When I married James, I knew he had a daughter from his first marriage. Emily, his ex-wife, left the child six years ago—packed her things and moved to France with some new man, starting over completely. Since then, she’s had two more kids, calls her eldest twice a month over video chat, and only sends gifts on holidays. I’ve seen how the girl misses her mother, how she stares at the phone screen, hoping her mum will say, “Come live with me.” But she never has. Never visited. Just erased her daughter from her life.
At first, the girl lived with James’s mother, Margaret. But she quickly grew tired, struggling with homework, tantrums, and meltdowns. She just sent the granddaughter back to her father. James brought her home, looked me in the eye, and said quietly, “Charlotte will stay with us. For good.”
I really tried to be a good stepmother. Bought her clothes, made her favourite meals, picked her up from school, had heart-to-hearts. I wanted to be her friend. But she shut me out. It was like she’d built a wall between us and didn’t even try to lower it. She didn’t just ignore me—she made a point of showing I didn’t matter in her world.
Three years have passed. Now the girl’s twelve. And she still lives with us, bossing everyone around like this is her flat, not mine and James’s. Every night, she complains to her dad: “Auntie Lucy made me tidy up,” “Auntie Lucy didn’t buy me what I wanted.” Then Margaret calls me, scolding me for “not paying enough attention” and saying, “You’re expecting soon, you should learn how to be a mother.” Yet she won’t lift a finger to help—won’t even watch her granddaughter for an hour when I have a doctor’s appointment or work.
It’s wearing me down. I work, keep the house clean, cook, and now I’m pregnant. James doesn’t take her side, but he still asks me to be softer, more patient. And I can’t anymore. This girl’s become nothing but frustration—messy, rude, ungrateful, never listening, always unhappy. She’s not mine, and I don’t even pretend otherwise now.
Sometimes I sit in the kitchen at night and think, “What if I’d refused to take her in? What if I’d stood my ground?” But it’s too late. I can’t leave James—we’re having a child together. And selfish as it sounds, I keep wishing his daughter would decide to go back to her grandmother herself. To say, “I’m happier there.” I wouldn’t beg her to stay. I wouldn’t cry.
I just want to live in peace. Without constant criticism, without fighting for my place in this house. I want my child to grow up loved and happy, not surrounded by tension and arguments. Maybe this is my only chance to keep my family together—and not lose myself.
