ass for an entire year. (She was 3 at the time, too). Finally, I had to tell dh to knock it the fuck off. He did listen to me, but honestly, it took at least 2 solid years to finally make her realize the earth didn't revolve around her and even now (6 years later) she has trouble with independence and responsibility. She plays the damsel in distress constantly. The difference is that my dh stepped up and didn't just ignore her. I don't do anything for her (except stuff that I am already doing like cook). He is her father. I'm here to support him and her, if necessary, but I am not here to give him freedom while I take care of his kid.

Calickat may i ask what on earth is your hubby doing in the middle of the night? I cant talk as it's 5am here now and im up but i dont have a child to take care of or lock away so i can sleep. It sounds as if things all changed because he decided that you are his wife now meaning (in his mind) her mum too maybe this is why his ex got rid of him, too bloody lazy and up to no good while everyone else sleeps. ????? Just a thought. I am so pleased you have your mum waiting to take you and your baby in when things get worse, im sorry i dont mean to sound like there is no hope cos there is always hope, but if he doesnt change very soon i fear it will get worse for you all. Glad you have somewhere to go.

Ditto

I can echo that Crew was one piece of work and to make those stories up is twisted in the head. I dont know *why* anyone would want to post about things like that if they werent true, its a living nightmare when you are caught in a psychostepstory :O

Sounds to me like you may have stepped up too much and as a result your DH has become complacent, lazy, permissive, guilty and selfish to both you and sd. I know I did this and I resented the hell out of having to play mammy to ss, and no matter how many times my DH denied the fact he wanted a mother replacement for his spectacular failure of choice for his first born he was in denial. Sounds like your DH may be feeding into the same fantasy.

I have a theory. Some or most Stepparents (usually in my experience females) tend to have to work through accepting that they may not share some "firsts" with their partners/husbands. Such as being the 1st wife, having their partners 1st born/son/daughter...they have to grieve for the lose of the happily ever after fairy tale because they effectively have to share their husbands with a demented harpie ex and insecure, bratty children (in some cases). On the other side of the fence is the partner, who grieves the loss of bringing up their children in a normal nuclear family, not being able to be with them 24/7 and having a mother for their child(ren). There can be difficult on both sides in accepting reality VS the fantasy, and often the individual can be in denial.

The fact your DH states sd is "your daughter too" indicates he may now be thinking his new wife is a new mother for his child. However, as you are not the bio parent you cannot parent as you see fit without any interference from DH, nor would you wish to administer physical punishment as it rightly is not your place as SM.

I also think your sd may be acting out due to sheer boredom, frustration as who in their right minds puts down a toddler for a 4 hour nap just because the parent insists on staying up all night. HE can fix his routine, his daughter cannot.

Seems to me you arent ignoring or punishing sd, so please dont feel guilty for distancing yourself from the situation. I know its hard as she is only a innocent kid who doesnt get it, but daddy needs to change how he is behaving. He needs to be more hands on and active with her, as what the hell is he going to be like when baby arrives?!! Remember so long as you treat sd with kindness and gentleness you have nothing to be guilty of, you are trying to remedy her father's poor parenting for HER and your child's sake.

The only way to do this is to make him accountable for his actions and poor choices.

Can you go to couples counselling?

Bloody hell. I think shes being sarcastic, as no one can be serious about that.

Anyway Cal. I had to keep reiterating to DH "I am not ss's mother. I appreciate that you feel I am a better role model for your son but I will never replace BM, nor do I want to. This is something you *must* accept, it will take time to do this but even though I entered into this marriage knowing you had a child. YOU entered into the same marriage knowing I was childless and had my own interests, my own mind, so you have to compromise too. Having a child doesnt mean you get to dictate the terms of our marriage, how I think or what I do."

Yes, again I went through the same thing with DH placing the onus of responsibility for everything onto me. I was the one with the problem, I was the one who had issues.

I got into a place whereby I HAD to put ME first because even though I went into my marriage actually putting DH's and ss's happiness before me, it wasnt working. I was miserable, DH was being super selfish and was alienating me (I was fast losing respect for him as a result which is painful) and I thought if I was going to be pummeled for being moral and self sacrificing, then WTH was I doing to ME? Time to mix up the control. So I started going out more with my friends when DH had ss, detached from his issues with ss, refused to talk about his demented controlling ex, stood up for myself more (if that was possible lol) and put my actress smile on and did all the above without giving DH a clue as to my real motivation behind it = self preservation.

I did then get to the point where I issued DH with an ultimatum, which I was prepared to carry through on. Get couples counselling with me or I am leaving. Your choice.