to wish that my daughter could respect my partner more?

[meandthem76]

Hello all

I have been with my boyfriend for 3 years, and he has lived with us for the last 18 months. I know this may seem quick, but there were various mitigating circumstances which meant we had to move in together a little sooner than we may ideally have otherwise done.

I have two daughters, aged 10 and 15, and split from their father nearly 9 years ago, during which time I had one other significant relationship but he didn't ever move in with us, so this is the first time the kids have experienced a live-in stepdad figure.

My younger daughter is largely accepting of him and they have a pretty good relationship, but my older one is becoming increasingly rude and disrespectful towards him.

I had a stepdad when I was growing up, so don't feel that I'm naive about the difficulties this situation can throw up, and I also understand that it's a really tough age for her to form any kind of attachment with someone new.

I didn't imagine that they would hit it off straight away, but her hostility levels seem to be rising despite him taking a very hands-off, passive, approach towards her. He never attempts to discipline her or encroach on her life (other than living with us which I understand is a huge change for us all) but it's making us both really sad that any attempts he makes at friendliness or chat are immediately shut down or met with derision.

I have tried to talk to her about it a lot to understand her feelings, and all she can say is everything he does annoys her, and she feels uncomfortable around him, but can't articulate why, or what I/we or anyone else could do to help. She's not up for speaking to a counsellor or therapist at the moment.

I have explained that she doesn't have to be friendly if she can't manage that, but does need to show at least a basic level of respect and courtesy - she is otherwise a good-natured and likeable girl so this relationship is obviously bringing out anger or resentment which doesn't come up elsewhere in her life. One thing I know she needs is to spend more alone time with me, which we are doing as much as we can of.

My partner understands and tolerates her behaviour towards him as much as he can but is starting to feel really quite hurt and disempowered, and I feel very stuck in the middle trying (unsuccessfully) to make everyone happy.

Does anyone have any experience of this / words of wisdom they can impart? I would be very grateful if so.

Thanks in advance x

How long were you together before introducing him to your kids? She can't have known him very well at all when you moved him in. She probably doesn't know him very well now either but she has to live with him and doesn't have a choice. I'm not sure you can make her feel more comfortable with that to be honest. What were the mitigating circumstances? She might well not see it that you had to move in together when you did.

Did you sit down and speak to her moving him in? Has she ever expressed a reason why she doesn't like him?

Obviously it's your life but eighteen months is extremely early on in a relationship to move in a significant other when you have children at home. I'm sure you didn't have to move him in - you chose to because it was convenient.

I expect she just feels uncomfortable sharing her home with an adult man she doesn't know that well. He moved in so quickly, she didn't have much time to get used to the idea. She probably feels awkward in her own home because of it.

I think your partner is right to keep maintaining a hands off approach. In the meantime, does she have her own room or a private space she can escape to? If not I would try to prioritise that, so she has a haven for herself.

I think at 15 some teens are generally disrespectful to parents, teens and toddler are similiar only you can't protect the teen from external issues outside the home.
I was a horrible teen, I had undiagnosed PMDD my hormonal mood swings were disgusting.
I have spent many years sympathising and apologising to my DM.
She still loved me.
Can you read or research parenting a teen, sit her down have an honest chat, no blame, ask her how she is feeling, explain your feelings, stay calm and pick your battles.
Home is a teens haven even if they use it to let off steam.

Has she had an counselling around the break up with her Dad, if she was only 6 maybe it has had an affect on her, ask her would she like to speak to someone about her feelings.
If DP is the issue, you will have to make a decision on what is best.

Your daughter has told you she feels uncomfortable around the man and you are worried about him feeling disempowered?

What were the circumstances that meant you had to move in with him so quickly? How well did your children know him?

Why does she feel uncomfortable in her own home?
Because there is a strange man in it
Who she didn’t want there ,yet got no say in it .
Could you not of put the kids first ,and lived together when they have left home?

How long did they know him before he moved in? What were the reasons he had to move in so quick?

It's a tough age and she probably feels like her house isn't her own.

I think the issue is as clear as the nose on your face. He moved in too quickly.

When you spoke to your children about him moving in, did you ask their opinions or was it pretty much a done deal?

It must be hard on you and your partner but if a bloke moved into my house and I had no choice about it I'd be pretty grumpy too. The first step is probably accepting her feelings are valid and normal, then working from there.

He moved in too soon I think OP. It’s hard enough being a teen without having to live with a man you don’t know well and feel uncomfortable around.

How did she react when you first told her he was moving in?

He moved in too soon. There are no 'mitigating circumstances' when it comes to moving a boyfriend or girlfriend into a home with kids. You are continually putting your partner ahead of your kids and their needs, hence, even now, you blame your daughter for not 'respecting' your boyfriend and take his side that the poor ickle adult is losing patience with your child.

You are not 'stuck in the middle' because you are an adult who has choices. Your daughter hasn't got those choices, she's a child and trapped.

I feel so sorry for kids who have these people foisted on them in their own home because Mum or Dad needs to have a live-in lover first and foremost.

Thanks all - I agree that it was too soon in an ideal world for him to have moved in, and that it would have been better if the kids had been able to get to know him better beforehand. I did talk to them a lot about their feelings about him and the situation before he moved in, and they had spent lots of time with him, but not enough in retrospect.

At the time he moved in, my ex husband was on the verge of bankruptcy and needed equity out of the family home (which the kids and I have lived in their entire lives), but I couldn't take on the mortgage alone. We were on the verge of selling the house and moving to a different, more affordable area, which the kids were really distraught at the thought of, so my boyfriend, ex and I all took the decision that he should come onto to my mortgage in order for us to keep this house and some security for the kids.

Also, my mum had died less than a year prior to all of this, so it's all a bit of a blur looking back, and was obviously a hugely unsettling time for all of us which I feel I am only starting to really feel able to reflect on now, and I guess may go some way to explain why I haven't been able to see how the speed with which he moved in may have affected her so adversely.

I'm sure you're right, that she feels him moving in is a huge imposition. I feel that she is mature enough now for me to explain to her why we made the decision for him to move in and apologise, and try and work out how we can make it easier for her now.

She has her own room and spends half her time at her dad's, so does have the space and freedom to get away from us when she needs. I guess she just needs time and lots of love and attention and my partner needs to find a way to not feel so hurt by his rejection of him

TBH I wouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that she needs counselling/that they’ve moved in together too quickly/that he’s a man and she’s a girl and therefore is perfectly justified in her upset.

While these things could be true, it’s IMO far more likely that she’s a teenager and is doing what teenagers do, i.e. lashing out because she can. If they genuinely have never got on then that’s one thing, but if this is a relatively new thing then it could just be that she’s being moody.

Reality is that most teens even lash out against their parents at some stage, where nothing the parent does is good enough and the parent irritates them excessively. It doesn’t always have to have some dark underlying reason, but only you will genuinely know if this is the case or not.

My DS occasionally lashes out at my DP because he’s moved something of his which has been cluttering up the kitchen for the past six months and which he hasn’t bothered to move despite my asking him to, or because he hasn’t loaded the dishwasher according to DS’ expectations despite the fact that DS never loads the dishwasher himself, you get the picture. But he’s quick enough to accept favours or cash from DP when it suits. So although there are habits of dp’s which annoy me as well and I mention them, I also know that much of what ds does is teenage behaviour and I pull him up on it and tell him to watch his mouth when he does lash out.

Similarly I have a friend with a 22 year old son who insists that he hates her dh. I don’t know the in’s and outs of why and I do know that her h responds to his verbal aggression and friend says that it’s like being caught in the middle sometimes. But I also know that said 22 year old is a manchild who does nothing for himself and even rings his mum when she’s out or at the hospital (she has a serious illness) to ask when she’ll be home to cook his dinner. so if he were mine I’d have told him by now that if he didn’t like it there he was free to find somewhere else to live.

So these things really aren’t always about the child being in the right and the incomer being in the wrong....

She's FIFTEEN! I have a 'mature' teenager, she's still a teen. And your partner is hurt at her rejection of him? Good grief. A house is never more important than your kids and your relationship with them.

So if you split up he'd have a claim on the house? The only way you can keep the house is with him on the mortgage?

A man you barely knew just swooped in and popped onto your mortgage to save the entire family.....
What a hero.
You can't make your daughter like him or accept him. Sorry I don't have any spectacular advice. I feel sorry for the girls

Why on earth would you put a new boyfriend onto your mortgage and move him in? Yes, you were financially in a difficult position but that wasn’t the brightest idea. Not to mention so soon after their gran had died.

He not only moved in but went on the mortgage after 18 months? What was your plan if living together didn't work out?

Oh dear. Well, regardless of any of the reasons why, you shouldn’t have moved him in so quickly OP. I’d be fairly pissed off wt being forced to live with a man I barely knew too, and I’m an adult who can rationalise better than a fifteen year old can. Hindsight, as ever tho, is a fabulous thing. I think given that he’s not going anywhere now, all you can do is make a good effort to do stuff with your children without him there, and to stop going on about his hurt feelings. He’s an adult, and he needs to act like one.

What happens if you split up? What happens to the mortgage then?

@timshelthechoice while I can understand the notion that an adult being upset at a teenager who doesn’t like them, I also think that coming into a family where there are teenagers and other children must be incredibly difficult and that it’s actually natural to hope that they will like you. Because if they don’t, then there’s a chance the relationship won’t last, and that might not be through anyone’s fault iyswim.

I think that if a parent dismisses that child’s feelings out of hand then that is wrong, equally I think that if the child doesn’t like the new partner that is their prerogative. But I don’t imagine that it’s easy for anyone becoming a step parent and not having any control over what the kids think of you.

Where the relationship is 18 months in AND very stable (emotionally and financially) and there are no other factors at play (the kids like the man, he isn’t a drunk, a creep, a lazy swine, a misogynist) then I don’t think 18 months is ridiculous. I think it’s a very modern idea that a woman should force herself to live apart from a partner for years and years so that her children never have to adapt to the new reality - that their mother is in a long-term, stable relationship.

Is everything okay apart from this? Has she no reason not to like him at all? If not, she needs to stop being rude or face consequences. It’s his home now, too.

Totally understandable why she has taken this harder than your younger child. 10 and 15 are worlds apart, it’s so difficult being a teenager at the best of times. She also will remember the split from her Dad whereas the 10 year old won’t at all.

Your OH moved in too quickly, it’s as simple as that really. I understand your ‘mitigating circumstances’ but 18 months isn’t enough time to even know someone well enough to move in with them without children involved imo. Far too soon when children are involved.

I kind of sympathise. I think you’ve tried your best to make it work for everyone and tried to be reasonable.

But OMG i would HATE to live with some random bloke. It’s the little things. Feeling self conscious wandering about in your pjs, spending too long in the bathroom etc.