My exH met his current partner around a year after we split. After a string of girlfriends in fairly quick succession, who he thought could all potentially be “the one”, this relationship stuck.
She lived around an hour away from us. They moved in together in her home town quite quickly, were pregnant within a year and now have an 8-month-old baby who my DD absolutely loves.
His DP also has a 6-year-old son from a previous relationship. My DD is 9 and goes to her dad’s most weekends.
The problem is that DD and his DP’s son just do not get on. There is a lot of arguing and fighting and, from what I gather, it makes family time when DD is there an absolute nightmare. DD says she finds him annoying and has also expressed some jealousy that he gets to spend more time with her dad during the week than she does. Her dad now lives an hour away, so seeing DD during the week isn’t really practical.
DD is happy with the custody arrangements and wants to see her dad. She just doesn’t like his DP’s son.
It has now got to the point where, if DD and the 6-year-old are there at the same time, they sometimes do completely separate activities to keep them apart. They recently went on holiday together and apparently it was a nightmare because of the constant fighting and arguing.
Obviously I speak to DD about her behaviour. I tell her she needs to be kind, patient and to ignore him if she feels he is deliberately winding her up. I don’t tell her it is acceptable to argue or fight with him.
My ex now wants me to do more to resolve the situation and has suggested a meeting between him, his DP, my DP and me to discuss it.
The problem is, I genuinely don’t know what more I can do from my house.
DD also lives in a blended family here. My DP has two daughters, although they are young adults so obviously the dynamics are very different. DD adores them and gets on extremely well with my DP. We simply don’t have the behavioural issues here that her dad describes.
My ex and I don’t particularly get on and I have never met his DP. If I genuinely thought sitting down together would help DD, I would do it. I just can’t see what this meeting is actually going to achieve.
Last year, my ex tried to attribute DD’s behaviour at his house to her bedtime at mine. He was demanding that I put her to bed earlier because he believed tiredness was causing her to misbehave at his house. Yet I wasn’t experiencing the tantrums or behaviour he was describing here.
I was very much the default parent when we were together and he struggled with discipline and managing her behaviour then too.
I strongly suspect the actual problem is the family dynamic at his house. You have two fairly close-in-age children who don’t like each other, who didn’t choose to become a family, and who are now expected to spend most weekends together. Add in DD potentially feeling displaced because this child gets to live with her dad full-time, plus a new baby, and I can understand why there are difficulties.
But I don’t know what I can realistically do about that from my household.
So AIBU to decline the meeting and tell my ex that, while I will continue to talk to DD about her behaviour and expectations when she is there, the dynamics within his household are something he and his DP need to manage?