Dd (4) sees her dad roughly once every six weeks for a week or two weeks at a time depending on circumstances. Her dad lives with his girlfriend and her two children aged 7 and 2. Her nan (his mum) lives in the next town and we live about two hours away.
Last visit was two weeks and I had GF (with whom I get on well) call me up to say she was worried about dd. She said she'd been listless, difficult to please and craving time by herself. Was there anything bothering her that I knew about? At the time I couldn't think of anything other than it being the usual problem of dealing with two households with slightly different rules and having to adapt. We left it there.
Since Dd has been home it transpires she only saw her nan once and it was with everybody and she seems not to have spent much time with her dad at all, and certainly none with just him. All the things she chatted about usually started with GF took us here or GF did this with us.
I overheard her on the phone to her dad earlier and she was saying it's not fair that she never gets any time alone with him. His response was, well we're a family and we do things as a family.
I see his point, and it's good that he supports his GF like this. However, it does come across to me (bearing in mind I was married to him a long while and I know him very well) that he is delegating the care and entertainment of dd to GF. Which is what dd seems to have picked up on and I think she feels she is not a priority for him, resulting in her listlessness during the last visit.
Now, I am about to re-marry and my partner is fully supportive of me having one to one time with dd. We do lots as a family too, but every now and then he will take our son and me and DD will do something. She likes this. When my son is older I would do the same with him. My partner isn't hurt or excluded by this.
The trouble is, I think maybe GF might be hurt if I raise this.
I want to raise it because it seems to be affecting DD. But should I? Am I being unreasonable to expect dad to set aside maybe one afternoon out of the week's contact just for dd? Or should I keep out of it? I tend to think it's not much to ask, but it would be helpful to get some other views.