To feel a bit off about what my dp said?

[Ricecrispies16]

There is some back story to this but far too much to list but...

Bit of background info - been with my partner for two years, we have an 8 month old baby together and then my 3yo from my previous relationship. His relationship with my daughter has been a bit rocky but just lately he's been putting in a bit more effort and it immediately shows. My daughter seems to like him a lot more and is enjoying his company a lot more.

The other day they were playing, my dd was rubbing his face in a playful way, got a bit heavy handed and just as I was reminding her to play gently he batted her arm away.l quite forcefully. Immediately I told him to be careful and to be more gentle. He went off on one saying that I expect him to allow her to smack him in the face. That's not true at all, which is why I reminded her to be gentle straight away.

This morning baby was playing with baby wipes (as they do!) my 3yo is learning about sharing with her sister at the moment but this morning decided baby shouldn't have the wipes and kept taking them away. This resulted in dp snatching them off her and giving them back to the baby. I told him not to snatch and to explain why he'd taken them off her. This left my dd in a bit of a grump and she went to the sofa. 5 minutes later I can hear them bickering (ridiculous, I know) so I came into the lounge and said what now?! He told me my dd had been telling him to leave the baby alone and to go away. He then said "I'm not Going to have anyone tell me to stop playing with my own daughter"

That one comment has stayed with me all day and I can't seem to shake it.

I did say at the time that dd isn't just any old someone, she's effectively his step child in the family unit. I don't expect him to call her his own but I really feel that that comment really draws a line between both of the children.

Plus she's three!!!

He then said he's sick of this shit. Shit meaning me having a word about things and disagreeing with his treatment of my dd. He says it's everyday but as her mum I'm never going to sit back and do nothing if I'm not happy with something I've seen or heard.

Aibu to think something is a bit off?

I have recognised something is wrong and that something needs to be done. The reason I posted here is to get opinions and be sure that I'm not over reacting due to the fact he will definitely tell me I'm wrong when I bring it up.

With all due respect OP, you aren't prioritising her. You've continued through this situation (despite numerous bad breakups) for 2 years. Please make that change now - posting here proves nothing. Actually doing something about it does.

2014 I was with my ex for 4 years before we had a baby so no it's not a repetitive cycle

Have you tried your health visitor for a parent course, or women's aid freedom programme for your relationship issues?

It is a repetitive cycle of having a baby, finding he's a crap dad and then breaking up. Repeating the same mistakes is a cycle. You are still with current boyfriend but you say yourself you've had a few bad break ups with him.

The fact that you can't see that your dds needs are coming last is a major issue. You are minimising the impact on her of your relationship choices.

Rice love, something doesn't add up. You're saying that you both made each other very happy, but earlier you said that you'd had a number of bad breakups in the relationship?

I realise that it is only natural that you want to defend your DP. You've had an onslaught of criticism - including from me - and it's a pretty normal reaction to become defensive. What you need to understand though, is that most people (including me) aren't being critical just to stick the boot in - they're doing it to try and get you to wake up and appreciate that this is a serious situation and how vitally important it is that you put your DD's needs first.

I suspect your DP was only a breath of fresh air and making you happy when things were easy. Just because he is less of a bastard than your Ex doesn't make him man of the year - it just means that he's less of a bastard.

I realise that you don't want to cause upheaval for either child. But you are prioritising your younger DD over the elder - because the eldest is suffering in this situation. The 'upheaval' for her, would be actually be living in a settled home without a man who thinks she's a second-class citizen. So the 'detriment' in your mind, would be that your youngest grows up with separated parents - but if that's necessary to ensure the well-being of BOTH children, then why is that a bad thing?

Your 3 y/o is not going to become less of a person as she grows. Are you hoping that your DP will magically become a better parent - unlikely given that you've asked him to stop up before and he blames it all on your child and "the way that she is". Or are you hoping that your child will mould her personality so that she fades into the background meaning that she no longer irritates your DP? You seem determined to prioritise your DP and his presence in your home, above what is best for BOTH children.

How can you allow your little DD to grow up with someone that obviously and overtly resents her? I'm sorry, but the minute anyone batted her away or made it very clear that one child matters more than the other, they'd be out on their arse. Christ on a bike, please listen to what everyone is saying and put your DD higher on your list of priorities than your twerp of a boyfriend.

I'm repeating myself here, but you are wrong when you effectively tell your dp off in front of your dd. The situations you've described - "snatching", batting away the hand of a child who's hitting him in the face - really don't sound that dreadful to me. Your handling of them, and indeed his, hasn't been great though.

Having said that, if all was otherwise hunky-dory I wonder if you'd be so ready to admonish him like that. If you loved and respected him (and if he deserved that love and respect) you might be treating him more like an adult, and the two of you would be discussing these things like adults.

The bad break ups were during pregnancy.

I'm not trying to be defensive it's just hard to hear that people don't think you're putting your child first when she is everything to me. I really want to do what's best for her, for both of them.

Women's aid wouldn't help me would they? I don't think I'm in an abusive relationship

If she is everything to you, then why are you still with him?

He criticises her and thinks that it is her fault that he finds it difficult.
You worry about leaving him alone with her because of how he parents her.
He won't change or seriously commit to trying to improve, despite you asking.

So why is he still living with you? You mentioned that he makes you think that you are wrong, that you feel like the worst person in the world. Are you scared of him? Is there a reason you feel that you keep trying to put your DD first but being shouted down and persuaded otherwise?

If you knew 100% that he was not going to change but that you could end the relationship with no drama and he would just move out, then what would you do? There's your answer.

STBXH was awful to my DCs - once. Just the once. Long story short he stole their holiday money whilst I was in NICU with our newborn. There were other issues in the relationship (alcoholic gambler - all hidden from me, he was also a controlling emotionally abusive gaslighting bully and I couldn't see the wood for the trees until our DS was born) but that was the final straw. I had a 7 day old baby at the time. I packed his bags for him and I haven't looked back. He hasn't been in contact with me since, and that was last April.

Leave him. Now. You must not allow anyone to treat your DD like this. What sort of example is she being shows for her own future relationships? And your baby too. No way was I having DS grow up thinking that was a normal thing.

I agree with computerusernottrained. It was inevitable the family was going to struggle with a new partner, baby and such a young child. Your partner barely knows you or your child to be honest, and now has his own baby, and it's obviously completely different to what you all expected. I don't think the relationship is dead but it's going to be hard and take both of you compramising to accept it

Hard situation sounds like you saw it coming though when you got your house.
What I would do is tell him living together is not working out for you or your daughter. Get him out and spend some time living apart to protect your dds self esteem.
He can come to you & see the baby (maybe while dd at dads?) that way you can control what he's doing with her & you might start to get on better too. Personally I wouldn't ever let him move back in! But given youre worried about how he'll treat you if you get rid then softly softly might be better until things are calmer.

Making sure it was your name alone on the tenancy was a very smart move (voice of bitter experience here) - especially if this is a HA house. I would think that even if you hadn't seen this coming - with such a new relationship and with so much at stake, he could have been absolutely perfect and it still would have been sensible. You clearly have your head screwed on OP.

I suggested op was scared of her dp earlier on and she says she is not.
I think the situation is a recipe for disaster to be honest.

If the dp couldn't bond with the little girl before his own dd came along then I can't see it happening now.

I'm confused though over her dad as op said to some effect that the reason they broke up is because he wasn't a good dad but now is? and then she's got a baby with current dp.
To me that sounds like she left former dp and got with current dp pretty quickly

OP could your older DD go to live with her father?

Would be a better place for her than this toxic environment.

Thing is when he makes the effort she responds so well and is all about him, wanting to play more, wanting to spend more time with him. I start thinking things are improving this is great etc then he'll say something or do something similar to this morning. I'll then spend days thinking about it all and planning what to do, then we speak about it and he gets himself out of it (or explains things and I then back down a bit). My immediate instinct is always that I disagree with what's been said or done and go straight to thinking he's got to go. But then we talk and either I've jumped he gunna bit and agreed with him or he's brainwashing me.

I really feel like I'm in a hazed bubble ATM

Ok, how does it make you feel when someone makes a serious (and justified) suggestion that your 1st child might be better to live full time with the other parent ?

Does that get any closer to knocking you out of your denial that you are doing your best by your kids ?

Look, children will always respond to a crumb of kindness. Many abused children love their abusers and will seek constant approval from them. Appeasement is not borne out of love, it is borne out of insecurity

As they develop they take those lessons forward and become much more likely to be targeted by abusers in the future.

I think you are missing the point. The point is not that sometimes it's ok and she responds to that, it's that there are lots of times where it isn't, and she doesn't like or trust him, and neither do you. Wake up!

Oh dear OP. This reminds me of another recent thread where the OP was in a relationship with a different manchild who felt completely threatened by his step-child and played up accordingly. The advice eon that thread was LTB, and I think (hope) she did.

His behaviour towards this small child is a red flag for abuse. She is a small, innocent child (who, granted, is at that really annoying stage of development where she can hit hard and ignore instructions- but she looks to you, her parents, for guidance.) You are right that you cannot expect him to pretend that she is 'his', at least not biologically, but he has a responsibility towards her and towards your entire family unit to behave in a parently fashion towards her, to show her affection, and not to make her sop acutely aware that there is a two-tier daughterhood in your family, of which she occupies the lower tier.

You know this already, or else you wouldn't be asking, but you are not doing the right thing by either child in exposing them to this environment- frequent breakups, stroppy behaviour from an immature father. Just rip off the plaster and get rid of this chump.

I agree - dd1 responding positively to a little attention is no indicator of his fitness to be a step-parent to her, although I maintain that his actions (from what I've read here) aren't as terrible as people are making out. They might be of course, I just think it's not possible to tell from this thread.

Having said that, two years into a relationship - even given the circumstances - things should not be difficult. Voice of bitter experience again. And also voice of incredibly positive experience now that I'm in a very different relationship with a very different person - which makes me look back on the years I spent with my ex and wonder WTAF I was thinking!

Rice...you have concerns...that is clear, but i think all you're getting here is people winding you up and using emotive terms like "maelstrom of violence" and "abuse" and "manchild" to pursue a frankly strange agenda of getting you to "kick out" the father of your second child....based on very little actual evidence and a lot of twisting and dramatising of words you have used.

The english language is full of words that allow us to express degrees of things and really, "batting away" in relation to a small child causing you pain cannot be equated to abusive hitting or worse. hysterical over-inflating of this is going to cause you more confusion than ever.

Likewise it seems so many assumptions have been made from the little you have said about your DP as a father and indeed a person...i refer to my previous post where it really seems like you are not actually giving him a chance to develop a proper paternal bond because you are jumping in and telling him off and managing the relationship in your way and not letting him learn to do it his way....and then you wonder why he might struggle with it...he will never lean if you are always hovering ready to jump in at the first moment he tries to correct her behaviour...the more you prevent this and indeed actively demonstrate to your daughter that you are correcting DP's behaviour, then she will see that and not treat him as a parent and it then becomes a cycle...

justmature I'm going on the basis that the OP says he's unpleasant enough to her DD often enough for her not to trust him alone with her. He doesn't need to be beating her with a slipper for her to deserve better.