This will only get worse the older she gets. And if you do happen to marry and have children with him, he will display the same permissive behavior towards your children. Now all of a sudden you have a 15 year old, who doesn’t have any control, and is self destructing, while you have small children at home. I have seen it on many occasions, the step mom loves the husband’s child, until she has her own. She prioritizes her children, (rightfully so,) the father is enamored with his new family, the step daughter feels completely ignored (which it seems might be happening already) and acts out even worse. The step mom is overwhelmed with raising small children, and really doesn’t have the time nor the patience to deal with the step daughter and her issues. Bad for everyone involved. Disaster in the making. What happens if instead of pushing you, she pushes one of your kids?
Can you get beyond all that, and make a loving happy home with all involved? Sure, people do it every day, but it’s going to be really, really difficult, especially since it appears that neither parent is willing to help. Personally, I’d take a pass, life is hard enough.
For this part–you’re screwed. She’s going to hate you if you are the only one putting limits on her behavior. If you don’t give the girl some boundaries, she’s going to hate you later, because–and this is trite but true–kids need boundaries. If you aren’t willing to treat her like she capable of controlling her behavior she’s going to think that you don’t care what she does–and that’s going to translate into you don’t care about her.
In any case, this is her father’s fault. No matter how her mother allows her to behave, your SO is the one allowing her to get away with things when she is under his care.
god, I don’t know. I have her upstairs on a computer game so I can study downstairs but I am so blindingly mad I can’t concentrate. And I know being angry is pointless. See, he’s one of those “everything happens to ME” people. If I jump on him about him sticking me with his kid all day when I have shit to do, he’ll just come back with “well, what could I do! They needed me! I have too much going on, everyone wants something from me, I CAN’T DEAL!”
Yesterday, I was trying to drive her to a birthday party and he gave me incorrect directions. I get pissed as hell and he happens to be home. I bring her home and tell him HE can drive her, I’m done. Does he apologize for giving me wrong directions and having me drive around aimlessly for half an hour? Of course not! He just says “it’s common sense, you’re supposed to go SOUTH to Sebastopol, not NORTH!” Are you fucking kidding me?
Honestly, I’m shaking, I’m so pissed. I keep hoping it’ll get better eventually because I am SO in love with him and we only go through this once a month or so (she’s okay some weekends).
I’m another one asking why you’re putting up with this at all. fessie and company hit it right on the head. You say you don’t want to let the girl break up your relationship, but it isn’t her doing at all; it’s your boyfriend’s behavior that is the true problem, and which doesn’t appear to be headed toward change at all. He is not being a good dad, or even an adequate dad, and that’s the problem, not her.
I don’t want to go around telling people to break up over the Internet, but this is a situation where you are largely powerless unless your boyfriend backs you up. Without that, you’re stuck with minor manipulation, where this girl needs a major intervention in order to wind up with a decent life.
I had my doubts about your relationship after your OP. Then I had more serious ones as you posted your responses to people’s questions. At this point, I’m with dahfisheroo on this completely.
This guy is ignoring your needs–which you’ve been pretty clear about, I assume–and he’s neglecting his daughter’s needs, too. You might want to ask yourself whether or not someone who treats you like that is really someone you want to spend your life with. He might be happy to cuddle with you, he might make you laugh like crazy, and he might be irresistibly physically attractive, but he certainly doesn’t seem to respect you or consider your priorities important. I can’t imagine blowing off the needs of anyone I love, and I can’t imagine trying to manipulate anyone I loved when they came to me with a problem they were having. Someone who really loves you treats you, your needs, and the things you really want from life with respect.
Not to mention that you’re going to end up with one very screwed up family if you marry this guy. You’ll end up with an even more screwed up family if you have kids with him. Even if your family dynamics don’t end up in the way dahfisheroo describes, you’re not going to be happy. (And, like dahfisheroo, I’ve seen some pretty dysfunctional blended families that follow the trajectory dahfisheroo discussed.) At the very least, you’re going to end up with a stepdaughter you have a really lousy relationship with, the sight of whom is going to to make your blood pressure rise, and a husband you’ve come to resent enormously. Not a good combination.
Add your own kids to the mix, and you’ll end up in a constant battle against your husband and stepdaughter. In the process of fighting to raise your kids in the way you see as appropriate, you might end up alienating not only your stepchild, but your biological kids, too. It’s hard to feel all that cuddly about any parent who’s so often angry or depressed. And even if you’re not always angry or depressed (though it’s not likely you’d be too happy), the kids will see you as the “harsh” parent and run to their father, who’s a much easier touch, even though you might be the better parent. You won’t like that. (This is a pattern I’ve seen in lots of families, too.) From what you’ve described of your SO’s parenting philosophies, it seems to me that, when you lay down rules, your husband won’t back you up on them. That will undermine your authority, which will make you very, very angry and resentful.
I’d like to ask the same question that dahfisheroo is asking:
Jeez, people. Calm the hell down. lezlers has already said she loves this guy. I’m sure she has good reason. If you commit to a relationship, then you work through all the problems, not just the easy ones.
lezlers, I know you and he have gone round and round about this, and that he is engaging in some serious avoidance. I don’t know what to tell you other than it’s going to take a commitment on both your parts to fix it. Don’t let him change the subject, don’t let him turn it back around on you, and make sure he knows just how serious this is to your relationship. If you can, get him to go talk to someone with you.
More thoughts: you say that this is only once a month, so you just hope it will get better. At the same time, you dread her coming to live with you in a few years. She seems pretty angry now about her life and the way she is being raised (though entirely unable to say exactly what it is she’s angry about, of course)–she is legitimately unhappy with the way her parents treat her, and, being a child, she deals with it badly, by lashing out and demanding stuff, which is only encouraged and rewarded. She is only going to get angrier and act worse, unless something changes.
Unless your boyfriend makes some serious changes very soon in the way he parents his daughter, there is a trainwreck coming. He is not living up to his responsibility. There is little you can do to repair this girl’s life without his doing that, and soon it won’t be once a month, but all the time that you are dealing with this.
Well as said, just apply it to across the board and no one can argue with you. And don’t push enforcement onto your guy. That’s just giving up power every time you do it.
When with you, it’s your rules.
Of course, tell him you’re going to start doing that, and nag until he okays it before you start.
No, as you point out later in the OP you’re technically “daddy’s girlfriend” not her stepmother, and you probably shouldn’t expect that to change unless you get married.
Why are you stuck with her all weekend? If you’re boyfriend doesn’t want to watch his kid, they’ve made it clear that you’re just “daddy’s girlfriend”, then it shouldn’t be up to you to watch him. Tell him that you’re happy to spend time with his daughter but he’s going to have to be around for that to happen.
If you start bugging him to discipline her, eventually he’s going to resent it.
Once she picks up on the fact that he’s disciplining her because you said something she’ll resent you. Add to the mix that she’ll probably tell her mother that your telling her what to do or disciplining her and by the sound of it all hell will break lose.
I’ve been in an almost identical situation as this and believe me, think seriously about making any sort of commitment with this guy unless you’re 100% happy with the way things are going now, because they won’t change.
I agree with others here that this girl’s problem isn’t really discipline.
I mean…if you has a psycho hosebeast mom and every time you got to visit your loveable dad he pawned you off on his girlfriend, wouldn’t that drive you insane? No matter how awesome the girlfriend was I would feel totally rejected by my dad.
And she’s got six grandparents that love her and buy her stuff. Does she have 6 grandparents to take her out to do fun things? Six grandparents to hug her and read to her and visit with her? Or just six grandparents who fill her emotional void with material things?
I’ve read about dads on this board and elsewhere who are admirable “weekend daddies” - they bust their asses to be able to spend time with their kids whenever they have the chance. These dads also have to deal with their own mature needs - juggling their love lives while still being there for their kids.
Since your boyfriend doesn’t have to juggle his lovelife and his daddy life (he’s got a girlfriend AND a nannny!) he’s really getting off easy isn’t he? You and his daughter are the ones suffering.
Ask him how things would be working out for him if you weren’t in his life. Don’t present it as an ultimatium, but see what he says. If he says “I’d get a babysitter on the weekends” ask if/how he could afford it if you weren’t living with him. If he says he’d rearrange his schedule to be with her, ask him why he can’t do that now. Get him to see how his actions are affecting both you and his daughter.
He’s really taking advantage of you and neglecting his daughter, so it’s obvious why you and she are completely tense about it. Your relationship with her won’t get better until she feels better. And she won’t feel better until her dad grows up.
Just since everyone else is saying to run, and I really don’t think that’s necessary, I just want to reitterate this. If you can get him to approve your establishing your house rules for when she is with you, then you’re good to go. And for that, just keep nagging, nagging, nagging. And good sex. Good sex and nagging.
Evil, manipulative, true. But do it well and he won’t mind a bit.
I would agree. And also, start planning and doing things on the weekends that he has his daughter. If he doesn’t have you to foist her off on, then maybe he’ll have to stop avoiding her and be forced to confront the issue. That’s really what’s needed, here. Make no mistake, you are in the middle of a power struggle with this girl. Don’t give ground, you have a right to be respected in your own home. Taking yourself out of the middle takes away her target (it’s her fault my daddy is acting this way!) and his (I don’t need to deal with this, lezlers is overreacting, it’s not really that bad).
Go on weekend trips with a friend, leave before he gets up and stay gone half the day, work, whatever.
Oh, he says I can discipline her any way I want. Problem is, he doesn’t back me up so the discipline is pointless.
We just had a knock down, drag out over it. He actually said about the party thing (when he gave me the wrong directions and I brought her home and made him take her) that because I didn’t call the party, get the right directions and take her and instead, brought her home so he had to take her, I was inconviencing him. Yeah, you read me right.
Didn’t help that during the fight the ex called to yell at him because apparently the child told her on the phone today (I didn’t realize she spoke with her) that he made her apologize to me last weekend and now she was upset (don’t ask). She was yelling “she doesn’t have to apologize to ANYONE!” So that was just what he needed to get away with another “You see what I deal with?? What’s the point of discipline??”
So he again painted me as the bad guy, with all the “if you don’t want to help out just say so!” and “what’s the big deal, you’re just studying anyway, put in a movie or something!” and “you knew I had a child when we got together and when we moved in together…” stuff.
So we were yelling and screaming and she was upstairs and heard everything and it was just a big old mess. I talked to her though and told her everyone fights and she asked what we were fighting about and I told her I wanted daddy home more to spend more time with us and blah blah. It was weird, she almost seemed happy that we were fighting. My SO and his ex used to fight like cats and dogs almost daily so I guess she’s used to it. At least we’ll make her mother’s day (she’ll be THRILLED to know we were fighting).
I agree with you Zipper, it’s got to be rough for her. Her grandparents do spend a lot of time with her, when daddy isn’t pawning her off on me, he’s pawning her off on his folks and his ex’s folks take her on vacations all the time and spend tons of time with her. The girl is not wanting for love, that’s for sure.
He’ll pawn her off on his folks. They were out of town this weekend which made it harder. They live about 10 minutes away and his standby defense is usually “just call my mom! You can always drop her off there!”
Of course she was happy. She sees this as a win. Even if he does foist her off on his parents, you taking yourself out of the equation still sends the message that you’re not going to enable his bs anymore. Have you talked with his parents about this? These are your prospective inlaws. I’m sure princess is painting mean ol’ lezlers in a not very nice light to them. Take your future mom in law to lunch, feel her out about it. Tell her you don’t want to come between him and his daughter, but you feel like maybe he’s using you (both) to avoid dealing with his daughter. Which he obviously is.
Well…she’s wanting for her father’s love. She thinks. He loves her, he’s just clueless about how to deal with her. And when she has real trouble in about 6 years, he’s going to wonder why she’s having so much trouble. He isn’t doing either of them any good.
lezlers, is this really the man you want raising your children? If he acts this way with the daughter he already has, why would he behave any differently with your kids? If you marry this guy, you can’t claim you didn’t know what you were in for.
I don’t have any specific advice, but I hope you resolve this problem before you plan the wedding. Otherwise it will just get worse because once you’re married you’ll lose the little leverage you currently have.
Personally, I agree with some of the posters above that this is a disaster in the making and if it were me I would bail. The man may be a great boyfriend/husband but he doesn’t seem to be a good parent.
Hence getting explicit approval. Don’t argue. If you have to leave a letter then do that, but getting him to listen to you for a moment and not letting him respond is better.
"I do love you, and I do love her. She is your daughter and I accept that, but all three of us have to live here, and more importantly, she’s running around like a little brat.
"I want to be able to be a mother to her, and to make sure that she can grow up into a decent adult who isn’t going to find herself in a predicament one day because she’s never learned that she can’t go out or do whatever she wants, because Mom said. And I don’t want her to be running out getting drunk and partying with any guy that will scare us because she wants to bribe us into continuing giving her gifts even though she’s still being a demon.
"And I need to be able to be comfortable living in my own home with her. Right now I can’t go anywhere with you because I am afraid what she’ll do or say to someone. Sure it’s just her being cute to you, but to everyone around us she’s being a awful brat. And since I’m not her divorced dad with his sole offspring, I have to sit there watching as people stare at us and knowing what they’re thinking. I’m perfectly fine to take a poll of everyone we meet if you don’t believe that, but everyone who meets her thinks that your daughter is a brat.
"And as an adult I need to feel comfortable that I’m doing my best by your daughter. Losing my self respect so that I can stay with you and love you just isn’t something I want to have to do. I don’t want to have to ignore my feelings of what is right or wrong when it comes to her. I need to feel like I’m doing my part to be an adult in the world, teaching responsibility to her.
"So I’m not really saying this to ask, though I won’t do anything. I’ll entirely ignore her when she is here, until you give me permission, but as soon as you do that I am going to establish house rules for when she is with me. If I’m not there that’s up to you, but when I am there she must abide by my rules. And if you approve, you’re going to have to let me enforce those. I won’t hit her or abuse her, and I won’t do anything that upsets you, but I am not going to let her get away with continuing to walk over everyone we meet, including me or you.
“So I love you. I love her. And I hope that you will let me be part of your family. But otherwise we’ve got a problem, and you’re going to have to decide what you want to do about that.”
I’d like to know just what you are getting out of this relationship with Mr. Dream Boat. The opportunity to be the understanding good sport? The person who smooths life over for a bid lovable kid? What?
It’s going to be a shame for the daughter if you depart - but for your own sanity I urge you to take a good long look at all the red lights, flashing clanging, bells, and every other one of the dozens of warning signs that appear to be accompanying this relationship. Right now you’re not legally attached and their are no children of your own in the picture.