AIBU to just fade out of her life

[Bathtimeblues2]

I know I probably am but my goodness I feel so crap!

DP has DD 6, Iv known her for about 4 years formally as ‘step mum’ although me and DP have known each other for about 20 years.

I was not OW! Just want to be clear.

I have DD 15.

I can’t stand the politics around SD or if I am really honest the raising of a 6yr old again.

Thing is DP wants happy family moments all the time and I just can’t force it and it’s starting to show. She is a good little girl, funny, sweet, I care for her but I don’t want my free time occupied by little kid stuff. I feel like Iv done my time with that and it was never the plan for me to be this involved again.

Iv tried to speak to DP but he insists he was clear he wanted a family for him and SD and that’s what he’s getting.

I encourage him to spend 1:1 time with her and he does a bit but as soon as me or my DD come in it’s ’right now we can all go to the park together’ etc . Even if I really can’t be bothered!

She has a terrible diet so it’s literally pot noodle and breadsticks for dinner all the time and it all just grates on me.

His family don’t approve of our relationship because they wanted him to stay single so they are very weird about me and my DD, for example after we got engaged they said he should have bought SD a ring and still go on about that and other weird stuff. Like at Christmas bought my daughter a B&M make up set (she was grateful and we didn’t expect anything) but they have to make this whole thing about - ‘well obviously you are not our granddaughter etc’ we don’t care!!

I know I’m being unreasonable but I really just can’t be arsed with it all. I love DP we have an awesome relationship would be very sad to lose it. Need some advice on how to get over myself tbh! I just want to slowly do less with SD and have a bit more time to myself! But I know it will upset DP who sees it as a rejection of SD.

"He lives with her for half the week. Are you seriously suggesting that on those days he does 100% of childcare? "

Isn't that usually how it works for separated parents. Doesn't the DM do 100% of childcare when her daughter is with her? If DF is busy during his allocated time, doesn't he need to re-arrange the dates and times with the child's mother?

I think he has an idealised idea of what a family is and wants to recreate it with you - 2 adults in a lovely harmonious child-centred family all doing things together. He's putting you in the mummy role. He doesn't realise that this doesn't work in a step family.

Yep I saw and added a follow-up comment. Seems like they are incompatible.

Such a good post. I also totally agree.

I remember talking to a guy on a dating site who was complaining that he was 52 with a two year old daughter and none of the women around his age wanted to date him. He couldn't see why they wouldn't want to help him bring the child up (50:50). He then said it was an unplanned pregnancy, he hadn't wanted another child as he wanted to enjoy his middle-age after bringing up a family earlier. He couldn't see why the women (including me) didn't want that either, particularly if it was someone else's child, not even their own.

Thank you, he would not go for this. I am pretty sure he wouldn’t, he has placed so much emphasis on ‘family’ that he would see this as the end of the relationship

This really resonated with me. I feel very claustrophobic and I do get tearful at times. Not full on crying but overwhelmed and that isn’t usually me.

everything about this is wrong I can feel it. And I should have known, but I didn’t because it wasn’t sold to me like that. And maybe I should have guessed that it would turn out like this because ‘what did I expect when he had such a young child’ but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He always said how much of a good mum I seemed to my DD, how he valued that so much etc I genuinely thought he meant it!

But they shouldn’t have moved in, that was partly decision and I’m kicking myself for it

I would feel betrayed and used, as I thought he loved ME, not the mumness of me.

No, I’m strictly not allowed to discipline her and don’t feel it’s my place to tbh and she is a pretty good kid tbh, not allowed to make comments on her diet at all, he blames her mother at the weaning stage for that?

He doesn’t do much with or for my DD but I don’t wish him to. She has a dad, me etc he is kind her to, always says hello and chit chat about school etc but between work, school, hobbies, friends, her dads etc she doesn’t really see much of him tbh.

OP, you seem intelligent, independent and switched on. It’s sad to see you brought to the point of tears and helplessness.

You need to extricate yourself from this situation, before you’re talked into marriage or another child.

It sounds like you spend a lot of time thinking about what he thinks and what he wants and how he might react to different scenarios. Maybe it's time to make your own thoughts, values and opinions your priority. At the moment he's trying to shape you into something that you're not. Maybe you need to tell him who you are, and find out if you still want him.

My father moved on with his new wife when I was 8. I would stay with them on weekends, but itwas made clear to me from the start that she was not my stepmother, and that her childern weren't my stepsisters. In fact it was made clear to them that there was no reason for any of them to show any interest in me other than politeness.
I actually think it made me a better person -much more independent and self contained, and I think it stopped me thinking that the world revolved around me. Also, it made me feel ok with being just tolerated rather than liked.

But they shouldn’t have moved in, that was partly decision and I’m kicking myself for it
Dont kick yourself, he charmed you into it because he wanted the benefits of your large house & your caring/maternal nature. You trusted him, he saw that & used it to trick you into doing what was in his interests but not yours.

YANBU. He sounds like he doesn't really want 1:1 time or responsibility with his daughter, so he's trying to rope you into something you never agreed to.

Please stick to your guns, especially when it comes to protecting time alone with your daughter.

I do think there's is a mismatch in tour life stages - if your kids were similar ages, it would make more sense to bundle up more closely. But they are not.

If you still want to give this a chance, I think a reasonable compromise would be to spend something like 1 weekend afternoon a month together, and one weekday evening together. I don't think complete separateness is realistic, he's not a flatmate.

But asking you not to take your shower until she's gone to bed - sounds way off to me.

I'd also struggle to be with a man who thinks it's OK to give a child a Pot Noodle for dinner tbh!

I think it's worth discussing one more time, outlining what you're willing for, and what you're not. He then has to choose if he's in or out, and not keep badgering you.

The child is young and she will accept as normal whatever is presented to her. She is not missing out on you, he is the only one making an issue.

Good luck!

Look you made a mistake, anyone can do that.
The most important thing is how you handle it going forward.

It is not working and hasn't been for a while.
He has completely unreasonable expectations of you and is both unwilling and unable to see beyond these.

He is a massive cheeky fxxker thinking he has any right to dictate all that he tried to do, how you interact, shower, wfh...unbelievable.

Would you be happy for your daughter to get caught by a similar man, with similar expectations and inclined to reward and punish her as he sees fit?

I bet you would be horrified.
Think of what you are modelling to her.
Your daughter deserves a happy mum.
You are no longer happy.

Do not get sucked into the "sunken cost fallacy", google it.

He mislead you.
You are not compatible.
He is quite happy to punish you in your home for not behaving as he wants.
He absolutely is abusive.

Your loyalty must be to your child, not his.
These are such important years for your daughter, precious years.
Not years for her mum to be stressed by a man she moved into their home.

Rip the plaster off.

I get and agree to a point, but it's more nuanced. He is just desperately trying to re-create a nuclear family for his child and is probably feeling guilty about the separation from the child's mum.

Op, you haven’t put him on the mortgage have you?

He does. If he can’t manage 50-50 by himself then he pays mum to do a bigger share. Unpaid labour from another woman enables him not to have to make that choice. Unfair.

A man’s desperation is not a woman’s problem.

We need to stop co-optimg women into making men feel better.

True, but it doesn't mean that he is abusive. He is just needy.

God no! This is mine and DD’s home.

Of course he’s riding roughshod over her. OP says she feels tearful and claustrophobic at his demands. What is that if not riding roughshod over her?

There are elements of his behaviour that make me very uncomfortable, and if they’re leaving OP tearful and claustrophobic then I can see why posters think there is an element of abuse at play.

you do know you need to end this for you don’t you

It is not more nuanced than that.
It is absolutely blatantly controlling, manipulative and abusive.

What man moved into a womans home with his child having accepted they both have daughters at different stages.....

.......But then suddenly decides that she can't sit down for 10 minutes after a 12 hour shift, when she takes a shower, where she sits in her own home on a wfh day.

Nothing what so ever nuanced about that.

He is a controlling twat who has inveigled his way into her home, and is now determined she share every possible moment of childcare with him, whether she wishes to or not.

He doesn't care about what the OP wants, he is not interested.

He's just another selfish man determined that he will control those around him, to his own end.

OP could be any woman with a spacious house, deep down she is realising she has been had.

He clearly does not want to sole parent his child despite quickly deciding 50/50 now suits him.

Interesting that the childs birth mother changed her mind about him🤔