Everyone knows that when it comes to rules and parenting, stepparents need to tread lightly. Things can go wrong – and fast – if they overstep their boundaries.
That said, they have to have a point sometimes, right?
OP is married with a newborn and a preteen stepdaughter.
My husband and I got married 3 years ago and now have a 2 month old daughter. We were best friends for 6 years prior to this. He has a 12yo daughter with his ex and she’s honestly great.
I love everything about that girl, outside of her shower usage.
Things are going well, except for the fact that her stepdaughter’s showers are making the bills – and daily frustrations – go up.
So.. she showers twice a day. Once before school and once around 5pm.
She stays in there for 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes every single time.
Our hot water is electric and her shower usage has raised our bill to nearly $600 a month for the past 4 months.
Whenever I talk to her dad about it, I’m met with a “it’s something we have to get used to because I’m not going to tell her she can’t shower”.
She uses all the hot water, and considering she showers around dinner time and the kitchen sink affects the temperature of the shower, she’s constantly screaming out of the bathroom to turn off the kitchen sink when I’m literally trying to cook and need the water to do so.
I’ve told her several times to not use the shower during the hours of 4p-6p so I can cook/do dishes but she always claims to “forget” or gets extremely angry and causes a bunch of tension in the house because she “feels gross” and needs a shower right that minute.
Her father doesn’t think it’s fair to limit her showers.
I’m starting to grow resentful because there have been several times I have attempted to bathe our daughter/bathe myself or do the dishes and there’s been no hot water.
My husband also takes two showers a day. Once before work and once immediately following work. He comes home at 6.
He also complains because when he gets home there’s no hot water but he never says anything to his daughter.
After OP began shouldering most of the financial burden, though, she put her foot down.
But recently they cut my husband’s hours down to half the time he usually had because the company is threatening to go under so the financial responsibilities have been 80% on my shoulders (I own my own business). It used to be 50/50.
I told him that since I’m now paying significantly more than he is, I refuse to pay this much for electric and him and his daughter both will be limited to one shower a day, for no more than a half hour. I told his daughter this as well.
Both are calling me controlling and have disregarded everything I said and still shower twice a day for 45+ minutes.
So I left and told them to figure out how to pay for everything.
Now everything is a total mess…but did she do the wrong thing?
I’m currently staying at my mom’s with the baby.
He says I’m an AH because I just left them in a trying time all because I want to “control” their showering.
That’s not it at all. They are financially ruining me and I’m not putting up with it anymore. I literally have maybe $200 a month after I pay all the bills and a baby that needs diapers.
This is gross but I’ve literally only been able to shower twice without the baby since I had her because of them.
I either bathe her or bathe myself thoroughly and I need to bathe the baby because she’s super chunky and gets stuff trapped in the rolls and gets rashes.
ETA: this wasn’t a normal until recently. Step daughter moved in with us in September for school because her mom moved out of district and she wanted to stay in the same school. So this is all new to me.
My husband always showered twice a day but the bill was still significantly less because his showers usually don’t exceed 20 minutes.
Reddit’s going to let her know.
The top comment says OP is not wrong to be upset.
This person says the fact that they have OCD doesn’t change the bottom line.
And this person says they might have to get creative.
After all, bills and bills and someone has to pay them.
There are reasons other than money that intervention is a good idea.
I feel so sorry for OP here.
She is not trying to be mean, she’s just trying to do what’s best for the family.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.