Is this normal behaviour?

[changeusernameforthisonen]

My partner left the family home last night supposedly temporarily after a row about her lack of ability to seem to be able to get out of bed on a weekend before mid day despite having an 8 year old step daughter to parent .

My question ?
Would you expect this behaviour of your partner?
She says she wants space and it's completely normal to leave for days post an argument . My opinion is that it's not ok to just leave the family home in a moments whim . For context we have been together 6 years , one Dd ( mine ) planned baby in next couple of years

Good let her be pissed off from a distance. I'm really angry for your dd actually. She deserves so much better.

Why are you letting her come home? I thought you wanted the night off?

I don't have an option of letting her come home or not .

This is her home too

I said i wanted space tonight but she said I don't get to choose when she can leave or stay

Yes she said it's not fair that I request space and she has to leave. .

She isn't leaving though she has already left and told me it would be a few days so in my head i had worked out it would be me and Dd tonight

Now it's all up in the air ( again ) and I feel
Sick with anxiety. .
I hate the way I feel so manipulated by the situation. .

Who owns the house OP?

It seems very evident that this relationship isn't working, and there is an eight year old child in the middle of all of this who doesn't deserve to be. Incidentally does your DD have contact with her father still?

As she lives with you full-time then of course there is an expectation that your DP be a part of the parenting of this child. That being said, she should never be given parental responsibility on the basis that if you split (which seems to be a very real possibility here) she will still have PR over your child, and you really don't want that. However if your DD is still in touch with her father giving PR to your partner would be highly inappropriate anyway.

Having read more of your replies you need to get rid of her. What do you get out of this relationship? She seems to do whatever she wants regardless of the other people living in the house. Are you even happy with her or just worried about the financial side if her leaving.

This can't be what you want your dd to see as a health relationship

Yes it's her house too.
Depending on the situation (e.g. Are you renting and both on the rental agreement), she might well have as much right as you have to stay where you are.
However, this doesn't mean she has ALL the rights!

Can you expand on WHAT is making you sick with worry?
Is it the idea that she might leave and you really don't want her to because you love her?
Is it the emotional stress she is putting you under?
Is it about your dd?
I think that depending on WHAT is making you so anxious, your answer will be different.
One thing that cannot happen is for that to be brushed under the carpet. And for her to carry on the same than before.

Ok, but clearly you do 'have the option'...

It is your house and she clearly has somewhere else to stay if she swans off overnight every time you have a barney...

You just say 'no, I don't want you here. I'm still angry and don't want this around DD. You need to sort out something more permanent'

It's my house I own it . She pays an amount to me monthly .

No, it's not normal behaviour for most adults with real grown up responsibilities (never mind children) unless in a relationship with someone who has similarly odd hours. I think maybe it sounds like you should have figured out before you got in so deep (emotionally and financially) that you weren't compatible. Yes, my husband and I may have slept til 10am - on rare occasions maybe even noon - on the weekends when we didn't have children. But we both did, usually because we were both up late together. Staying up late and sleeping late enabled us to spend time together and didn't cause any issues in our relationship. But when you have children, that changes. If you want to be partners and be a family at that point, you have to spend time together. A one off late morning here and there, fine. But I think this is actually less about her shirking her responsibilities to co-parent with you and more about you just not seeming like a priority to her. I think most people in happy relationships with people they value want to spend time with them. She should want to go to bed earlier a) so she isn't disturbing your sleep, which is important to you, and b) because she loves spending time with you and your dd. She's missing out on so much sleeping half the day. It honestly sounds like she just isn't that invested in the relationship despite all she is saying about future baby plans. If she's done this forever though, honestly it probably should have been a red flag a long time ago. You have different needs and lifestyles and on top of that, this isn't fair to your dd to have her weekends dictated by this person who isn't even her parent (biologically or in practice either for that matter). I think you probably realistically need to think if you can live like this forever and potentially take on the burden of another baby you are the default parent for. You also probably should think about a realistic plan for how you might manage (financially, etc) without her. Sorry you're going through this.

Do you see that this is really wrong and that you've reached a point of wanting to punish her (in a petty way) whilst letting her continue to treat you like crap in whatever's way she wants to?

All that matters is that you protect you and DD by stopping her from treating you like crap and your house like a hotel....

'Holding her accountable' is not going to happen and it's not the right thing to do... she won't care as long as she gets to keep on keeping you awake, lying in and storming out to stay elsewhere when you get sick of her treating you like crap...

Do you even know where she goes?

My brother's wife did all this, including causing fights so she could stay out all night... she's now with OM.

The reason you can't understand my posts is the same one that stops you understanding the situation. You simply cannot recognise how your attitude, communication and expectations are contributory, because you can't recognise why they are undoubtedly fundamental to the problem. You say you need to 'make' her see your 'correct' view, which means you absolutely cannot be problem solving. You are attempting to impose your ideas only on the relationship, and not working with your partner together on mutually defining the relationship.

Continue not to understand if you like, it's not me you're hurting.

Oh god.

She's pissed off with you, but she apologises not you,
She pays you rent and you tell her off all the time.
You are seeking ways to 'correct' her behaviour, but not your own?

Sounds to me as though she is living the life of a student or a couple with no children. By being with you she kind of has a child as I think that comes with expectation of living like a family. Staying in bed til midday is not really on. Could there be a compromise eg she gets the late night and lie in once a month whilst you take your lass out on your own. Otherwise I think she is telling you that she doesn't see you as a family unit.

Are you funding her fertility tests etc at the clinic? How does that weigh up against what she pays in rent? Just wondering if you're receiving money but then it's going out again anyway.

Have you checked whether you'd be eligible for anything like tax credits if you lived alone with your daughter?

Scaryclown is there a reason you are seeing this so strongly from the partners side and actually being quite goady? You are coming out with things you cannot know to be true, unless you are the op or her partner.

if she wants to spend the weekend in bed eating Ben and Jerrys she can totally disagree with this, if laying in bed is the lifestyle she wants she shouldn't have moved in with someone with a child, if you do that you become part of a family and that comes with responsibilities.

To what extent have you discussed these issues OP? If she is aware of the problems but not willing to acknowledge or work on compromises then it may well be time for you to start planning how to manage as a single parent.

Scary
Stop making it up. Op said she apologised to her dp upthread.

You are seeking ways to 'correct' her behaviour, but not your own?

Which behaviour should OP correct, scaryclown?

I'm genuinely curious what you're seeing that I'm missing.

The ops partner sees weekends as sleep in time, the op sees weekends as escursion time. The op thinks the whole world is like her and her partner is therefore incorrect. b
Both perspectives are correct, but the OP is wrong to impose. Take the kid out and meet up after she's refreshed, and quit the high handed shit.
Then explore why you are like this.

OP I think your comment about her being a 'bad parent' touched a nerve with her & that's why she's taken a drastic reaction & left. Reading the thread the thing that bothered me the most was the 'other people have mentioned it' sounds like you're slagging her off to people & that's not what I call 'fighting fair'. Honestly, doesn't sound like you like her very much. Also Sounds like she is very selfish. I think what scary clown is saying in a roundabout way is there is little understanding on both sides and no one will be happy until you both start listening to each other. If you want a relationship with her I think you need to compromise- no tv on past midnight in the bedroom, but she can sleep as long as she likes the next day. It's not a huge issue to have mornings just with one parent for DD, going swimming or bike riding etc. You don't need to do everything together. It sounds like the 'lie ins' are a non negotiable on her part; if you can live with it, great. But I think there is more you're angry at her for than you're letting on?

Scaryclown I don't know what your problem is .

All i have said is that she should be held accountable for her actions -
E,g walking out, coming back --- and it not being brushed under the carpet .

Yes I think she should be held accountable as to why this behaviour is ok in a relationship.

Helping her brush it under the carpet is the fact that my Dd is up until 8pm so when dp arrives home she can manipulate the situation by using the fact that neither of us argue or discuss anything in front of Dd to her situation by pretending everything is normal

I wish there was a way to evict a poster from your own thread

So many posters have posted such informative views . Scary clown just seems to want to be goody and destructive

Well if ops partner just sees weekends as sleep time, she should bugger off and live her life for her elsewhere in a bubble of narcissistic singledom. However, she's chosen to live with someone, who has a child. So she needs to fit into that structure to some degree and op needs to give her dp some allowances as she clearly has an unusual sleep pattern or perhaps even delayed sleep disorder. However, there is no give on the dps side. Only take.