Dear Prudence,
I live with my fiancée and her two kids: a 12-year-old girl and 10-year-old boy. I have a 15-year-old daughter who lives with us half of the time. She recently started modeling and is making good money. The lion’s share goes into a trust for her college but the leftovers leave her with more spending money than most teens. She buys expensive purses, designer clothes, and has a gaming laptop that makes me drool. Still she saves up for each item and is a straight A student—I can’t complain.
My fiancée’s kids do. They are either whining about my daughter not letting them play games on the laptop or hounding their mom to buy them more expensive stuff because it isn’t “fair.” It is a huge source of conflict and I don’t like the solution my fiancée came up with. Either my daughter is forced to give up the items she bought herself to the kids or not bring them over at all. We agreed we let each other parent their own kids. I put a lock on my daughter’s room after one of the kids went in and took the laptop without asking. My daughter immediately found out and it was a huge fight. She threatened to just go live with her mom full-time.
My fiancée is unhappy with me over this. I think she needs to work on boundaries with her kids and actually go to court to get her ex to cough up the child support he owes. The kids actually got along before this. We’re taking it slow and only moved in together a year and a half ago. Family therapy is not possible at the moment due to insurance shenanigans. Please help!
—Sharing Is a Bear