Dear Prudence,
Before I married my husband, he told me that he might have a biological daughter from a brief summer fling. The mother denied that he was the father, despite the little girl looking exactly like my sister-in-law as a baby, and her own husband was on the birth certificate (they were not married when my husband got together with the mother). My husband didn’t push the subject, but felt that I should be prepared. I thought I was, but when the young woman, “Em,” approached my husband last year and got a DNA test that proved the paternity, it turned our lives upside down. Em is estranged from both her parents and is desperate to forge some kind of family connection here—except she is extremely hostile to me.
She ignores me, talks over me, or shoots me dirty looks when I am affectionate toward my husband. Maybe I could rationalize her behavior if she was my actual stepdaughter instead of a relative stranger, but frankly, her behavior gives me the creeps. Em has physically gotten between me and my husband when I go to hug him. It also makes the husband uncomfortable but he feels like he owes her something. She has visited several times and been introduced to my in-laws. My mother-in-law is over the moon about having a granddaughter. My husband and I don’t have kids and neither do any of his siblings. We had plans to go camping with my in-laws this summer and Em got invited by my mother-in-law at the last minute. I am not comfortable being in close quarters with Em like this. I am ready to back out entirely but my husband feels we are obligated to make an effort. I have been making an effort these last 12 months and I am tired of trying. For the record, I am adopted myself though it was an open adoption. I never acted like this toward my birth father or adoptive father (my parents divorced and both remarried when I was in high school). How far do I push this?
—Issues With Em