Weekends when you’re in a relationship with a man with a child… should I be less selfish?

[Chillonthesarnie]

I’ve been in a relationship for 2 years with a man who’s got a 5 year old daughter. Custody is split 50/50 but my partner has his daughter around 4/5 days a week due to requests from her mum.

Shes with us Thursday - Monday every week, meaning every weekend. I work Monday to Friday in healthcare in quite a stressful role. I moved 3 hours away from my home to move in with my partner.

At the beginning of living together I made a massive effort to be involved in “family time” and arranged fun weekends etc for his daughter. After some time I realised he was taking advantage of this and organising his own thing during the weekend and expecting me to look after his daughter. I refused to do this. It caused many arguments but I think he’s accepted it now.

I have quite fragile mental health and I noticed a dip in this around January. I’ve been making more of an effort to stay in touch with my friends and my elderly parents. I don’t have time after work in the week to see friends or family due to travel time, so arrange this at the weekend.

I make sure I have one day with my partner and his daughter but the other day I don’t turn down plans to see friends or my family.

I usually leave home around 10am and get back at 8pm. This gives me enough time to have dinner/catch up and travel to and from.

My partner had said this is selfish and I’m avoiding family time. It’s not every weekend but I try to do it often because I feel so lonely away from everyone and my home.

My partner tells me I need to grow up, realise that I’m an adult and not require some much support from others. He says we’re a family and that should be enough.

But I crave time with my family and friends. At home I feel like it’s non-stop work, non-stop childcare and rinse and repeat.

My partner goes out most evenings for hobbies and seeing friends because they live here and it’s easier for him

Am I being selfish? Should I cut down the times I see my family and friends?

Your partner is right, OP. Weekends should be family time. Friends are for your younger, single people. Focus on your little family.

This relationship is not a good fit for you. It does not meet your needs. It never will because none of these issues are going to change in the next 10-15 years. Move back to your own town and start living a life that works for you.

When i met my ex he had a 3yo and a 10yo, had them every weekend. I was child free at that age and quite enjoyed doing kid stuff with them. For 10 years my weekends were mostly about planning kid meals, early wake up to do crafts, help with homework, watch family movies etc. I absolutely loved the kids.

Then he ditched me - his new lady became step-mum and I was nothing to anyone. The kids are fond of me and message occasionally but I truly feel like I lost a family. It was awful.

I'd neglected my friends somewhat as I wasn't free over weekends, that was a mistake.

So yes try to be selfish.

So that your DP can focus on his friends and hobbies.

Know your place, woman, you're a nanny with a fanny.

....but they're not her family.

If when you move in with someone who has children you do not see yourself as a family of sorts you should not, in my view move in.
Children cannot be tossed about like pawns in this way. He is your child etc nothing to do with me. If you want that nothing to do with me then ensure the child has nothing to do with you. And don’t move in.

I think you need to head back closer to your family and friends. Your mental health will be so much better for it.

Your partner doesn't seem to be supportive nor empathetic.

Your set-up sounds claustophobic and he is using you for childcare.

Get your life back - on your terms.

Just what do you get out of this relationship as it doesn’t seem to be very much.?

Poor child.
Mum and dad split up.
New girlfriend moves in with dad after two years.
She seems to like me but then stops doing things with me
And she might leave now.

He's not the one for you.

You need a new partner.

I think over a weekend, one day with DH and his DD and one with your own family/friends is a generous compromise. He is being very unkind to you and unreasonable to suggest otherwise. His DD is his responsibility - he sounds like a spoilt child expecting you to babysit while he sees his friends - but then as you rightly say, what about you? Sounds like you have given up a lot to be with him - whereas he has his family and friends still around him and his DD.

I would be having serious thoughts about my future with a man who acts like this and makes you feel this way.

Please make sure they don’t have a child though. Of if they do, before you move in, decide you are in it for the long haul. And work out your attitudes towards family life first. How you think it should be lived. And who should be doing what.

OP did all the right things. It's not her fault the father is an exploitative fucker who is taking the piss and using her for free childcare. She has absolutely no obligation to sacrifice her own mental health and well-being for someone else's child.

Bravo!!!!

Another woman who has moved heaven and earth after 2 years to take on a man with a child.

Not really. She chose to move in with a man who had a five year child after two years. Without really sorting out how they saw things being as a family. As a couple. His child is with them most of the week. She is ostensibly a stepmother. And cannot remove herself from being one once she moved in.
I really feel sorry for the small child.
The idea is once you move in, you organise things together. And sort them through.

He says we’re a family and that should be enough.

Red flag, red flag, red flag!

I once read a thread on here where a woman said "He wants a nanny with a fanny" which has stuck with me. I would not want to be with such a selfish man.

The child has a mother.

Maybe reread the third paragraph of your opening post.

When you arranged things to do as a family, he opted out, arranged to see his mates and do his grown up hobbies and left you with his child.

When you leave him with his child, whom you have only known for a year (hopefully he didn't introduce you before the relationship was long term), he is outraged that you do anything outside childcare at weekends.

You are, to use an unpleasant but accurate phrase, a nanny with a fanny (the childcare equivalent of a nurse with a purse for an older man who, in his late 50s or 60s, love bombs and moves in a woman twenty years younger and then once she's moved away from her friends, cut most of her ties with her old life and fully committed, promptly retires and expects her to pay the lions share of the bills, do all the housework and cooking and be ready to take on any caring responsibilities as he ages).

Run. Go back to your friends and family. He resents you not giving him free childcare so he can have the benefit of doing what you get to do. He needs to sort this out with the mother if he wants free time in the weekend.

He's already shown you that (if he were honest with you and himself) he sees you, at least in part, as a childminder. Learn from that, please.

I wouldn’t even do that. I’d be organising weekend trips to see friends and family. Every other weekend when his daughter is there. You can still play house with her on the Thursday and Friday, leaving him to look after his own child at the weekend.

Actually, that’s not true, I’d leave any man who tried to dictate who I could and couldn’t see or questioned my reasons for doing so.

Who for whatever reason we do not know she only sees for two days a week.
So some issues there.
Poor child.