I should always be welcome in DP's home, regardless of who's there - AIBU?

[SecretsAndLies77]

I will try to not make this too long, but also not drip feed. Please help me distinguish reasonable actions from my own emotions because, to put it simply, everything's at stake.

Been with DP for 4 years and, on the whole, it's a very loving relationship. He's good to me and my kids, fun to be around, reliable and helpful, contributes financially to my household. We don't live together but spend much (most) of the week at each other's homes (although more mine than his), as well as every weekend and holidays.

At the same time, it's been a turbulent relationship (I know that sounds odd after what I've just said, but it can be both good and turbulent, as it's about very defined areas of problems, i.e. one problem = his adult daughters). I have a good relationship with his youngest DD (early 20s) who lives with him, but his eldest (30) who lives away doesn't want to have anything to do with me. At times she's been really rude to me and various members of my family. Most recent example is a message she sent where she was incredibly rude and disrespectful (before blocking me, so I couldn't even respond - a coward's move, IMO). My DP did reprimand her, sort of, via text and heavily prompted by me, which I hate as I don't think it's my job to stand up for this relationship and my dignity, but his. I think left to his own devices he would just always avoid all conflict. He is very scared she will cut him out of his life.

I feel I've come to the end with being able to accept that he doesn't stand up for me of his own free will, and that when he sees her he doesn't feel a shred of annoyance, resentment or anger about the awful ways she's behaved. I understand we all love our children, and I understand he's scared of losing her. I'm not even saying that he should necessarily show her that he's upset about her bad behaviour, but simply that he should feel something for me, the way she's treated me (in other words, show ME - show some kind of outrage, empathy, solidarity). If someone mistreated my DP, even if it was my kids, I'd be pretty livid. I know people are different, and I know men and women can be very different in their emotional processing. But still. How can it be true that he loves me, but that he doesn't feel anything when someone repeatedly hurts me?

The other thing is that, when she comes to stay at his, although at all other times I'm (more than) welcome in his house, there's an expectation that I won't come while she's there. Now, I get that it's her former home, she still has a room there. But, at all other times, I have complete access to his house, not just that but he's even repeatedly hosted friends of mine for long weekends (because the house is big and has spare rooms and bathrooms), but when his daughter is there, the quiet understanding is that I'm not welcome. But, just as an example, we're spending Xmas at mine this year and he of course invited her too. I knew she would say no, but that's not the point. So, she's meant to be always welcome in my house, but I'm not only not welcome at family events, but also my own partner's house when she's there? It strikes me as very unfair and unreasonable.

I've been living with this for a while, and this morning I woke up and thought, I don't know if I love him any more. This has seriously eroded my feelings for him. It's a huge shame, as four years is a lot of time together and he's amazing in many ways and I love(d) him possibly more than any other man before him, including my ex husband. But this continued unfairness and indignity has eaten away at the core of our connection.

YABU - this is a reasonable compromise in a complicated family dynamic because parents will always put their children first, even when they're nearly 30, and most women would find a way to live with this, even if it hurts them

YANBU - this is a major breach of love and loyalty towards me on his side, and if he's not prepared to let her know that his home is always open to me, I should walk away even after 4 years together.

Can I just say (if you're read this far), if you're not divorced and in a relationship with a man who's got adult kids, you won't have any kind of realistic perspective on a situation of this kind. I'm looking for some thoughtful and considered responses based in first hand experience of these kinds of dynamics - thank you (and I'll disregard any responses that are rude or unkind, as often I see "pile ons" when it comes to these kinds of questions)

Man can't be arsed to do a thing for his daughter: "oh I'd love to sweetheart but the missus wouldn't like it".

Man can't be arsed to do a thing for his partner: "oh I'd love to sweetheart but my daughter's insisting I do this other thing and she'll go apeshit if I don't".

Man sighs contentedly, doesn't help either of them, sits back and watches Match of the Day 2 in his pants, never gives either thing a second thought. Occasionally grumbles to mates about how women are "hard work" and "can't get on with each other".

……and yet ,,,in the early part of your dating this is exactly the arrangement you wanted DSD to accept?

When you have your own place, I don’t see the problem in letting DSD visit and have solo time with her Dad.

I don't understand regarding this as a slight when you demanded your DP cancel seeing his daughter for you …even adult children don't generally make appointments to see their parents.

What number / frequency of solo visits are problematic for you?

Your DP demanding you're there when she visits will drive her away, why doesn't your love for DP allow you to step back and let them love each other?

What does that have to do with her or anyone else? It's a private matter within a couple.

To be fair everything you’re sharing here is a private matter between you and your DP. If you don’t want to share the reasons for the financial arrangement that’s entirely up to you but being outraged someone has asked is a bit unusual.

Divorced and in a relationship with a man with adult kids here.

You two don’t like each other so it’s for the best that you just avoid each other.

You expect him to stand up to her regarding you, but that implies you are right and she is wrong. The truth, or how he sees it, might be very different.

You ask some interesting questions here and, although you're not being sympathetic to my situation (which is totally ok), I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and offering another way to look at this.

I'd put money on the fact that instead of saying 'nice to see you DD, I'd love to spend time with you right now but I have dinner/night out booked with OP and I want to go to that. Are you free tomorrow to meet up? Etc etc', he said 'OP isn't happy that you keep showing up unannounced. I'd love to see you, but OP doesn't like it and wants to go out to dinner. You understand don't you. Don't want any grief so I better do what she wants haha'
That could be true, but from what OP has admitted herself here, I don't think it's the case. OP has said she thinks they should meet in a restaurant instead of her staying at his house. She's made her demands clear.

I also don't agree at all with the changes of plans. Before my OH and I moved together, we tended to have set days to spend together. Occasionally, my sister or best friend who live miles away would be coming for a few days, usually as part of a work commitment for my best friend and would ask me if I was free on a certain day. If it fell on a day I would normally be with my OH, he would tell me to of course spend it with them, we saw eachother three or four times a week, why would it matter if we didn't once in a while.

The same would happen with his best friend, and yes, sometimes cancelling last minutes plans. It didn't cross my mind to be cross or upset. No biggy if it's only a couple of times a year.

Why make a big deal of it? Frankly I don't think I would like you either OP if you were my father's new partner.

HI, thank you engaging. I did write a lengthy explanation of how things went sour (to the best of my knowledge). I know it's hard to see when there are 14 pages of responses - why does such a thread like this get so much engagement!

But was one of them sent away when she came to visit because you had plans? This animosity began somewhere…OP states that

I'm not sure I could carry a relationship on when there is such bad feeling coming from one of his DC.

Imagine he fell ill, or passed away - she could end up banning you from his bedside/funeral. And as his next of kin, her word would be final. If he can't stand up to her, then is he ever going to have your back if you needed it?

Here's a different perspective for you. I'm the daughter in this scenario. Dad left the family home after an affair with the OW. Stepmother was cruel to me as a child. Now I'm an adult, I can choose to avoid her, and I do. I would have loved for my dad to put me first and allow me to see him without her being there, but he didn't, he insisted on a new "family unit". As a result, we're estranged. Obviously no one can comment on the dynamic between you and SD as we don't have her side of things but she doesn't have to have a relationship with you, and it's great that her dad is prioritising his kids (even as adults). So if I were you, I'd accept that she wants distance from you, and allow your partner the space to maintain his relationship with his kids as he sees fit.

Thank you so much. This is incredibly helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this, and your ideas are the ones I will take forward. This is exactly the conversation I need to have with him.

I have been the child in this situation and I am now the mother of a child in this situation.

As a child it was incredibly hard to see another woman in my family home - she was not the OW she also came into his life after my parents divorced, and I was an young adult at the time. She felt like a total intruder for the 15 years she lived under that roof. I put up with it because it was clear from my dad that if I objected she would come first. Consequence is that I'm not close to him anymore and I was never very close to her, but things have improved since they moved to a new house ten years ago.

As a mother to a DC who is having to cope my ex's partner having 24/7 access to their family home, I can see that it is causing a lot of problems for both my adult DC. One is still at uni and he is home in holiday time. He reluctantly goes there about one night a week and spends the rest of time with me. His older sister finished her uni studies this year and has decided to stay away completely and is job hunting in another city entirely rather than live with the aggro of dealing with ex and the partner. For us the OW was on the scene before we split so there's a difference there but he did try and pretend that she didn't enter his life until after we split up, but - as they say - murder will out.

I'm not sure if this is even any help. Just my experience from different sides. I suspect you are on a hiding to nothing here though with the eldest no matter what you do.

So it's you or her, then. Just don't be surprise when he chooses her, his daughter.

Unless he’s staying at yours a lot, then it’s odd he’d be contributing to your home.

It may be that women have taken advantage of him in the past and perhaps DD is concerned the same thing will happen this time.

I don't know what you mean and think you may have misread something. I have never asked my DP to cancel existing plans with any of his children to do something with me instead.

Your DP is trying to maintain a relationship with both of you and he's doing it imperfectly. A good analogy would be to think of your DP as a child of divorced parents who can't exist in the same space together

You said his daughter is 30, has no friends, a rocky relationship, is arrogant, and horrible. You describe her as emotionally manipulative and very dependent on her dad. That's a very difficult person to have a meaningful relationship with. He's probably quite concerned about her and as her father wants her to be happy and settled as all parents do.

You are unhappy that she has power over how you as a couple live your joint lives and how welcome you are in his home and his life. She has created a competitive friction.

You say your DP avoids conflict. You want him to defend you when she's rude. You want him to find a fair and balanced way forward. In your eyes, that would be a scenario where his adult DD has no input or effect on your relationship with him. That doesn't seem unreasonable at all. And wouldn't be if either the adult DD was a reasonable person (which she isn't) or your DP didn't care about maintaining a good relationship with her (which he does). You're angry about an impossible situation that your DP is in. And yes, he bares responsibility for that because for 30 years he's maintained it. However she was parented as a child didn't raise her to be an emotionaly literate functioning adult. But no one can change the past. If his relationship with her is going to change, it's going to take time for him and her to find new patterns.

You did say
This is from a woman I've seen maybe 6-7 times in the whole four years,
So with that in mind, how much of an impact you allow her to have on your emotions and in your thoughts is your choice.

Why 'outraged'? I'm just saying it's not any of her concern.

She was never sent away. Her old room is always available and her sister would be around. It would just mean that he wouldn't be there if he's already planned to be somewhere else.

erm....lots of 'first wives' are also women in your situation.

My DP and I each have difficult daughters of similar ages (early 20’s) and it’s not quite your situation because we are both suffering and navigating together as a united front. Both our daughters are the eldest and resentful about life in general. His DD uses him as a cash machine and mine expects me to be at her beck and call whenever she fancies.

Both our daughters are immature but also have been though their parents separating when they were young children so we do have a level of empathy for them. DP and I have met later in life when a lot of the behaviours were already present - they aren’t new so neither of us take this personally.

We both agreed to try to avoid conflict with our daughters where possible, but also have boundaries. My DP stays out of my DD’s way and I tolerate his DD ignoring my presence or just avoid her, and we just try to enjoy our alone time together as much as we can plus spending time with them on their own. I’m always polite and so is DP. The deep talks don’t help! I am not attached to my DP’s hip so I don’t care if he wants to see his DD without me

I would work on detaching your personal feelings from his daughter’s behaviour if you can. It’s not really about you x

I thought you stated you insisted DP say you had plans and sent her away :

”When we were in the earlier stages of the relationship, she would turn up with virtually no notice and expect DP to cancel whatever plan he had with me, to see her. He was initially doing this, but after a few situations I said I wasn't okay with that because my time is also valuable, so if he's made a plan with me I expect him to stick to it. A little bit of notice is not unreasonable to ask for.”

OP, you don't sound happy with the relationship and that is ok.
Some areas are good but his child not liking you is a big one.
It will always remain a sticking point.

My friend was in a similar situation a few years ago with a golf buddy.
The relationship of 12 months was very nice but she was definitely being kept at a distance so as not to upset his daughter.

His daughter refused to meet her in any shape or form.

She really liked him but she could see that long term with the holidays etc. it was not going to work as he would always feel conflicted.
So she started to cool things down and was less available.

He suddenly developed mild epilepsy after being briefly ill and it was going to cause a change to his life.
Fortunately with medication it was going to be hopefully brought under control.

Out of nowhere she was contacted by his daughter as he would need driving to various appointments, golf etc as he was no longer allowed to drive.

My friend really liked him but it was very clear that his daughter was now choosing to suffer contact with her purely as a convenience.

She very politely told her that they were little more than friends and were seeing each other very casually at this point, and she wouldn't dream of sticking her nose into his business.

She had zero intention of suddenly being used as driver carer now that it suddenly suited his daughter.

Within a year his health decreased further and she was grateful at how things worked out as at 60 she had no interest in being anyone's carer.

The DD didn't have plans with her father, that's the point. She just turned up and didn't bother to find out if her Dad had plans or not. Of course he shouldn't have cancelled his plans with OP, he was right to stick with them.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Thank you for writing. It's interesting you write 'she has nothing you want' and it's something I need to think about, because to me it seems like she does have something I want (his backing).