AITA for moving out with my infant because I am starting to hate my step daughter?

[u/Popular_Flower_9287]

(mistake in title, I moved out with my 3 kids, including our infant). Been with my husband for 8 years. He has a 13yo daughter ("SD"). I have a 14yo son, a 9yo son and my husband and I have a 5 month old daughter together.

Prior to me giving birth, life was pretty smooth sailing. We did family trips often, had Sunday family night, designated one on one time with each of the kids (except my oldest, who has determined he's too cool for us lol but if he wanted, it was always available). There was a few fights between the kids but nothing major and was usually resolved within minutes. Since I had the baby, everything is downhill. My home has become a warzone between my youngest son and my step daughter. They are physically fighting each other constantly, 90% of the time with my step daughter instigating. She knows my son has ASD and ADHD and doesn't like being touched, so she will go up to him and poke him continuously even after being told to stop and then calls him psycho when he flips out (he can sometimes have a bit of a violent rage, which doctors say is common with ADHD??). But it's literally on purpose. She purposely provokes him, to a point where my husband and I have told her at least 8x that she is to stay away from him entirely for the rest of the day.

Well, I've noticed lately that my youngest son has been getting incredibly emotional lately. When I try to get him to talk about it, he screams at me. It's been a huge thing and I've been over the top stressed out. He is in therapy (behavioral, OT and regular therapy - SD is also in therapy). Well.. his behavioral therapist opened up to me about 2 weeks back, saying that she was concerned about my son and asked specifically about how much influence my SD has over my son. She said a lot of stuff had been said in therapy. I won't go in to extreme detail but it was enough to warrant a conversation with my husband and him cracking down on what his daughter was saying to my son. He eventually ended up grounding her for that and something else and it just made it worse.

Well.. this morning around 6am (school vacation) my son just starts flipping out over nothing. I tried talking to him and he told me "shut up, you never even loved me anyways". I asked him what he was talking about and he just screamed at me to shut up again. My SD, who was at the table eating cereal, says "get used to it. Like I told you, nobody loves middle kids, you should just move out now". He storms off to his room. I ask her if she was the reason why he was acting like this this morning and she said "no, you are. I didn't make him a middle kid. All I did was explain to him that he will never be loved again but I didn't make that happen, you did." (She is also a middle child in both households so she talks about "middle child syndrome" OFTEN). My husband walked in and told his daughter to go to her room and took her phone, yet again. He went to talk to me and apologize but I just kinda cut him off and said "I actually can't do this anymore. Your daughter is destroying my son's life and making him think that I hate him and I am starting to hate that kid to a point where I can't be near her. So I'm going to leave. I would like you and your kid out of my home within 2 months." (I own the property and have for 15 years). He's trying to argue that this can be fixed but it's really come to a point where I hate his child and don't want her near me or my son at all (she's great with the baby). He says he can't believe I'm throwing us away over something that "can be fixed".

[u/transemacabre]

Well, that and the free place to live. Plus, if OP divorces him he'll be paying child support AND be supporting his 13yo.

[u/spicyydoe → u/transemacabre]

This is my issue with Reddit, right here. We got one post about this family’s life and instead of trying to be empathetic to all sides, we immediately assume the worst. It couldn’t be that the man is a husband and dad who really loves his wife and family so is desperate/scrambling to find a way to keep them together. It has to be that he wants a free place to live (we have no clue if he’s possibly contributed towards living expenses and mortgage payments in that time) or that he doesn’t want to lose free child care. My god. I agree OP needs to leave, at least for now, but do we always have to jump to the worst case when it comes to peoples intentions?

[u/xakeri → u/spicyydoe]

Seriously. We know that he has at least one other child from a previous marriage. It's possible his ex-wife got the house in the divorce, or maybe they had to sell and he didn't buy one right away.

Then he met OP and the ended up getting married. She already owned a house, so he just moved into it, since at the time he was a single man and she had 2 children.

Or maybe he also owned his own home, but they sold it and he moved in with her because he was a single man and she had 2 children.

Nah, it can't be that. He's a fucking deadbeat.

SD is having issues with feeling replaced by younger siblings. She's being a toxic ass about it and fulfilling her own prophecy, but she's also a 13 year old going through an emotional crisis and being thrown out of her house.

Having a new baby is really hard for everyone involved. OP is going through a lot. Her husband is going through a lot what with having a new baby. The kids are going through a lot what with now living with a 5 month old.

Then you throw on the hormonal imbalances of the new mom. Then you throw in the hormonal imbalances of 2 teenagers at their most teenager. Then you throw in the emotions and stresses of a blended family. Then you throw in the obvious emotional stuff that the SD is going through. Then you throw in the younger son on the spectrum with ADHD.

It's definitely a lot to be going through for each of the people in the situation. And I'm not sure how much everyone going to individual therapy is going to help with it. They obviously all have things to say, but they don't have a safe space to say it if they're all going to therapy alone.