Partners daughter

[Daisy164]

Hi
I'm at my wits end and need some advice.

Long story short, I have found myself in a same sex relationship with my best friend of 23 years.

Completely unplanned but discovered a happiness I never knew existed.

We are both divorced and been let down hugely by our husbands and subsequent partners so had resigned ourselves to the shelf.

She has adapted really well, I have found it a lot harder but that's another story.

The issue I have is with her 2 children. One is 22 and the other one is 12. She does absolutely everything for them, they don't have to lift a finger. They are both very rude and disrespectful to their mum and everyone else with the younger daughter being very possessive and jealous. She speaks terribly to her mum, hits her, throws things at her, hurts her and never says please or thank you, hello or goodbye and is quite frankly a nightmare to be around. She won't do a thing for herself and until recently shared a bed with her mum every night. I have tried for 2 years to be a friend to her, we've had days out, all sorts. She knows about the relationship between her mother and me but she has always been this way. Her mum and dads relationship lacked love so I appreciate that she's never seen anyone close to her mum but equally her mum and I are nothing more than friends in front of anyone else. I am very mindful of her feelings.

I see the daughter perhaps once a month, sometimes twice as we live an hour away and have our own houses, work and I have children too. My children are older teenagers and have given up trying with the daughter as they are fed up of being ignored and the rudeness. This makes family gatherings very awkward. She even ignored my elderly mum when she met her, didn't even say hello back which my mum was very offended by.

My partner appreciates that she has never been firm with her daughter. She's never been punished or disciplined and gets rewarded for her bad behaviour as my partner opts for the easy route, in her words.

It has got to the point now where I feel like a spare part and it's causing issues between my partner and I. I don't want to go to her house anymore because of it, I don't want to go to her family gatherings as the daughters rudeness is painful to witness.

I love my partner but really believe that my presence is making the child unhappy. It's unsettling for my partner as she doesn't know what to do. She has mollycoddled this child and I can't see that anything can change.

What do I do? Persevere and continue knowing this child is desperate for 100% of her mums attention and put up with the rudeness and hostility (she was slamming doors last night when I went round because her mum and I laughed at a video of us from years ago) or try and find a way through. I am desperately trying to be the mature adult but I don't know what to do.

I feel really unhappy and don't know what to do.

Any advice welcome. Thank you xx

Honestly? Given you say the mother refuses to do anything about her behaviour I would call it quits.

Yeah I would cut my losses as well if I were you. She’s not going to do anything about her daughters behaviour

It's more that she doesn't know what to do rather than she refuses to do anything about it. She's tried to talk to her but gets things thrown at her.

Her own parents always did everything for her so it's normal to her. Other children in her family have the same attitudes so she sees the behaviour as "running in the family". I feel very strongly about manners and being polite, as most parents do and would never tolerate it from my own children.
The last time we discussed it I was told "she's just a child" and she doesn't know what to do 🤷‍♀️

23 years of friendship is so hard to risk so I can see why you're so unsure as to what to do. Do you think your friendship will survive if your romantic relationship doesn't? Not that that should make a difference but I think that's what's keeping you from making, from an outsider's perspective, a quite obvious decision.

The reality is that I really love her but the stress is making me feel ill. Nobody has ever loved me as much as she does and we get in so well and I don't want to lose what we have.

But at the cost of the daughters happiness and well being? Trying so hard to be unselfish and mature but it's so difficult

The daughter's inappropriate behaviours have been rewarded for so long that it sounds like they will need help to get back on track. I'd say family Therapy for mum and daughter/s, I can't see this improving without outside help, do you think mum would be open to that? You sound like a good friend In a very difficult situation. Wishing you luck

I think she may be open to therapy. She jokingly said she wants to send her to boot camp!

I agree that you sound like a lovely friend and a loving, supportive partner. Everyone deserves love and respect. The most important thing is that as you have found out, no matter how hard you try, the issues that your partner's daughter has and their relationship is between them to try to improve, definitely with professional help. She is the parent and her daughter is the child so they simply have to do it. You can be supportive and encouraging, but you can't do the work for them and it might be a very long and hard slog for them. The sooner they start the better - imagine the full blown teen years?! The kids always have to come first in any case and you are not being selfish in supporting your partner and her daughter.

"My partner appreciates that she has never been firm with her daughter. She's never been punished or disciplined and gets rewarded for her bad behaviour as my partner opts for the easy route, in her words."

It is hard being firm with children and I'm definitely a bit on the flaky side. But surely your friend sees that just giving into her daughter the whole time is a very poor plan long-term. She's actually letting her daughter down incredibly badly. Children including teenagers really do feel safer with boundaries, as you know. This girl sounds to me like, above all, she's frightened because no-one's containing her or reining her in.

My dad repeated to me something he heard a young adult child say to her parents - it may well have been in a film or TV programme - but it really struck him and it struck me. The comment, with regard to her destructive behaviour, was "you didn't love me enough to stop me". It is an act of great love to weather the storm of a child's upset when you say no to something. It's taken me way too long to realise this but I am better at it now than I used to be.

I'm sure your partner has been a great mother in many ways but she's really letting her daughter down on this. It's not too late to redirect her but if that is not done in the coming years, this young girl is probably going to grow into a very difficult and isolated adult. Your partner needs to stop burying her head in the sand about this and step up for her daughter.

Like PP, I would recommend getting professional help to resolve this. We went for family therapy about 4 years ago because we felt we were all just too angry with each other too much of the time; too much time was spent shouting. While we usually got to a calm place, we assumed there must be much better ways of communicating than we were managing. We probably had about 8 sessions. It was incredibly helpful.

We are both divorced and been let down hugely by our husbands and subsequent partners so had resigned ourselves to the shelf.

You sound like you've be one lesbians by some sort of weird default "can't find a good man so I'll try a woman" thing.

Is there some big history of lesbianism or bisexuality that you've left out here?

She's created this dynamic with her dd, it doesn't make her good partner material, whether she's a man or woman.

So getting into a lesbian relationship hasnt magically solved relationship.problems, there are still problems. That's relationships.

I suppose you could try counselling as above, but honestly dynamics like the one in your partners home can he extremely difficult to solve. It's making you stressed and miserable, maybe you should put it on the back burner til her dd is more grown up and independent.

@SleepingBunnies21

We are both divorced and been let down hugely by our husbands and subsequent partners so had resigned ourselves to the shelf.

You sound like you've be one lesbians by some sort of weird default "can't find a good man so I'll try a woman" thing.

Is there some big history of lesbianism or bisexuality that you've left out here?

She's created this dynamic with her dd, it doesn't make her good partner material, whether she's a man or woman.

So getting into a lesbian relationship hasnt magically solved relationship.problems, there are still problems. That's relationships.

Sorry, I realise how that sounds.

I lost all faith in ever finding a man that would love my and my children genuinely. Had a disastrous marriage, fell in to another narcissistic relationship and then dating websites were a disaster. I was perfectly happy on my own. My partner believes she may have always been a lesbian and has shared some drunken kisses with women in the past but nothing more.

Our relationship started after too much Prosecco one night and just developed from that. Not an ideal start but it feels right. I've felt very confused as I am very much not gay so have no idea how I could feel so strongly. Maybe I am! It's just the person and not the gender that matters to me.