Sorry in advance for the long post but I need to vent.
I need some help with this as I’m at my wits end and its starting to affect our relationship. My boyfriend has what I’d call ‘guilty dad syndrome’ with regards to his 14 year old daughter and its causing me a lot of stress. I can understand the reasoning behind it as he’s scared that if he disciplines her or tells her something that she won’t like then she may not come back (which is valid as it has happened before on 3 occasions for varying lengths of time since we’ve been together – (within 3 and a half years).
It didn’t seem to grate on me so much in the past I’d just let it wash over me but since having our own baby the resentment is building up. In the past, even way before I came on the scene, contact was always EOW, with alternate Mondays, and every Tuesday and Thursday evening. Since the baby has been born though it changed from that to every sat to Tuesday morning as my step daughter wanted to stay more. The ball has been firmly left in her court. I actually thought at the time this was an excellent idea as I didn’t want her to feel pushed out. I offered to give her the bigger room out of the two children’s rooms too for the same reason but now I’m wondering if that was a mistake as she leaves all her belongings in her mums (apart from the bits of clothing, toiletries, etc I’ve bought her for our house), which means that our daughter who lives here full time has got the tiny room trying to fit all her belongings in.
Whenever she is here, he treats her like a princess who doesn’t have to do anything or think for herself. I keep getting told how controlling her mother is who won’t let her do anything without her say so. This may be a contributing factor but I think my boyfriend should still enforce some rules for this house regardless of what her mum does. Fortunately, he has told her to clean her room when she’s leaving for her mums, which means that at least that is left in a clean state which I’m told is quite good for a teenager. However, that still consists of just straightening her bed covers, turning the switches off and bringing whatever glasses she’s used downstairs, which takes all of 5 minutes. The problem is that this still leaves the bigger chores to deal with such as hoovering the floor, dusting round, changing the bed covers, washing the clothes, etc. She doesn’t even empty her bin, which when I last looked was overflowing. And guess who does all this stuff – ME!. If I didn’t it just wouldn’t get done.
This is all fine at the minute me doing it while I’m still on maternity but what’s going to happen once I’m back in work when there is no time? To be fair, he does hoover up too but I do end up doing the main share of the chores and organise all of the outings that we go on.
When I’ve brought it up to my boyfriend he’s said that we can’t get her to do too much because she’d be like a slave then and what she does was good enough for him. Am I wrong for thinking that as she is here for the same length of time as in her mums then she could at least do the chores related to her own bedroom? It’s not as though I’m saying I want her to change our bed covers or something. When I was growing up it was my responsibility to clean up my own room. What chores do you think are reasonable to expect?
The only time we had a big argument over it he turned it around to me and brought my mum into it saying that I don’t expect the same from my mum what I expect from his daughter. Such as putting her dishes straight in the dishwasher, etc. The way I see it though is that my mum is here as a guest helping us out with the baby, while my step daughter is living here part of the week so needs rules to develop into a decent independent human being. Am I wrong here?
It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just the chores but there are a multitude of things which are just off. For instance, she always goes and sits in the front of the car as she doesn’t want to have to deal with the baby crying if her dummy comes out. She constantly pulls him up on things all the time too like if we mentioned that he ate a whole ice cream thing while she wasn’t here she’d say how she’s not allowed to do that. If we are sitting on the table outside she will sit with her feet up on one of the chairs so someone doesn’t have a seat. When we go out for the day, we will all be carrying stuff like we are hiking to a festival, while my boyfriend allows her just to follow behind with just her phone in her hand. She has to be constantly reminded to being things from her mums – tablets, books for school, homework, etc. There’s been too many occasions where she has come to ours and my boyfriend has had to drive back to hers to get something she’s forgotten. He does tell her he’s not doing it again but then he does.
The other day I made a roast dinner which took me three hours, for my grandad’s birthday, she was allowed to sit there playing on her phone at the table the whole time (whoch grated on me because she then pulled her dad up about doing the same thing when me and him were eating at the table), her dad let her eat a full bowl of rusks 2 hours before dinner was served which then obviously meant that when it was time to eat she looked at the plate and told her dad she was only eating the roasties. To me that’s disrespectful! She then went on to have ice cream and sweets straight after it though!
I’ve never known a child so tired and sleeping all the time either. Every time she comes down from her room she’s moping about the place like she’s been out on the tiles for days on end. I have wondered whether there’s some depression or something there but my boyfriend just strugs it off as ‘oh its just a teenager thing it’s what they are all like’. The problem is she has no friends either. She comes every weekend and she never visits friends. Anything she wants to do like see a film it always seems to be her dad’s responsibility to do that with her. I’m all for them spending time together (I don’t know how many times I’ve suggested it) but to me this seems very unhealthy.
I just feel like the weekends when we should be relaxing I’m running round like a stress head and I’m looking after 3 baby’s in the house. I’m starting to worry that the baby is growing up in an environment which is strained because it’s all geared towards making sure that my step daughter is catered for and I’m panicking that she’s missing out. If I suggest going swimming for example, we can’t go unless my step daughter comes. If I suggest going on my own (so I can relax) with the baby but he is off work he says he doesn’t mind but his body language tells me differently. We are talking about going to Disney in a few years and he’s even talking about that being for my step daughter even tho she’ll be 18 then.
I just don’t know what to do. I’m trying not to be resentful but it’s hard work. Recently, I’ve started going out on my own some weekends but then it just comes back once I’m back in the house. I’m starting to lose respect for him and sex doesn’t even enter my head anymore. He did start helping me with stuff last time we had an argument but its back to me doing everything. I have read advice about just letting them get on with it but it’s hard to do that with a baby growing up in it.
Any advice I’d appreciate. Please help!
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guilty dad syndrome issues!
18 replies
timelord92 · 09/05/2018 11:22
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