Dear Eric: I have been married for 36 years, and my husband has a daughter from a previous marriage. I don’t consider her as a stepdaughter because I have had no part of her upbringing, and she has never liked me. She used to be a caring and nurturing person. Now she has become rude and spiteful.
My husband wasn’t allowed to meet her until she was nine, and I met her when she was 12. She is in her mid-40s now and has two young adult children whom I adore; they call me Grandma.
They live three hours away, but we can no longer travel because I am disabled and no longer drive, and my husband is terminally ill. When they do visit us (very occasionally) she continuously makes very nasty comments to me. I don’t enjoy the visits anymore and I have to remove everything from my bathroom and lock rooms off because she thinks it’s OK to steal things from our home.
They are planning to come in a couple of weeks, and I don’t want to see her. She has told my husband that she wants me to leave when she comes to visit. This is not acceptable. This is my home and I’m my husband’s caregiver. I want to see the grandkids, but I can’t do that and avoid her.
I have an app that can record conversations, and I want to use it to capture her nasty comments to me. Should I meet with them briefly then excuse myself and go into another room? Or do I keep enduring her rude and nasty comments?
– Not My Daughter
Dear Not My Daughter: First, I’d caution you to research the local laws related to recording a conversation without the other party’s knowledge or permission. In many places, this is illegal.
Secondly, while it’s not appropriate for her to ask that you leave the house when she visits, it’s going to be hard for you to have a relationship with her children without some repair in the relationship that you have with her.
One option is to address it head-on: “I’m concerned about the tension in our relationship and there are times that I feel disrespected. Can we establish some ground rules so that everyone feels safe?”
You’re not powerless here, even in the face of what you describe as nasty behavior. Even though she’s an adult now, the roots of this relationship began when she was a pre-teen. She needs to be responsible for her actions as an adult, but you can help reframe them in your mind by remembering that some of this is rooted in childhood pain.
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