...to want to never, ever see my step-daughter again as long as I live?

looks like she might have toddled off to netmums - i dont think she will find them sympathetic to her either, good ridd\nce

i live with dp, my 2 kids and dp son stays here most of the time. before i moved in everyone had to be happy with living together. being a step mum is not always easy but neither is being a mum. there are good days and bad days.
if you are serious about gthis releationship then getting on with ur partners kids is a no brainer. if there are probs and they can't be worked out then u need to think about ur next move.

Do YOU want kids? If yes, find a man who wants kids too as you will regret choosing a man who won't have kids with you over having your own kids

He is not worth it if his reasoning is he already has kids and he shows he doesn't give a shit about your desire for kids

Gosh, having read some of your posts im tempted to ram the biscuit down your throat to be honest. Christ on a bike - this girl has had her family broken up, and you expect her to be full of the joys of spring, she may well see you as someone who has taken her daddy away(even if you weren't the reason children dont see past what is in their faces) and you expect her to be personable and cheerful. Dont tell me she doesn't know how you feel - trust me, she knows!! If i were you i would do the decent thing and leave this family alone

Iris you sound really cold and heartless. No wonder you do not get on with your partners dd as you have set out to dislike her from the word go. Actually, a lot of people do love and like their stepchildren and care for them immensley, I think that you are in the minority. Funnily enough your dp comes as a package and cannot get rid of his children at your conviencence. You have to also like his children too as they are a huge part of his life.

I suggest that if you cannot do this you need to walk away, and find a partner without kids or grown up kids.

Eat this and then go and show your DP the thread, then you wont have a problem because he will tell you to fuck right off and you wont have to look after his "awful" children anymore

' I would love to feel some affection for her. I just don't feel anything.'

In that case you leave the relationship, you are an adult and can cope but no DC should live in a home without love.
What greater gift can a parent give than a relationship with their DC? and yet you say that you don't want her!

Perhaps part of the reason you don't get on with her is your insistence of being referred to her as her stepmother.
Now it could be just that you don't actually do this in real life, but if you do, then if I were your boyfriend's daughter (sorry, but although you are free to call the man you are going out with what you wish, partner usually means living together in stable relationship in my view)I would be mightily cheesed off about this.
She is old enough to understand nuances of words and I feel stepmother is coming on to strong.
If only you'd just refer to yourself as her 'daddy's girlfriend' or simply by your Christian name maybe it would have helped.

If the op is going to repost a (hopefully) more measured version of this post it might also be useful to go to behaviour and development and ask about children displaying similar behaviours and how to help them.

That might be constructive

And may help the girl who doesn't sound terribly happy.

Bogeyface, your questions and insights are spot on.

Iris you have neatly skirted the question as to whether you played any part in the marriage breakup, did you?

The more I read, the more I wonder if this is really anything to do with the DD at all but that you know that when a man says "I would love children with you but....." he is actually saying "I would love children but not with you"

He has kept you dangling for 3 years with platitudes and excuses and instead of calling him on it and asking for a full time commitement or he can sling his hook, you project your dislike onto the daughter he is using as an excuse. All that blah blah about his first wife sounds EXACTLY what a man who is married and having an affair would say! And always there is a silly woman prepared to believe that the reason he isnt with her full time is because life/wife/kids make it "complicated".

Are you perhaps coming to the realisation the (to quote a movie title) "He just isnt that into you"? and are blaming the child because its easier to believe him and blame her than blame him and leave?

I don't think you're going to find any sympathetic responses on ANY forum.
And, please, for the last time: you are her father's girlfriend NOT stepmother.

I suggest he arranges to see his children without you.....if as it sounds his children are never likely to accept u as his new partner :) Hint cud have something to do with how he his making his childrens mother feel - why his children are behaving so horrid towards u. Hope u survive if thats what makes u happy being with a man that does not consider your needs and feelings..

Bogey - I know the assumptions were mainly correct in this case. I just think that sometimes, what happens on AIBU is that the OP gets flamed early on - gets all defensive, and then shuts out all the advice, when getting some more info from the OP early on might get better results.

math - good post

To be fair Jamie, the assumptions have turned out to be mainly correct!

I do feel uncomfortable reading threads where someone gets an unjustified flaming, but in this case I think the pasting she has had has been quite mild compared to some, and certainly justified!

'He says I'm his soulmate and wishes we'd had a family together. I say we still can but he says his daughter will be too upset. So at least he's putting her needs first.'

No, he's hiding behind her. He's not putting her needs first. The whole soulmate business is a sop to keep you happy. Same with the regret that you two don't have a family together, and the business about his feelings that his first partner wasn't right for him and a pity that he had children with the wrong woman. You want to wish this child away and he has got your measure by calling you his soulmate - magic appeals to you obviously.

He is hiding and throwing you cliches. He gets mad when you suggest keeping his children apart from you at weekends. You have already had one split up because of your issues with the children. You are driving him away. He will choose them one day, or you will 'win' him and he will abandon them.

I don't buy the sudden concern for any problems this child may have. The reference to the teacher's input came very late in the day imo.

'He wishes he hadn't had children with her, although of course doesn't regret having the kids.'
He is rejecting half of her DNA all the same, when he says this. The child of a father who regrets having anything to do with her mother will feel a lot of conflicting loyalties and will be acutely aware of the winds of rejection and negativity swirling around her. If you find some comfort in this sort of statement from him, you are revealing some jealousy of the child's mother. You cannot wish the mother away from the rosy picture either; despite the faults you enumerate, she is the mother of your DP's DD.

I suggested that you were jealous earlier, not of her mother, but of her, as a female with a rival claim on your DP's affections. You seem able to accept that his son has a claim on him and presumably he pays attention to his son while they're together. But woe betide the girl for having a claim on him.

Dump him and move on, he is not a lone person he comes with dcs, like them all or lump them.

their assumptions!

Not true mango. Just unfortunate this post was put on AIBU, and OP put so little info. to begin with, which some people then projected there own assumptions onto

My parents were divorced and both went on to remarry people with children.

My mum, although she doesn't love her stepchildren, has been a good stepmother as it's important to her husband who (she does love) that she is.

My dad, on the other hand, married a woman who would rub her hands together if had have been wiped off the face of the planet.

What's the result? Fast forward 15 years and my dad is and has been miserable since he married her. He has little family life as she won't allow it. His fault of course; he should have left the relationship at the point she showed signs of not letting him put his children first. Would you like to cause someone that much misery? My mum on the other hand has a fantastic life. Which do you want?

Oh and can I just add - I've been that 11-year-old-girl and it's an awful, awful, awful position to be in. My dad was effectively forced to choose his wife over his children...Don't be that woman.

Iris - If you really wish she didn't exist, then this relationship is untenable (it certainly should be, from the father's POV)

OTOH, if reading some of this has helped you understand why this little girl is as she is, and to judge her less, then maybe there's a future for it.

OP, I agree that it's a shame for your SD if you don't like her, though I do know that some kids are very difficult to like. I say that as a stepmother who loves her SD a lot, but it took a while.

However, some of you are laughable as you are just as bad, the level of spite and anger directed at a stranger on the internet is incredible.

diddl - But she has the one thing that it looks like you´ll never have-his children.
What a lovely person you sound, diddl! Your post oozes with spite and vitriol.

So many of you on mumsnet are just so sheltered and have so little experience of real life that you just sit at your PCs judging away, hurling spite at strangers - just not capable of understanding anything outside your limited range. Agree that OP is not coming across very well, but half of you are just as bad, so self righteous, that I've ended up feeling sorry for her.

Won't be back to read boring barrage of abuse that will likely follow...have better things to do! OP, go elsewhere, MN is the place to come for an argument, not understanding.