Hi there. I am newly married to the man of my dreams. We have been together for 4 years. When i met him he got custody of a 1 year old daughter he didnt know he had. The mother was a drug addict and not taking her to Dr appointment and child services took her away and searched for the father and now i have a 5 and a half year old step daughter, who i have been raising for 4ish years. Now before my DH and i moved into together he lived with his mother for awhile. To help out with the random 1 year old dropped into his lap. He works A LOT so MIL was watching her 80% of the time
His mother give DSD everything she wants. No matter what. If she cries she gets it. It was like that for awhile until DH and i moved in together and now No is introduced. "I want candy" "No its right before bedtime" *cue screaming and crying* she ends up calming down, we've made a lot of progress since we moved in together.
So heres the thing. Everytime we see MIL she is undermining DH and I. We have gotten together over the last 4 or 5 family birthdays and EVERYTIME she give DSD a present. When its not her birthday. Like when the birthday person is opening their presents she gives on to DSD too. Setting horribly unrealstic expectations for birthdays with friends and such now that she is in school. We've asked her to stop so many times but everytime she just sneaks one and once DSD has it it would be a shitstorm trying to take it away and we dont want to ruin other family birthdays.
Also i am very healthy. While MIL is not. I do not let DSD drink soda. Rarely even let her drink juice. We have a soda stream and we make our own seltzer. Which DSD loves. Its not like im torturing her. So last month at my SIL birthday party i brought DSD her own seltzer to drink. I go mingle while everyone is cooing over DSD (the only grandchild) and i come back and MIL has dumped out the seltzer DSD made and filled her cup with soda. DSD doesnt even like soda. She asked me for milk instead 5 minutes later. She does this a lot. When everyone comes for visit she bring DSD mcdonalds and an entire package of cookies. And just horrible things. Luckly my DSD knows how to eat well. Even on halloween she only want 2 pieces of candy that night. But MIL is literally forcing bad habits onto DSD.
My problem is i am only "stepmom." My husband works a lot and sometimes can't make it to birthdays and stuff. So i take DSD because i want her to know her family (everyone beside MIL i absolutely love). Everytime i speak up to her she goes "she my grand daughter im supposed to spoil her." DH has spoken to her as well and she says the same thing.
I just do know what to do. Its been 4 years of us trying to get MIL to understand that we make the rules regarding DSD and she should respect them. I want to cut her off. But in doing that i would have to cut out the whole family because we rarely see MIL alone. Most with SIL and BIL and everyone. And i love my SIL and my FIL and i want then to be able to see DSD. But i dont want to deal with MIL. But i also feel like its not my place because i am only step mom. Its not my place to pit the entire family against MIL and have her stop coming. But she just doesnt listen.
Any adivce?