My 9 year old stepdaughter is becoming quite the challenge. She is very rough with my 14 month old and I’m constantly telling her to stop doing things that could hurt my toddler. Yesterday, my toddler did what toddlers do and playfully hit my SD & her reaction was to headbutt my toddler. I corrected her immediately. We had guests over when it occurred and they just looked at me like woah that was crazy. After they left, I mentioned it to my husband in front of sd and she responded “no you saw wrong” to which my husband pretty much just shrugged and said nothing. I replied I’m not about to do this and got up to walk away since it’s absolutely disrespectful of a child to basically call me a liar at something I witnessed.
While I was upset my husband looked at me and said say something to her, which is what I was doing when I mentioned it.
Am I wrong for feeling like the moment she tried to say I saw wrong was when he should’ve stepped in to correct her and set her straight? He ended up doing so only after he and I argued about it.
It’s almost as though he just wants me to parent her and that’s not cool. I have my own bio son who is 14 and would never allow him to think it’s ok to lie and disrespect my husband. He thinks it’s because he bonds with him more than I bond with her. But it’s like no, I’ve parented him to know better. And I do bond with her. I do her hair, I just bought her a period kit to bring to school just in case as she said her peers have started theirs. But it’s truly hard for me to get close to her since she’s constantly lying about things I see her doing, doesn’t listen and makes me repeat myself a million times and is unsafe towards my toddler.
It’s creating a wedge in my marriage and I truly feel the drift.
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Your SD is testing boundaries to see what she can get away with and to divide/conquer you and your husband to get her own way.
You and your husband should present as one. A team. Not good cop/bad cop. He should have backed you instead of shrugging. By doing that, he was absolving himself of any parental responsibility and basically washing his hands of the problem.
You need to have a serious chat with your husband one night after the kids have gone to bed and let him know in no uncertain terms he needs to stop being such a wishy washy parent and be an active one. His daughter will not be singled out for special treatment by him. All the children parented the same and treated the same. He also needs to be on board with backing one another and nipping this behaviour in the bud. The alternative will be divorce and separate households and no one wins. He needs to know it IS that serious and what is at stake.

I accidentally hit the bottom! He needs to parent his child
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