Ask the Experts: How do I stop my lazy, rude stepdaughter tearing us apart?

My teenage stepdaughter is messy, doesn't do what I ask her to do and is rude to me - what do I do? Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Hi, I have been with Peter for three years now. He is 47 and I am 46. He was married before and has two kids, Suzie 15 and Ben 12 who spend every second weekend at our house. I was also married before but did not have any children and I am OK about that. Peter and I get on really well and are very compatible but Suzie has Peter wound around her little finger and is setting very poor boundaries with her. She is messy and doesn't do what I ask her to do and she is rude to me, more so when Peter is not around. Suzie says I am not her mother so she doesn't have to do what I ask her to do. I don't have any of these problems with Ben. Peter has talked to Suzie a few times but nothing much changes. This is the only thing Peter and I are fighting about but it is starting to become a really big issue between us. He says this is my problem that she is just being a normal teenager and that it is up to me to handle these situations better. He does not have these problems with Suzie and he tells me I speak too harshly to her. He has said that Suzie had a rough time when he and her Mum split up and is a sensitive kid. I just think she is lazy and rude. What can I do to stop this ripping us apart? I never thought it would be like this. - Brigitte

Dear Brigitte,

The good news is that you are not alone. The problems you and Peter face in your blended family are absolutely typical. There is a lot of information available about dealing with situations like yours, and we encourage you to use it. Books, podcasts, online courses, including some sourced from Aotearoa. In your case, as well as upskilling about blended families, we would encourage some research about the developmental stage and tasks of adolescence, along with father/daughter relationships. Ideally, do this reading/watching together, discussing as you go, to ensure you end up on the same page with the lessons you are drawing from your research.

All that information exists because blending families is a lot more complicated than most people expect. Most people don't access all that knowledge before joining their lives together. They assume they will build another version of the nuclear family, perhaps even a happier one. As a result, most people re-partnering are unprepared for the challenges they face if children are involved.

If you are typical, you decided to join your lives because you were very much in love and believed that was enough to make your new blended family work. You may have had hopes and dreams about how the love between the two of you would benefit Peter's children and how their happiness would amplify yours.

While this is the standard expectation, the research says something quite different about how blending families plays out. Without accurate information and informed decision making, blended family partnerships break up about twice as often as two-biological-parent ones. If you don't want to add to those statistics, we strongly advise you and Peter to stop and reconsider your whole approach to your blended family situation, accepting that you have a lot to learn.

For example, is Peter aware of how important it is to spend quality one-on-one time with Suzie and Ben? This is vital to ensure they are secure in their father's affection and minimise the likelihood they are resentful of the time and attention you receive from him.

Another example is one Suzie has rather brutally pointed out to you: that stepparents have no authority to discipline, control or otherwise parent the stepchild except as delegated by your partner. The only authority you have is "borrowed" from the biological parent. The older the stepchild when you start living together, the truer this is. So, if you want things to be different with Suzy, you need to persuade Peter to change his approach; it is not something you can achieve on your own.

Subjectively what this means is that biological parents like Peter usually feel like the meat in the sandwich and the stepparents like you feel entirely disempowered. If you want your discussions about how to run your blended family to be successful, you each should show your awareness of the difficulties of your partner's role as well as the discomfort of your own.

Part of your exploration will need to be about your level of engagement with the kids, given the limits on your authority and the complexities for the children of bonding with you. Best practice suggests that stepparents aim for something less than "parental" but more than "completely disengaged".

Exactly where you place yourself will be a combination of your and Peter's preferences and the nature of your connection with the children. As mentioned above, another difficult reality is that the older the children at the point of living together, the further towards the disengaged end a stepparent needs to be. A realistic expectation is that it will take double the child's age when you start living with them to develop a close relationship (so look to be on good terms with Suzie when she's in her mid-twenties).

Given all this, it is vital that Peter does not sidestep and leave the discipline issue in your lap. He is the lynchpin; he has the strongest relationship with both you and Suzie. As the one with primary parental influence and authority, he cannot abdicate his role in parenting decisions or creating the family culture. This emotional work often defaults to women in heterosexual relationships, but that cannot be the case in blended families. It will take the two of you pulling together to sort things. You need to slow down and unpack what you both think is going on regarding Suzie.

We encourage you to listen to what Peter has to say with the profound humility of someone who cannot know Suzie as well as he does, who is not an experienced parent and may not be very informed about child development and reasonable expectations. We would also encourage Peter to respect your fresh eyes on the situation and be open to the idea that you may see some things clearly that he doesn't. For example, about his blind spots regarding Suzie's behaviour's seriousness or his guilt about Suzie having a tough time because of the divorce.

Psychologists Verity Thom and Nic Beets are specialist relationship and sex therapists. Photo / Dean Purcell

From this position of mutual respect and understanding, you can then work out where the boundaries are for Suzie and how to apply them in a way that is tolerable for both of you.

Once you have an agreed course of action, Peter needs to be the primary disciplinarian and boundary negotiator with Suzie - not you. If Suzie is messy or speaking rudely, he needs to attend to that. Placing you in a primary parenting role when Suzie may not even like you, let alone respect you, is setting you and her up to fail. Then you will be able to be treated as an adult in the house who can make reasonable requests of Suzie and expect to be responded to appropriately (which, in a 15-year-old, may mean "begrudgingly" or "with an attitude"). If these expectations are not met, Peter then addresses them with Suzie in ways that you are both on board with from your prior private discussions or discussions afterwards if it is a new situation as often occurs.

Parenting is challenging, and negotiating the complex relationships in a blended family is doubly so. Take heart that, with good information on board and the humility to apply it, many people do it superbly and have rewarding family lives as a result.

• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.