10 year olds and bedrooms

[Mandy1010]

I don’t know how to handle a situation and so looking for what others think on this.

we are a family of 3, My DD10, her father and myself. For background information my partner is emotionally abusive and I haven’t been happy in this for sometime. I know it needs to end but am struggling to finish it I guess for various reasons. He is angry man that periodically both my daughter and myself walk in eggshells around him. At the moment he is in a better mood.

As my daughter has got older, the way he behaves isn’t lost on her. He can’t get away with it any more and subsequently she acts like she doesn’t like him at times. Not all the time but fairly frequently. I feel caught in the middle between trying to support/protect her and not provoking him. I know this needs to change and in the long run it would likely be better to split up as it has become so dysfunctional.

enough background. The point of my post is that I wanted to ask at what point your child’s bedroom becomes their own personal space and you have to knock or if they want to be on their own you leave them to it. I personally think her bedroom should now be her space and if she wants time alone am ok to leave her to it and don’t take offence. Last night he came and sat in her room and she wanted him to go and had told him so much. He basically refuses and is stubborn and stays. This all then delays bedtime as she starts to get annoyed he isn’t listening. I’ve already told him before that if she wants privacy to get changed etc he needs to respect that and leave as she is approaching puberty. But last night was more she wants her room to herself without him in i t but she wanted me to some. I’m struggling as he clearly feels she can’t tell him to go and he will potentially react badly to me suggesting he needs to respect her wishes. I often feel I am walking a tightrope but I feel her room should be her safe haven.

what do others think? It’s all such a mess I know. What would you do? Please be gentle. I am well aware this situation isn’t good.

I think you need to stand up for ypur daughter. Its her room, she needs that space , at 10 he should be knocking etc. Obviously if child upset/ something happened it's different but he can't just go sit in her room. Show her how to stand up for herself and you need to stand up for yourself too!

He is a bully, he is deliberately upsetting her, he is deliberately showing her that he will not respect her boundaries, this is very damaging behaviour.

I know leaving is not simple or easy but you need to put your daughter first & do whatever you need to achieve that.

Well done in recognising the problem. The longer you stay the more she will learn she has to bend to the will of dominant males. I have a friend who saw her mum in similar circumstances. She sadly married a man like her dad. Her three daughters are all following suite treading on eggshells. Guess what - eldest now at uni in an abusive relationship. Leave him for the sake of your daughter. As others said above we all need time on our own and bedrooms should be sanctuaries. Good luck.

Your DD wants this man to leave her bedroom and he refused? This isn't right OP.

As long as the bedroom is a safe place and they can be trusted with what is in their room and they ask for privacy I would say it's the time they are allowed privacy
My daughter is only 5 and if she asked me to give her some space in her room I would listen and give it too her.

She has a tippee and that's been her "safe space" to retreat too when she just needs to be by herself since she being about 2.5-3 and if she asks for us to leave her alone there we do.

Learning to autonomy over your space and feelings is a crucial life skill and her dad is teaching her that she can't have autonomy and that what he wants is more important. These are harmful lessons and it needs stopping immediately.

It's ok to not like your parents especially when they are putting their feelings and interests above their own. In many ways I don't like my mother and a lot of that is due to her putting her wants ahead of my needs. One example is her hugging me, I had a childhood and early adulthood being told "I know you don't like or want hugs but I do and I want a hug so I'm hugging you". It's a tiny thing in many ways but it's the message that my need to not be touched was dismissed and was unimportant because of her want to be hug mattered more. It taught me that I came second to her and that's not right.

You need to show your daughter that it is ok to have wants and needs and that her care givers will allow her them. Her dad should have left the room but also it's probably time for you to decide whether it's time that her needs come first ahead of trying to not provoking him. That is either by being firm that if the relationship is to continue he needs to listen to the needs of everyone in the family not just his own or that you would be better out of this relationship.

My sister's ex was like this, they divorced when she was 3 and her life has been better every day since. She's 16 now and has 50:50 shared parenting. In many ways her dad hasn't changed but he's nowhere near as bad as he was when they were married and she has a safe space at her mums and she knows that the way her dad is isn't what you are meant to settle for. That relationships are complicated and messy but sometimes it's better to be apart than together. My exBIL is a better father than he is partner and when they were together he couldn't separate the two.

Why does he have to go in her room at all. Why does he want to. If she was a little older I would have put a lock on it for her.

Thank you everyone that has commented so far. I needed to hear all this. It has kind of reinforced what I was thinking with regards to her room and her autonomy. He is a bully. He is trying to enforce his want over her need.

@Superscientist he does that too sometime about demanding a hug when she doesn’t want to.

we do both fear his reaction to things as we have experienced his temper so many times before and the atmosphere it creates. I agree I do need to put her needs above trying to not provoke him. As my post here suggests I sometime just doubt my own instincts. Thanks for confirming what I think I already knew on this one.

Sounds like you need to phone womens aid and start making plans to leave. Your DD will become more her own person and he isn’t going to like it at all