Weekends when you’re in a relationship with a man with a child… should I be less selfish?

I can’t believe he goes out most evenings. If you were in a proper relationship he would want to spend time with you. I can’t believe you babysit his child for him.

She has a 6 hour round trip to her friends or family.

OP moved so far away because of him.

I didn’t suggest it was.

Why are you being selfish and "family should be enough" but he's not when he's out most nights seeing friends or doing hobbies? Why aren't you enough for him?

He's the selfish one, @Chillonthesarnie , and he's trying to manipulate you so that you get to do most of the child care.

It worked for a while at weekends until you realised what he was doing!

Does he make and give his daughter dinner, bath her, and put her to bed every night before going out? Or is that your job?

If I were you i would be thinking hard about what is really important to you.
Consider moving back to your family and friends, and visiting him one day a week at the weekend. Or not - just have a clean break.

To help you decide, have a read through some of the others stepmums' threads on here, especially those about older children they've been living with for a while - most of it is not good.

I would say that, far from being unreasonable, it is essential for you to see your family and friends.

That is not the OP's problem to solve.

YABU to move in and organize fun family time. Sounds like the stereotypical nanny with a fanny situation. Getting out of there is the solution imho.

You’ve posted about this before, haven’t you?

OK, I'll concede that it might be too harsh given I don't know the ins and outs. But unless she's in a work situation that makes it impossible to have her DD more, or the low contact is due to health issues (possible, I realise), it's difficult to understand why a parent would have so little contact time with a small child. And tbh a lot of people on here are quick to holler deadbeat dad in situations where men have only 2 days with their DC.

@OneAquaFatballpost says it all and very logically and succinctly particularly the very first paragraph which can apply to all relationships all the time.

Do you want this to be the rest of your life? It wouldn't be for me. Move back to the people who actually care about and support you.

You should be MORE selfish, not less!

Nanny with a fanny. Chuck him back. There’s no shame in going back home. I’m sure he’ll be quick to try to recruit another one. Poor kid.

With respect, 98% of nearly 750 people’s opinions says you are not being unreasonable.

The majority of comments on here say your partner is being manipulative and is guilt tripping you in an effort to reduce his parenting responsibilities and shift them onto you. He’s resorted to emotional blackmail to undermine your confidence. It’s no wonder that your MH has taken a dip. In response, you are trying to remedy that and find support from friends and family.

Yet you respond to the one unhelpful and accusatory post on this thread. You haven’t gone to the other extreme, you’ve carved out one day for yourself. Your partner’s response is to tell you to ‘grow up’ yet he goes out most evenings for hobbies and seeing friends? So it’s okay for him to not think it’s enough to be just a family, but not okay for you?

It is extremely difficult for women to stop feeding like they have to justify their actions and emotions to others. And so difficult to break away from feeling your role is the support person. It does seem that you might benefit from working on your boundaries and self belief. If you’re the doctor who’s posted before, counselling could be useful. Accessed through the NHS employee assistance programme. On a night he tries to go out with friends.

Good luck

I don’t think your partner sounds very nice OP

It was ok for him to take advantage at the beginning and do his own thing, but now you are being told to grow up?

I don’t think he is worthy of you.

So he gets to see his friends and family but you’re not allowed to see yours? Yeah, that sounds great 🙄

She tried that and was more than willing but he started exploiting it and taking the piss. A reasonable man who cared as much for his child and partner as he does for himself would have recognised and appreciated that and not sought to take the piss. If he had been decent, everything would be golden for all of them. Given she can't go back in time and foresee his cuntery her obligation now is to herself.

She can't be blamed for, or expected to mitigate, the behaviour of the child's actual two living parents.

@Chillonthesarnie I usually leave home around 10am and get back at 8pm. This gives me enough time to have dinner/catch up and travel to and from.

What on earth are you doing during those 10 hours? Just to see friends and family?

It also seems to be a very high frequency for seeing friends and family, as it's every single weekend. Your husband is coming at this from a man's perspective, as men tend to lose all of their friends by their late 20s or early 30s, which is why he sees this as child-like.

If you take the child out of this and the expectation of free childcare, which is a problem in itself. You have a man who is trying to isolate you from your friends and family. He already has you 3 hours away from them and is now attempting to make you feel like you are immature and are in the wrong for wanting to maintain relationships with your family and friends. Trying to make you believe that he alone should be enough for you.
You need to leave. It will only get worse.

Who for whatever reason we do not know she only sees for two days a week.
So some issues there.
Poor child.

I wouldn’t even do that. I’d be organising weekend trips to see friends and family. Every other weekend when his daughter is there. You can still play house with her on the Thursday and Friday, leaving him to look after his own child at the weekend.

Actually, that’s not true, I’d leave any man who tried to dictate who I could and couldn’t see or questioned my reasons for doing so.

He's already shown you that (if he were honest with you and himself) he sees you, at least in part, as a childminder. Learn from that, please.

Run. Go back to your friends and family. He resents you not giving him free childcare so he can have the benefit of doing what you get to do. He needs to sort this out with the mother if he wants free time in the weekend.

Maybe reread the third paragraph of your opening post.

When you arranged things to do as a family, he opted out, arranged to see his mates and do his grown up hobbies and left you with his child.

When you leave him with his child, whom you have only known for a year (hopefully he didn't introduce you before the relationship was long term), he is outraged that you do anything outside childcare at weekends.

You are, to use an unpleasant but accurate phrase, a nanny with a fanny (the childcare equivalent of a nurse with a purse for an older man who, in his late 50s or 60s, love bombs and moves in a woman twenty years younger and then once she's moved away from her friends, cut most of her ties with her old life and fully committed, promptly retires and expects her to pay the lions share of the bills, do all the housework and cooking and be ready to take on any caring responsibilities as he ages).

The child has a mother.