My husband hugely favours one child over the other

[DarlingMarianne]

I'm divorced, and I remarried a year ago to a man who I have known and dated for 6 years prior to marrying him. We have an amazing connection, and he is a good man, however...

He has quite obviously bonded with my 17 year old daughter in a way that he hasn't with my 14 year old son.

He is very, very sweet, and patient with my daughter, who has him wrapped around her little finger. They have a lovely, relaxed, jokey relationship. However, my 14 year old son just seems to irritate / trigger him. And I don't know why. My son is in many respects the easier child. He's a real peacemaker, isn't moody (yet!), avoids confrontation and rarely reacts to my husband, even when he is being overly hard on my son.

My husband has admitted that he has soft spot for my daughter that he doesn't have with my son. I get really upset / defensive when my husband gets annoyed with my son over something petty, or some non-event. Today, we were going to the beach and my son wanted to take his wet suit. He is fair skinned and has a bit of sunburn from the weekend. He wanted to spend a lot of time in the water at the beach. This seemed to completely trigger my husband and he got really wound up. He told my son he would look stupid for wearing his wetsuit on the beach, and raised his voice to him and then swore under his breath. I heard the swearing but I'm not sure if my son heard. In any event, my son didn't react, but stood his ground, politely, and took (and wore) the wetsuit.

On BH Monday (an equally hot day) we took my daughter to the beach, she wore her wetsuit and there was no comment.

Does anyone else have this sort of inequality in their families? Do you or your partner obviously favour one child? I'm interested to see if it is common or not.

How do you cope / manage it? It's becoming more apparent to me the older the children get and I find it upsetting.

Unfortunately, it does seem like a difficult conversation will have to be had with your OH about moving forward. You need to set the boundaries on how your OH behaves with both your children, as you are their protector.

How would you feel if your ex re-married and their new partner treated your son / daughter the way your current partner does? What would you expect him to do about the situation?

It seems that you and your OH need to discuss how everyone is expected to behave towards one another moving forward, and what the consequences will be for breaking your agreement. This is obviously the hard bit as, in my view, it is an either/or situation. Your OH agrees to treat your son with the respect he deserves, or your relationship with your OH ends.

In answer to some of the saner posts..

• I was dating him throughout his divorce. He was separated when we met and his wife was divorcing him for adultery. She tried her best to destroy his relationship with both kids. His daughter was told by her mum, aged 13, what her father had done, in graphic sexual terms. His daughter pulled away from him then, and stopped seeing him shortly afterwards. I have no doubt that sharing adult intimate things with his daughter at that age destroyed his relationship and was exactly what the ex wife intended. In fact, she actually screamed down the phone to him that she was going to destroy his relationship with his children right before she told both children of the adultery. They had been separated for 18 months at the time, and she was angry that the marital home looked like it was going to have to be sold. I heard her screaming down the phone to him, and I heard her threats. I was sat next to him. He has never stopped trying with his daughter but has got nowhere. There was a point where we thought we would lose his son too, he was under huge pressure to not see his Dad.

• although I did believe he favoured my daughter before we married and I knew he could be unreasonable AT TIMES, it is absolutely more apparent now than it was. I don’t know whether this is, as someone suggested, because he feels more empowered now we are married, or whether it is because my son has started growing up.

• My kids spend a lot of time at their Dads. It’s pretty flexible. I get on really well with him, (my ex) and he is a great Dad. They have the choice now they are older of who to live with, and for the majority of the time they want to be with me. We very recently had a discussion ( with my ex) about our arrangements and neither wanted to change things currently. If they did, they know I would 100% support that. I think at some point my son will want to spend more time at his Dads as he gets older.

• the kids are going to their Dads tonight and we are talking. I won’t let this go.

Thank you for those who have given constructive advice.

Op this grown man doesn't care about how he has treated your son and doesn't care how you feel about it.

Your son returned to his own home after several days away to be confronted by this mans bullying behaviour.
A man who admits he has no bond with your son.
Your son knows this (even if he's never been told, he knows) and he will eventually vote with his feet and one day will not return from his dad's and your husband is not very subtly hoping that this happens too.

He needs to be honest that he's harder on your son if you're going to have a hope of resolving this. Otherwise you're pissing in the wind, he'll give lip service at most, and nothing will change.

his wife was divorcing him for adultery

He sounds lovely.

He's escalating.

Doesn't much matter why. Just matters that you cut it dead and show your son that nobody bullies him and gets away with it.

it is absolutely more apparent now than it was. I don’t know whether this is, as someone suggested, because he feels more empowered now we are married, or whether it is because my son has started growing up.

Probably a combination of the two - he feels complacent (possibly sense of ownership of you) enough to throw his weight around and feels challenged by your son. Territorial like some sort of warped gorilla or terrier.

You need to slap that shit down.

the kids are going to their Dads tonight and we are talking. I won’t let this go.

Good luck OP. Hope he's able to see where he's gone wrong, and I hope he's willing to accept and change his behaviour. If he becomes defensive and denies there is an issue, i'm afraid you'll have a decision to make.

Your son sounds like a lovely young man. What a shame that he has to live in a home where he is belittled and made to feel unwelcome by his mother’s husband. You might want to think he’s not bothered but he will be. How would you like it if you had to live in a house with someone who made no effort to hide the fact that they don’t like you, and then favoured your sibling?

Ultimately just say you aren’t prepared to leave your husband, because you clearly aren’t, even though he hasn’t taken any of your “sticking up for your son” on board and continues to treat him like shit. I hope by some miracle he changes his behaviour after you speak to him.

I genuinely never understand these situations. The first attack, episode of bullying, petulant criticism of one of my children and I would be so disgusted by that person I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them again. I couldn't love a person like that.

I wouldn't go so far as to say there's abuse going on with the teenage dd but a lot of middle aged men would really like to give that kind of attention to a non related attractive teen girl and receive some in return - no matter how innocent on her part - and I don't care what you say, there will be an element of that within how he relates to her. I do think you're very naive not to be keeping an eagle eye on that situation.

Personally I would never have married him and the relationship would now be over if I had. However you seem intent on sticking it out and I understand dismantling a long term relationship is difficult but from someone who has no interest in attacking you, this dynamic between this man and your kids is really problematic and I don't think a few long chats are going to solve it.

What does your son's Dad, your ex think of all this by the way?

Amazing that you can blame the ex he cheated on, for turning his DD against him.

He destroyed that family OP.

Honestly I'm surprised any of his DC want anything to do with him.

I should be surprised you continued a relationship with him but sadly been around MN too long.

You deserve better and your DC definitely do.

Territorial like some sort of warped gorilla or terrier.

So accurate it made me snort with amusement

Just leave her she thinks " talking " is going to solve his feelings and suddenly make him like her son !

She won't take no ones advice she has justified his actions and how he is on every post back.

Your first point about his divorce just makes him even more gross, IMO.

I’m not convinced you’re not on a wind-up now, tbh.

This wonderful man, and wonderful father is just a compete prick really isn’t, he?

Out of interest- how young was the girl he was cheating on his wife with?

I have to be honest, he doesn't seem like a catch. Did your relationship with him play a part in your divorce?

He cheated on his wife and betrayed his family. His daughter wants nothing to do with him because he destroyed her family. The mother probably didn’t need to do anything to make her hate him-he did that all alone. He doesn’t deserve a relationship with his children if he shat all over their childhood and happy family like that. But if course it’s all the nasty ex wife’s fault

The more you share about him the more unpleasant he sounds.

He sounds like a bully. Bullies are nice as pie to some people and bully others. Be very careful. You and your dd aren’t people he bullies. But he is repeatedly nasty to your son. This doesn’t even need to be blatant. He’ll wear him down over a long period of time. Sometimes it takes victims years to work out what happened as it was so subtle.

I don’t blame his daughter for not speaking to him and I don’t blame the ex-w for breaking down and screaming about his adultery. Smashing a family to bits and disrupting a kid’s home by shagging someone on the side often has dramatic and lifelong consequences. Your husband doesn’t sound like the great catch that you seem to think he is.

I despair of the standards some women seem to set for the men they bring into their children’s lives

Gawd lockdown grumpiness is ceaseless.
I think the OP has got the message - it would be pointless whatever she said. It would be wrong. Go and find something else to do posters.

When I first read this I thought 'maybe he bullies the son because the son sees something about the inappropriate bond with the daughter that the mum is too dick blind to see'

Stranger things have happened

@Takingontheworld

Thankgod someone else said it.

Fucking creepy about your daughter.

THIS

Creepy and cruel.
How could you let your son suffer this for SEVEN YEARS? 🙁🙁🙁

Love how some people calling out the husband being a bully are bullying the OP. Go figure.

There is zero chance your son's dad is a "great dad" if your son would rather live in his present circumstances.

OP, you really don't have good judgement on what a good dad is.

I'd be interested in what details were divulged which caused new guy's daughter to cut ties. Age? Consent?

Of course the ex was screaming at him. He was having her children's home sold after cheating and leaving. The wanker.

he is a really committed and loyal person

So committed and loyal that he cheated on his wife?

If he hasn't learned how to behave around your son in the past 7 years, no amount of 'talks' will change that. A person has to want to change, and your H has made it perfectly clear that he sees nothing wrong in how he acts.

If pushed, he may try to lay a guilt trip on you with a few crocodile tears. There may be a bit of crying about how upsetting it all is about his own daughter wanting nothing to do with him. You will feel sorry for him and try to make him feel better because you feel guilty.

And then things will carry on as they have always done. If you're really lucky, he may make a little bit of an effort for a short while. Just enough to convince you that he has the potential to change.

And then it will all rumble along until the next 'humdinger.' Those of us who have lived this know the script.