DH has little to no relationship with DD

Maybe he just doesn't like younger kids and will bond with her more when she is school age. So whilst it may not be a fair division of labour, I don't think it means he doesn't love her

I would prefer to palm of toddler care on someone else although I didn't have the option to not do my half with toddlers as DH and I both work equally outside the home.

I can’t imagine many working parents want to do the dinner, bath and bed routine when they get in. I know I sure don’t but I get on with it anyway because that’s just what parents do.

Standard failure when one needs to 'seal the deal', so to say. Fails every time, without failure.

But he has been a parent since he was 20 and will still be parenting when he's retired. It's very different if you have all your children late, but actively parenting your entire adult working life is a different matter. I also had my kids young and am now mid-40s, I would absolutely hate to start over again.

A few thoughts.

I think culturally he may struggle a bit with the early meal times as I think many French / Italian children are up later. I can imagine he doesn't want to do bath and bed as soon as he's walked in the door. Perhaps as she gets older he can spend more time in the evening together with his DD.

He sounds great with your older DC, who aren't even his children, so it's very possible that he will improve the older she gets. My Dad was very hands off when I was 3. My mum said she nearly next him. 60 years of marriage now, and they have a close marriage in quite jealous of, plus I'm close to my Dad. He got better as I grew up. Perhaps his ex wife was just like you in terms of doing the parenting, and it's only when his kids got older that the relationship developed more.

I think you have a great lifestyle so I'm not surprised you don't want that to end. But you do need to let some things slide as a result. You can't have it all!! I would talk to your DH about his relationship with his DD and suggest a few 'easy wins' for him eg. Taking her swimming, bedtime at weekends. Private school, I wouldn't keep going on about it. She's 3! And it sounds a bit grabby. Maybe if she goes to school and there's issues later on, things not going well in state education, he'll change his mind.

💯

He had this DD at 49. Christ, Dsister just had a baby at 46.

Get a grip with the "old man" crap.

He is only 52 now!

OP he sounds shit. You will divorce when you are ready. In a few years. I hope you got married in the UK.

I had very, very similar situaton with a Spanish pillock.

This.
FFS. all those posters excusing this piss poor behaviour.

this man does NOTHING with his child. He is not interested whatsoever in her. He is actively choosing not to have a relationship with her. This isn’t going to miraculously change when she’s ten and the damage to her self esteem living with a parent who doesn’t give a shit will be massive.

This

If he doesn’t even spend time with his small child on weekends and therefore hardly sees her then he’s a shit dad and OP has bigger problems than her dd learning French.

It is clear from the OP that this man was done having children when you got together and this dd was the idea of the OP to seal the relationship so to say, and the husband just went along, but like when you buy a pet for your children and say 'right, I am going to buy it, but I want nothing to do with it - you walk it, you look after it, nothing to do with me'. So this dd is her mum's project and is being treated as such by the husband, that is clear.

You can make somebody to have a child by all sorts of ways, but you can't make them love this child to the same degree they loved the children they really wanted.

It is also clear he does not want to part with money when it comes to your dd - and this is a bad sign. He also does not want to speak his language to her, and this is a truly awful sign, considering he did it to his own children.

What benefit do you get from him, showing you so little respect and openly, unashamedly discriminating your dd compared to his children? Financial benefit? You are not getting it. I don't understand why you are in this relationship, why you are torturing yourself.

The point is there a conversation to be had on private school (e.g. wait for secondary rather than primary, discuss impact on household etc), but he’s not interested because he has little interest in his dd.

I come from a multilingual household, you don’t need a parent to teach you the language, speaking to you in the language every day in their mother tongue is enough.

When I first started reading your post I thought he was here from the 1950's!

I think he should make more effort with bath and bedtime, ask him to come home early one day a week and spend time with her....he gets to go out one night, so you get him home early one night.

I will say though at 48 I had tons of energy, I was working shifts after my day job in something very demanding, I was fit and energetic and enthusiastic. Sprinting after DGC. By 52 I didn't know what had hit me, I had stiff hips, no energy and it's an effort to drag myself out anywhere in the evening. Let alone deal with the energy a small child has and the constant mental attention they need.... So I have some sympathy in that respect because being over 50 was like a switch had flipped.

I leave for work at 5.15am and get home at 6.30pm.

as soon as I get home I take over childcare. I do Bath/pjs/teeth brushing/bed, as my partner has done the nursery run/tea etc. plus I actually want to spend time with my child after not seeing them all day.

to make up for the time I don’t get to see DC on weekday mornings/early evenings I also do all weekend get ups.

there is literally no excuse for your husbands behaviour.

She'll be starting school in a year or two. I think her other children will notice their little sister going off to private school while they attend the local comp/grammar.

How does speaking to her in French work in a house where none of the other children speak French? Does he say something to her in French then repeat himself in English for the other two? Anyway, speaking it a couple of times a day won't do anything. That's not how learning a language works. He would need to teach her or else it is just noise.

Sorry to pick up on this one point but why are you giving your child a bath every night? This is a complete waste and unnecessary.
Could you ask him to bring your daughter for a walk every night after dinner instead during this time?

The rest of it, maybe he is not aware how detached he is being with your daughter. Tell him and give him a chance to change. If he doesn’t then you know where you stand.

Good luck

If he hardly sees her he can't just talk French to her. She's 3, she wont understand. 10 minutes of French a day aren't going to make her bilingual.

By the time dd starts secondary school, her siblings will be 17/18 and likely won’t be bothered if she’s at private school.

He doesn’t need to teach her French, he could just speak to her in French, his mother tongue.

Sounds like resentment has kicked in. He was most likely very done with being a dad to young children and was looking forward to having some years without obligations of parenting and now he will be doing it from when he was 20 years old until he's retired. He might also resent OP because he is working long hours to pay for everyone and doing all the driving to activities for her kids on the weekends whilst she has 3 full days to herself when all the kids are in nursery/school.

The relationship is so unbalanced that it's bound to cause issues, especially since you are a blended family with a big age gaps for both the parents and the children.

I think you might do well going to couples counceliing because it doesn't sound like he's very forthcoming when it comes to talk about his feelings and would rather blame it on physical/practical issues when the real issue is most likely mental/emotional.

Erm, as a sexual health nurse, the answer is quite often and easily. No type of contraception is 100%….

So is the OP though. She wants one of her children to be privately educated and to be treated differently to her other children. She doesn't want to treat her youngest the same way as her other children.

There is nearly 20 years between when his first childred were born and this latest one so of course things are going to be different. He isn't the same person, isn't with the same woman, and isn't living the same life he had 20 years ago.The OP's other children are still young. She doesn't have the same experience as him of the different stages of raising children. He is in a better position to know what is worth spending money and time on and what isn't. Teaching them French for example. He only did that for his parents' sake. His parents are gone now. Do people really think he should come home after a long day at work and teach French to a toddler? The OP could do that. She has plenty of free time to learn a language and teach it to her child. But just the one child. That's the only one that matters for some reason.

Well at 56, so by the time he had a 4yo he was 60.

I suspect your husband didn't do much parenting with his own children. Usually in French/Italian families it would be the Mother who would take on parenting of the children, whilst the husband worked. I suspect he's doing with your daughter, what he did with his older children - left it all to their Mum. I doubt he played with his older children, and most likely worked, played golf etc whilst with his ex, leaving her to it. He's just carrying on doing what he wants because he doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't! May be it was the same set up, when he was a child, and to him it's normal! I do agree with your husband regarding your daughter's education though, by keeping her in State education, thus aligning her the same as your other 2 children. Forget about his older children, and their childhood - they don't live with you, they're adults and what your husband and his ex did for them is irrelevant to your family now. If your daughter suddenly went to a private school, had money thrown at her, how do you think your other 2 children would feel? Pushed out and resentful, because you and your ex wouldn't be able to afford to do the same. Your daughter will know no different, she's not going to resent something she has no idea about.