My ex-stepdaughter

I saw ex-stepdaughter and her long time boyfriend this past Saturday. SD came to son’s baseball game. After the game I walked up and gave son a hug and said hello to SD and boyfriend. Boyfriend said hello, EX turned around backwards and ignored me, SD kept her head down and side eyed me without looking up or turning her head towards me and barely grunted a very muffled hello. My thought at the time was I don’t think she realizes just how stupid her behavior looks or that her behavior is a near identical replication of her father’s behavior.

She’s a walking talking oxymoron in the flesh. I kinda sorta get siding with your parent over your ex-step-parent in a divorce. Up to a point anyway.

She was and may still be a ‘mean girl’. She was THE mean girl during middle and high school. SD is an attractive girl. I believe her boyfriend thinks he won the trophy girl. SD was the mean girl at home as well as school. She bullied, lied about and stole from her siblings and step-siblings all throughout the years. I see a lot of Ex’s traits in her. The two sides of the same coin, sweet when she needs to be, not so sweet when it suits her. My youngest son from my first marriage and SD are 2 months apart in age and spent almost their entire school age years together. Son suffered a great deal at her hands over the years. Some of her shenanigans towards son got her in trouble at school. She treated youngest daughter with pure distain and just plain ignored youngest son.

SD lived with us full time for several years but testified against her dad in open court at least twice back in the mid 2000s. SD testified to her dad’s abusive behavior and that she wanted to live with her mom again. SD ended up back with her mom 1/2 time after that.

Ex ignored and/or excused SD’s behavior away and always blamed her behavior on SD’s mother. One example was staying out with boyfriends. My oldest daughter is 4 years older than SD. It was the same time frame for both girls but oldest daughter had already graduated high school. Ex called oldest daughter a slut to her face when she stayed out all night with her boyfriend and told her if she let on to youngest daughter where she had been he would kick her out of his house. SD was declaring she staying at her mom’s over the weekends, but we found out this was a lie. All throughout high school, SD was spending the majority of the weekends ‘camping’ with her boyfriend and her mother was covering for her. Ex said nothing to SD. I asked how is it he is calling my adult daughter a slut for staying out a handful of times and remaining silent when his teenage daughter is spending the weekends with her boyfriend. EX raged at me stating that it wouldn’t do any good to say anything to SD because her mother would let her spend the night with her boyfriend every other weekend anyway. But Ex continued to call my daughter names in front of everyone. Understandably, oldest daughter moved out of our house. And SD got a pass. There was also youngest son from first marriage GF. SD and son are the exact same age, in the same school grade. SD and her boyfriend stayed shut up in her bedroom when they were at our house. Ex said nothing to SD. Nothing. Son had a little GF for a while. The first night he took her up to his bedroom, Ex stormed up the stairs, slammed son’s bedroom door into the wall and screamed they are not allowed to be in son’s bedroom. Son’s GF ran out, left the house and broke up with son. Ex was terrifying. Again, I asked why the disparage in rules. Rage- rage was his answer.

Another example was clothes. Oldest daughter had a job and was using the lion’s share of her wages to buy herself new clothes. It wasn’t long before daughter was complaining she couldn’t find a lot of her clothes. She speculated that SD was taking her new clothes to her mother’s EOW in her backpack. SD vehemently denied taking anything. Then one weekend SD was at her mom’s posting selfies of herself and her friends online. Sure enough, SD was wearing oldest daughter’s brand new clothes. Im not talking about a shirt or two, Im talking about hundreds of dollars in new clothes, an entire wardrobe. Ex barely said anything to SD. Ex refused to address it with his ex-wife. Ex told oldest daughter there was nothing he could do and essentially told her to just suck it up. Once I had the proof SD was stealing daughter’s clothes, I started keeping anything new she purchased in my closet. SD never returned daughter’s clothes, and Ex wanted the subject dropped. Again, Ex gave SD a pass at daughter’s expense.

Ex was harsh and unloving towards my 4 kids, Step-son and our 2 kids together. Ex never hid that SD was the favored child. Although SD had flavored status with Ex, he was still an asshole even to her. Just not as big of an asshole as he was to the rest of the kids. The biggest difference between all the kids was how Ex talked to SD in baby talk. This high pitched sing song voice. Ex was talking to SD in this voice when I first met him and SD was 3 yrs old. I assumed Ex would start talking to her in a normal voice as she got older. Nope. It’s continued to this day. Youngest daughter picked up on the baby voice when she was around 11 or 12 and SD was pushing 20. Youngest daughter would shake her head and say Im the baby and dad’s never talked to me in baby talk, youngest son is disabled and dad never talks to him in baby talk. Ex did not talk to anyone except SD in baby talk Youngest daughter would ask why? Never really had an answer for her. After the divorce process started, Ex started talking to youngest son in baby talk if other people were listening, otherwise the baby talk was still reserved for SD. It’s been a disgusting and contrived display. I should add, Ex has a pretty deep voice, so the baby talk is so far from his natural voice and I cannot imagine SD hasn’t noticed what the rest of us cant not notice. SD basked in Ex’s babying when she was little but holy moly, to hear him talk to her in baby talk as an adult…Ex’s baby talk to SD is so overt all the other kids, to include youngest daughter, Ex’s daughter, refer to the baby talk as Ex’s SD voice.

SD wore her disgust for EX on her sleeve. She frequently asked why does he act like that? What’s wrong with him? And sometimes she said out loud-he’s an asshole. She told me many times she didn’t understand why Ex treated me the way he did. So on some level SD knows just what Ex is capable of.

SD continued to spend most of her weekends and evening away from the house over the next several years and we rarely saw her. She eventually moved out with her boyfriend late 2019 and we almost never saw her after that.

So it was a bit surprising, and honestly disappointing, how hard and fast SD came to her dad’s defense once his affair was finally common knowledge and I filed for divorce. SD has first hand knowledge just how bad Ex treated her mother, SD undoubted knows Ex treats me with the same psycho behavior as he treated her mother, yet SD totally rejected me and completely embraced the affair partner, actively granting her dad a pass to commit the same Narc behavior to yet another woman. And it appears Ex actually did exactly that.

SD turns 29 on her next birthday. So she’s old enough to know better.

It’s hard sometimes: remaining silent, refraining from defending yourself. Last summer youngest son was playing Bocce. The state tournament was out of town in July. I informed Ex in writing of the tournament date in April. I informed Ex’s mother of the tournament date in May over the phone. So apparently in late June Ex and his mother planned her one and only visit to our state last year the same weekend as the tournament. And neither of them had the common curtesy to give me a heads up. I found out through the grapevine last minute. They had every expectation son should just forfeit the tournament without telling me. I brought up to Ex that common curtesy dictates they inform me of the conflicting schedules. Ex replied copying SD, youngest daughter and his mother, that I didn’t deserve common curtesy and rehashing what a POS wife I was during the marriage. It was insane. Ex’s mother who should have never been copied to our conversation in the first place interjected her two cents, and in a way that told me Ex didn’t give her the whole story or at least gave her a very skewed version, or maybe she was just being the nana/mommy enabler she always has been. I still stand by the fact that if someone knowingly makes plans that directly affect me, they should tell me. Not leave me in the dark to find out third hand and last minute. Yet Ex told me in writing I didn’t deserve to be told and his mother came to his defense. If they had kept me in the loop in a timely manner son could have been better eased into not attending the tournament, instead of the last minute shit show they created.

SD and youngest daughter remained silent during this exchange but it’s clear SD frosty attitude towards me completely iced over after that.

I have learned silence can be and is golden. Why defend myself to people who think nothing of treating son and I so shabbily.

Youngest son routinely comes back from Ex telling me how badly Ex, SD and boyfriend talk about me in front of him. This is really the only area I have struggled with remaining silent. Three adults who claim to care about son trashing his mother in front of him. That’s not love, that is self serving, obtuse and tone deaf. Flying monkeys doing what flying monkeys do best…and SD is a willing and completely entrenched flying monkey.

At the ripe old age of 28.5, instead of growing up and on, SD is still the enabler, back stabber, mean girl of her youth, she just added flying monkey to her long list of personas. And that makes me kinda sad.

It wasn’t until after the divorce started and Ex was ordered out of the house and I could breathe a little that I started online searches of Ex’s behaviors. I never understood Ex’s weird obsessions centering around SD. I learned pretty early on he had SD on a pedestal. He had two kids and the disparages between their rankings in his eyes was irrational. SD couldn’t do anything wrong, and SS couldn’t do anything right. My 4 kids soon rated down with SS from the get go. One golden child and 5 scape goats. Even our two children together never ever measured up to SD. As our marriage droned on, Ex made it clear to me she rated above me too. It was so weird. Ex expected me to put him first, but he put SD first. Now I realize the terminology: triangulation. Ex uses SD as a pawn. It’s still weird. I understand the mechanics of his behavior but I still can’t wrap my head around the why. I don’t understand Ex purposefully making one child believe they are less than another in his eyes. I don’t understand making your spouse believe they are less than a child. But I do now understand it’s triangulation. I just have trouble wrapping my head around the reasoning. I lived it. Am living it. Youngest daughter lives it. It’s so purposefully hurtful. I pray SD one day realizes what is completely evident to everyone else.