This woman and her husband are both in their 30s, and they have been with one another for four years. Recently, she and her husband got into a blowout fight over his 12-year-old daughter’s report card (he has two kids with two different women).
Her stepdaughter got an 80% average overall, but upon further examination, she discovered that in the majority of the classes, this girl was well below 80%. One class was 55%.
Art and gym class are the only classes that bring her stepdaughter’s grades up, and her having a hard time in school has been a struggle for a while. She and her husband only get to have her stepdaughter every other weekend, so there’s not really a lot they can do.
“And I tried to create structure for her and teach her when she‘s with us (she has poor study habits and spends most of her time on TikTok). But it’s being seen as me being too hard on her,” she explained.
Her husband and in-laws are so hands-off because they think that they only get to have her stepdaughter for four days a month, so they don’t want to upset her or push her away.
She’s been concerned that if they don’t make a plan for her stepdaughter to follow, she won’t know structure at all. Her stepdaughter’s teacher spoke to her mom about her grades, but that didn’t help.
“I told my husband that there needed to be immediate consequences because this has been an ongoing issue, and I don’t think ignoring it is helping her. He didn’t agree, and the argument escalated,” she added.
Her husband accused her of having ridiculously high standards because she worked her heart out to get straight A’s when she was back in school, and she is currently completing her master’s degree.
She pointed out to her husband that if her stepdaughter’s grade was an 85 and she was mad about her not getting a 95, that would be true, but her stepdaughter’s grade is 55.
As they kept on arguing, she finally told her husband that he should not expect her to be a mom to her stepdaughter, since she’s not even allowed to discipline her.
“I’m the one who takes care of her when she‘s with us. I cook for her. I make sure she takes a shower. I dry her hair. Dress her up. I do everything for her when she’s with us,” she said.
“We split up all her expenses too, except child support. Including if we go on trips, which could add up to thousands of dollars when she comes with us. His response was, ‘You’re not her mom.’ Then he said, ‘You should make your own kids.'”
“That absolutely crushed me. I felt like he was telling me I’ll never really be family and that my role in his daughter’s life only matters when it’s convenient. In the heat of the moment, I told him I wanted a divorce.”
Now that everything has died down, she’s questioning if she was too dramatic to blurt out that she wanted a divorce, as that’s quite a declaration.
However, her husband hurt her feelings and dismissed her, before telling her she’s not her stepdaughter’s true parent, yet this man expects her to help raise his kid.
I mean, what her husband said is not a heat-of-the-moment thing; he’s been thinking this all along. He clearly doesn’t believe that she’s a parent to his daughter, but still demands that she help care for his kid, which is so unfair.
Her husband also said she should have her own kids, not that they should have a kid for her to parent, which really just underscores that he doesn’t view them as a team.
Her husband is dumping all of the responsibility of his kid on her, and honestly, I think she should get a divorce.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
