Hostile Stepdaughter - Don’t know What to do

All civilized people are capable of being civil. You don't have to like each other, but you do have to be polite. I would be inclined to leave some nice food treats for the children and something simple but nice for father and daughter to prepare in the fridge, or they can go out for lunch. Treat it as a pamper day for yourself and arrange to go out , leaving just before or just after they arrive. I would not want to spend time with someone rude in my house. She will get the message that you will be unfailingly civil but that you can see that she wants 'alone' time with her father and you are being the bigger person by allowing this to happen. It is a horrid situation. You could also spend the day in bed occasionally, if going out was too much trouble. Often a daughter will feel that she has been abandoned by the first man she has ever loved and no future woman will ever be welcome.

To Lolly69 and anyone else who thinks it is the children who will miss out. Do you really think that when they are dying men don't regret seeing or connecting with the children they abandoned or rejected? If so then you are fine.
I don't understand why so many women believe the man about the reason their first marriage failed. It seems the old cliche "My wife doesn't understand me" is still believed. Where is female solidarity?

I am so sorry you have had this in your life Jaffacakes but I think you are making the right decision in trying to continue to act with grace. You say she is civil. You can be civil in return. Any degree of warmth or affection does not seem to be on the table. Even recognition that you are not a bad person, which would give you some emotional peace, may not be there. Especially if her “civility” has elements of passive aggression. Resorting to passive aggressive statements yourself or banning her from your house which is also her father’s home or insisting he chastises her would probably make things worse and would hurt him and his grandchildren as well as her. You might get some satisfaction from expressing your feelings but you would probably end up even more miserable yourself. It is hard to be the bigger person but it seems to be what life is asking of you here. You have warm and loving relationships with many of your joint family. Whatever may be the rights and wrongs, your daughter obviously has had a lot of unhappiness in her relationship with her parents however one looks at it. Good luck and best wishes.

Your step daughter, I should have said.

YOu’ve been married to this bloke for 21 years and he is allowing an adult to treat you like this?!! He needs to ‘man up’ and tell her to grow up. She is not being expected to live with you so if she can’t be civil she doesn’t visit!

Tell your husband to grow a pair and stand up to his daughter.

What an unpleasant situation, and one that is difficult to resolve. Your step-daughter, or to use the old-fashioned term, daughter-in-law, is being extremely ill-mannered to you, quite deliberately so. She is neither disinterested, because she has a vested interest in you by law, as her father's wife, nor uninterested, as she is using her behaviour to sow discord between you and your husband.
I can appreciate that as a teenager she felt resentful towards you when you married her father because like many children in broken marriages she may have hoped her parents would reunite. But she is no longer a child, has a marriage and children of her own, yet is still pursuing a a childish vendetta against you.

The key lies with your husband: My husband tells me to just ignore her behaviour ; but it is very hard to ignore someone who is ignoring you. She is a guest in your home, accepts your hospitality but is deliberately rude to you, and your husband does nothing.
You say he is not confrontational and this may have led him to passively accept poor treatment from his first wife. That is no excuse for expecting you to tolerate it from his daughter.
As for advice: do not be driven from your own home and take an active role when she and her family arrive, however awkward; does her husband come too? Tell your husband your feelings and say how hurt and uncomfortable you are being made to feel, in your own home, and show him that you expect him to take some sort of action.

Unfortunately, I think the daughter will take umbrage and leave, which will achieve the desired effect of upsetting your marriage.

My OH son doesn't have anything to do with me because his Mum told him not to! Originally, I welcomed him into out home, he stay for dinner, we chatted and I said I was looking forward to meeting his teenage children. OH and I thought everything was fine but a few today's later OH received a phone call from his son. Apparently he'd told his Mum, my OH ex, that we had met and got along just fine. She immediately told him not to have anything else to do with me. Hence, he does not come now and I've never met his children! I don't lose sleep over it, his loss but he had to do what Mummy says because she's bank rolling him! OH visits the son and grandchildren, I would never stop him doing that.

How rude of her to enter your home and treat you like she does.
You either stop being so nice and leave them to get on with it - ie stop making tea and cakes or carry on as you are.
With the risk of sounding sentimental - Princess Diana had a terrible relationship with her poor step mum, but before her death she contacted her and said "thankyou for loving my father!" And finally built a relationship with her.
Maybe you should speak to your husband again and say how hurt you feel.
Personally i don't have it. I am not liked as a stepmum but heyho i did my best to treat them equally to my own but i won't be called a slag or be ignored in my own home.
Whatever their heads get filled with it is there choice to be rude to you. Hugs to you as it is not pleasant.

My advice would be to have a chat with her without your husband, woman to woman and ask her why she fells so hostile towards you, as others have said you don’t know what her mother has said about you although this would be no excuse as she is a grown woman who can make her own opinion about people.
If this doesn’t work I would go out when she visits as you shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable in your own home.
She can’t hate you that much or she wouldn’t visit knowing you will be there.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Your husband is at fault here as by not laying it on the in he's enabling her nasty behaviour. He should step up and tell her once and for all that you were not the cause of the break up of his marriage. He should also tell her that you always wanted to be close friends, not mother/daughter & that you want to make a fresh start with her so you can all be happy and enjoy spending time together.Being friendly with you does not mean she is disloyal to her mother in any way, because you have done NOTHING wrong! She's also a grown up and needs to set a better example to her own children.

It seems your husband's inability to confront difficult emotional issues is and may be always has been the problem, hence his previous relationship breakdown perhaps? Just saying 'ignore it' lets him off the hook and for you to 'deal with it'' plainly isn't working. Be clear, either he speaks to his daughter privately and says that this scenario will NOT continue if she doesn't behave like a civil adult to his wife OR that he will meet her on her own for a short and limited amount of time. She needs to know that you are his priority, your happiness and well being are his goal in life now. Sometimes men need this actually spelling out what it is you want them to do, it is hard for some to 'pick up signals' or know what to actually say when things aren't going well. Give him an opportunity and a time limit to sort the problem or the invitations to his daughter are withdrawn. It is your marriage, your home and his daughter

It's a shame that this difficult situation wasn't tackled by your H from the beginning Jaffacakes.

Having allowed this unacceptable behaviour to carry on for years, it's going to be difficult to stop it now; difficult but not impossible.

To be honest I think your new husband bears a lot of responsibility here. He is in a difficult place but he needs to take control of the situation and get to the bottom of why they are so hostile to you. Not let them get away with this behaviour especially in your own home.
You have done what you can to sort things, now he must step up for your sake. I hate pussy-footing around people so he needs to step up.

No more cakes etc and being unavailable on the day they visit would be my first start. You've been too nice & accommodating to her and her tantrum

It's like the current pandemic....
No mask (of acceptable behaviour)
Or
No entry

Simples

When my children had friends over I would never accept behaviour which I didn't allow my own children to do, however young or old they are.

I'd be having a strong word with your husband as it's clearly getting you down. Awful situation....please don't let it carry on...doormatting is how she is treating you.....in full view of your husband and his grandchildren....?

Has this site turned into Mumsnet, where the stepchildren are the Demi gods and the second wife is the devil. Also the husband is a liar. Some of these comments are appalling,
It seems as though you've done your best Jaffa Cakes, maybe it's time to stop trying, leave your husband to his relationship with his daughter. I would say to your husband that they're not welcome in your home, unless the daughter can exercise some common decency.
Best of luck for the future.

I have had similar issues with my adult stepdaughter. She would come to my home and ignore me - not saying hello or bye.
My husband was reluctant to tackle it and made excuses for her - she's tired or she nodded at you.
Then one visit I got fed up and told her that she was welcome to visit our home anytime but she had to at least say hi and bye. I told her that we didn't have to like either other but basic manners were expected.
If she felt that greetings were too much for her then she could choose to see her dad away from my home.
She chose the latter and meets her dad at her brother's or out.
I haven't seen her for ages now and that is fine.
If as an adult you choose to behave in a certain way then you have to accept the consequences.
It does not matter if your SD likes you or not. You are her dad's wife and should be treated with civility.
In most families we all have to put up with relations we are not fussed on but we get on with it.

It's easy for your husband to say 'Just ignore her" because that's get him off the hook - he doesn't have to deal with it even though he knows how much it hurts you. Why don't you put it to him that if he is not going to stick up for you then it might be best if he sees his daughter elsewhere. it sounds as if you have done more than enough. I think most men don't speak up as it gives them a peaceful life regardless of the fall out.

Agree with Toadinthehole. This is a woman in her 40s...she wont changed now. Do not waste your precious time and energy on her.

My stepfather lost his adult child when he left his ex-wife and had met my mother. He walked away with nothing because he felt so guilty. Every year he sent cards and presents for her birthday and did the same for the children once they were born. After about 15 years, when he found out the cards and presents were unopened, he stopped sending. His heart was broken but accepted it as punishment for the hurt inflicted on his ex-wife.
Years later, when he had a massive stroke, I contacted the daughter through a friend who coincidentally lived in our childhood home. The daughter came rushing down and in the following 3 weeks before he died, introduced her children to her father. It was a very emotional time and she explained that her mother had threatened to cut her off if she had anything to do with her father. She felt that her mother had no-one, her father had my mother so it was a slam dunk. By the time I contacted her, she had come to understand why her father had been so unhappy with her mother but she felt too much time had passed to make contact.
It may be that your stepdaughter has got into a pattern of behaviour that she doesn't know how to change, Jaffacakes. Whilst I don't advocate an ultimatum between your husband and daughter, I do think that the least he could do is to ask her to make sure she is politely civil to you. He could point out that he doesn't like being caught between the two women he really loves and would appreciate her making it a little more comfortable for all concerned. Perhaps you could also discuss how much presence is required of you to make his daughter feel comfortable too. If it is too hard for him to do, I would suggest that he makes arrangements for visiting somewhere else on alternate occasions and when his daughter is visiting, perhaps you could say a quick, "Hello," before popping out to visit a friend or something. Compromise will be a better solution than resentment.

They're not children and if they can't be civil in your house then I would tell them they're not welcome, or tell your husband to meet them elsewhere. Why should you be made to feel awkward in your own home. If she has resentment towards you then she needs to avoid you altogether and grow up, life's too short to put up with rubbish from a 40 year old grown woman. It's not like you only got together last year.

The problem lies with Jaffa really, as it’s her feelings that are being hurt, when she has done nothing wrong. Her OH is fine as he just says, ignore the behaviour of his daughter. The stepdaughter is fine, as she is pursuing her childish behaviour and presumably getting something from it.
I suggest that Jaffa, gets a little bit of counselling so that she is able to make up her mind, that it’s not her fault, and so no longer care so deeply.
The other two can then get on with it. Not bothering will make Jaffa’s partner relax, as it’s too cruel to put him in a situation where he is asked to choose. He can’t choose either as he loves them both.
So Jaffa, get to a state of indifference. Be honest and ask yourself...do I really want to make cakes and be welcoming to this woman who treats me like Pooh. ? The answer must be a resounding NO...so stop doing it. Don’t go out unless you want to either. Just be congruent.
It is hard to sulk if it has absolutely no effect on the intended victim.
You need to be true to what you feel in your guts....otherwise it’s making you ill.

Mealybug yes I agree, they are not children and if she has behaved like this for 21 years and your husband has just said ignore it in my opinion you have the right to feel like you do. They are not young children and so all this pandering towards her feelings is probably making her feel justified in behaving like a two year old. The suggestion you put on some nice treats and leave your house is astonishing. He she wants to be alone with her dad then tell him to take her to the local cafe for a treat. I would be very disappointed if my children had treated their fathers new wife with such contempt. Get this out in the open between you and if she doesn’t have answers as you are being perfectly polite then her father needs to acknowledge and confront it.