to not want DP's daughter to live with us while her mum moves abroad?

[feelinghorrid]

DP has a daughter from a previous relationship. She's a lovely girl. I don't know her that well (only moved in with DP a few months ago), but she's very sweet and there's no jealousy at all - she's 8. She stays with us every other weekend.

Her mum has since married and had a baby daughter who DP's daughter dotes on. I've only met her mum once and never met the stepdad or the new baby but I hear about them a lot.

Her stepdad works for a big company and a couple of months ago he was offered a job in the Dubai office. He and DP's daughter's mum want to take the job and live in Dubai with DP's daughter and their baby for three years.

DP is fighting this right now and he is hopeful he will be able to stop them relocating. He doesn't want to take the risk they don't return and isn't happy with his daughter being so far away. He also thinks the contact offered wouldn't be enough and lots of other reasons. It's a big fight. He's really stressed and angry about it.

He has told his daughter's mum that she should consider going and leaving his DD here with us. I am really unhappy about that! DP and I have only been together for 6 months and I am 25, I really like his daughter but having her here fulltime would mean I'd end up doing far far more parenting than I feel ready for. Also DP and I both work fulltime. We have activities most evening (we share an interest), and would need to either give them up or hire a babysitter - either way we'd need to be home earlier and it would basically be a massive limitation on our lives together.

I feel quite horrible for feeling this way and don't feel like I can tell DP as he would be horrified I'm not jumping at the chance to have his DD with us. But I think he is quite blinkered about it - we'd need to sort out schools and I think it would be traumatic for her to be seperated from her mum and stepdad and half-sister. But DP says she'd be far worse affected by being in Dubai for 3 years (plus he doesn't know for sure they will come back).

I don't know what to do - should I just support him in this even though I have my misgivings? Or I could tell him how I feel but I'm worried that would make him angry or depressed.

I don't see any step-parent bashing here, tbh. I'm not a 'hun' and your posts with quotes is mis-leading because there is no real qoute facility here beyond use of actual quotation marks.

If a person isn't willing to step-parent, he/she should not go out with people who have children. There is nothing bigoted or offensive about that.

I have been in this situation when I was 6. My mum emigrated. Left me with dad and step-mum.

When you move in with someone that has kids you should from day one realise they are responsible for that child. They will need them in several occasions through life. Child comes first, you come after. Not happy? Leave him. But don't ever get in the way of paternal bond.

What if the mum died?

Why would a 25 year old pick a man with a child though? Surely you just want someone about your age with no ties.

Anyway now you've moved in very quickly with this chap without a ring on your finger which might be a bit risky anyway you need to decide what is best to do.

What about this plan? You and your boyfriend get jobs in Dubai. Irt would be a wonderful erxperience for the whole family and at 25 you'd have fun. You can get very cheap servants out there to help with the childcare. You have to think laterally in these situations sometimes.

SansaLannister Hahaha, not bigoted at all...

I wouldn't go out with a man with children because like the OP, of course I would feel frustrated to be confronted by the possibility of having my whole life disrupted by a child who was introduced to me as an fortnightly visitor not a full time responsibility.

In my limited experience of these matters I think it's fairly unlikely that you'll end up in that situation. The Courts won't be too keen to hand over custody to your DP and if it came to it I highly doubt that the girl's mother will jet off to Dubai if it means leaving one of her children behind.

It is very very verry rare for the court to refuse to let the mother move abroad with the child. He is likely to lose any such application. Mothers move children to NZ even all the time and virtually always the courts agree. More interesting plan is you b oth move out there or buy a small flat o ut there and spend quite a bit of time out there. Could be fun.

I believe, from my girlfriend who moved to Dubai last year, that she couldn't get visas for her children until her ex had given a letter allowing them to move out.

In order to emigrate with a child where only one parent is emigrating you have to prove that child related issues have been resolved with the non emigrating parent. Mostly that means a letter (legally signed and sealed, not just a note IYSWIM). If the other parent objects then you would need to go to court to get a decision. It's not particularly unusual, and I wouldn't have thought that a father who had such little contact with his child and where the child is part of an established family would have much chance to stop what is only a temporary move and where the mother has suggested reasonable adjustments to contact. It would seem very unlikely that a judge would decide that the best interests of the child would be served by totally uprooting them from their full time family, especially if that move was from a set up with a parent and sibling at home to a father that doesn't appear to be around very much at all (home from work at 7pm, out most nights, busy most weekeneds).

I suspect that the father is just trying to stop them leaving the country and has no intention or expectation that he will become more involved, especially if his idea of shared residency is limited to an extra day a week. It doesn't sounds as if he is a particularly involved father , but who knows he might have been fighting for more for years, the mum might not be great, the step-dad unreasonable in thinking about working abroad (many people do this because they think it offers better life chances to their families, some do it for the expat lifestyle, some because their careers require it).

My dh wanted to move with our children abroad some years ago when we were separated. We had 50:50 shared residency at the time and my solicitor said that it would be difficult for him to do so if I was in opposition, but not impossible, and that arrangements like them having all their holidays in the UK might be considered sufficient for contact.