My stepdaughter felt up our wrapped wedding gifts as we honeymooned

"Oooh, this sounds like glasses clinking together!" the nine-year-old texted, with a photo of her shaking a present.

We were relaxing by the resort pool on our honeymoon when the first text message that made me feel ill came through.

"Daddy this sounds like glasses clinking together!" my new husband's nine-year-old daughter wrote, alongside a photo of her feeling up one of our unwrapped wedding gifts...

In our home... which wasn't hers.

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"Such an invasion of privacy"

It was immediately obvious that she and her mum, whom she lives with, had let themselves into our house to retrieve something of hers, and had decided to also help themselves to our wedding gifts which my sister had taken from the reception and lovingly placed in our home for us.

I felt my stomach fall, thinking this was such an invasion of privacy.

As a stepmum, you already make enough concessions and show patience for lots of things, because you know your man is a dad first. Case in point - my husband's ex-wife had an emergency key for if they ever needed to get something their daughter had left there (she's only with us every second weekend, so I don't see it as her home as such).

But as a new wife, I felt especially violated by what was happening now.

The girl looked thrilled, holding up a beautifully wrapped box to her ears. The text, from her mum's phone, wasn't even addressed to me. Yet they were my gifts as much as they were daddy's.

When you're a new wife, you want to mark some things as special for the two of you, and I would have thought our wedding gifts would be off-limits.

But I suspected this was a deliberate move by the ex-wife.

Image: iStock

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"Intentionally disrespectful and disempowering"

This wasn't an innocent 'oh wouldn't it be fun to see what they got' thing. Because I don't think that's a normal thought. Most polite people would never do that. They would respect the gifts as being for the new couple only.

So this was clearly a move designed to send the message, "You might be the new wife, but my daughter and I are still #1."

It was disrespectful and designed to be disempowering.

The woman had always been civil to me, but I also know she was curious about our relationship, because by the time we got married, we'd been together longer than they had been married. And she didn't like that.

My new husband of course didn't see any issue, and his only reaction to the photo and the text was, "Oh, she's so cute."

I knew well enough to not say anything, but I was seething.

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"Don't mess with my home or anything in it"

When we returned from our honeymoon, I saw the gifts strewn on the couch - when I knew my sister had carefully placed them for me on the dining table, so nothing would be ripped or damaged.

But I could tell by a glance that many of the boxes now had creased wrapping paper - even small tears - as proof they'd been interfered with by people who didn't care about us.

It was disappointing to see as one of the first things upon our return as husband and wife.

I could tell by my husband's face that he knew our gifts didn't deserve to be scattered around the living room like that. But he didn't say anything to his daughter or ex-wife.

I guess we both knew how to pick our battles by this stage.

But he did make up for it, pouring us champagne as we excitedly opened everything properly that night, making it the special moment it should be.

Originally published as My stepdaughter felt up our wrapped wedding gifts as we honeymooned