Partner besotted with his adult daughter.

[Netcurtainswithlead]

Another post on here has prompted me to write this.

I have ended my relationship of a year in the last few days but want some other people’s views and experiences as I’m having some difficulty getting my head around this.

Boyfriend was 15 years older than me. He was divorced and had adult married daughter 15 years younger than me.
I gradually became aware that he was besotted with her. If anyone has seen A Bouquet of Barbed Wire it was like that. He had her picture as his screensaver, took her as his plus one to social dos instead of me sometimes, went on holiday with her and her baby staying in a family room and bought her gifts that I would have thought were more appropriate for her husband to buy her. I used to think he liked to play happy families with her and her baby. They had shared a bed on holiday many times when she was a teenager, he told me this. She was brought up very privileged and her husband didn’t earn much, they struggled for cash and my BF gave her a lot of money. I began to feel he talked about her as if she were his wife. He told me many times that she didn’t like me and she would not go to his house if I was there even though we only met briefly a couple of times. I had done nothing whatsoever ever to warrant this.

I’m not asking if people think this was an inappropriate relationship between my BF and his daughter because in my opinion it was. What I want to know is if anyone else has experienced anything similar.

Yes it’s weird. You could slept on the floor.

What's completely unacceptable is insinuating that every father - just because he is a man - would do something inappropriate with his daughter, regardless of whether she's a teen or any other age, if they shared a bed.

I'm not denying that sexual abuse exists. I'm also not minimizing how often it happens.
But can we please remember that these are the exceptions. The vast majority of men do not feel attracted to children, no, not even their own children when they become teenagers.
If you can't trust a father to share a bed with his teenage daughter, then there was a problem long before the bedsharing was ever a topic of discussion.
A normal father who has a normal relationship with his child would be doing nothing inappropriate while sharing a bed with this child. To say otherwise is an injustice to all good fathers everywhere.

And I'm saying this as a feminist with very strong opinions who quite frequently speaks out against men for poor behaviour. But here, I strongly disagree!

No father should be sharing a bed with their teenage daughter and the same goes for mothers and sons. It’s highly inappropriate and do I even have to spell about the involuntary biological responses in males when they sleep. It’s fucking grim.

Why?

When there was a full house, sleep overs, one of my school friends used to crash in with his mum as a teenager.

What do you think is going to happen. He and his brother shared a room, and he didn't like it when there was sleep over so crashed in with his mum in her bed.

Why is it grim.

As a previous post, said, the overwhelming majority of preparents harvey, no interest that ways in their children.

Yup, and the same goes for mothers and son. Totally inappropriate and judging from these comments it’s disturbing to find so many people think this is normal.

You are better off without him OP. The whole situation with his daughter sounds dysfunctional on both sides (his and hers). Sounds like his daughter made no effort to get to know you, and pushed you out - he seemingly made no effort to counter that. Move on and chalk it up as a really useful learning experience.

I actually would like to ask... Why wouldn't you?
I've shared beds on holiday with friends, male and female, with my mum, my dad, with my siblings, my grandmother, boyfriends, ... I've slept in tents, hostels, hotels, rented cabins, whatever kind of accomodation.

Do you know what makes these things weird? Unneccessarily sexualising something as an outsider when the people involved never did.
Normal friendsor siblings of the opposite gender can share a bed without having sexual thoughts about each other.
Fathers and daughters or mothers and sons can share a bed without having sexual thoughts about each other.

You're taking something that's actually very innocent and pure and wholesome and turning it into something dirty. But the dirt came from your mind, not theirs.
I get equally upset when people say fathers shouldn't bathe their daughters or change their diapers, or help them change into their swimsuits at the pool.
Jesus f-ing christ.
Not every man should be a presumed pedophile when actually they are just being a parent. A good parent at that. An involved parent.
I should only hope that my daughters remain close enough with my husband that when they are teens and they go on a trip with him, they wouldn't mind sharing a bed with him.

@BlueyGreyWhale Your friend and his mum were weird for allowing this. He’s a teenager sharing a bed with his mum. He could have slept anywhere. Literally on the floor with a pillow and duvet. Surprised he wasn’t bullying for that.

I find it hard to believe why you can’t understand why people would find this grim. Are you forgetting that males can experience erections when they sleep, something they have no control over and is involuntary ? You don’t find that disturbing that his teenager daughter could wake up to this if they are sharing a bed?

Ah yes, he should have slept on a cold hard floor because people like you would judge him and bullying him for it.

You're the one with the issue. Do you fancy your kids and sexualise them?And is this why you think it's grim.

I see you’re deflecting here… but I don’t have a penis and I’m not sleeping in the same bed as my teenager kids. But you obviously think this is okay, I hope you don’t have children as your POV is highly disturbing.

What?

Whats disgusting?

I think the mistake some posters are making here is to argue for blanket rules — either “it’s always fine” or “it’s always dodgy.” Real life is more complicated than that.

For most families, yes, sharing a room might be logistically convenient and totally harmless. But in other families, where boundaries are weaker or where there are existing dynamics of enmeshment or control, it can become unhealthy. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically “incest”, but it also doesn’t mean it’s automatically fine.

One key question is who initiated it. Was it the parent’s idea? The child’s? Did one feel unable to say no? If an adult child and parent are repeatedly making exactly the same choice to share a room or bed, with no discussion and no sense of boundary, that does raise questions. It’s not about being “dirty-minded” , it’s about recognising when a relationship is functioning more like a spousal stand-in than a healthy parent-child bond.

I also think there’s some privilege showing in the idea that this can never be a problem. For people from safe, boundaried families, it’s easy to assume that. But for those from enmeshed or coercive backgrounds, these situations are loaded, and shaming people who voice discomfort only protects the unhealthy dynamics.

It isn’t about criminalising everything or assuming the worst. It’s about recognising the wide grey zone between “healthy” and “incest”, because that grey zone is exactly where many people’s pain and confusion lies.

OP, I'm glad you got out of this relationship for two reasons 1. these things don't get better 2. you risk (as this thread has highlighted) being labelled as the crazy, dirty-minded, jealous girlfriend getting in the way of 'pure love', rather than being honoured as the insightful woman you clearly are. Best of luck.

I have a friend who is like this with his sister. Raves on and on about her. I think it is a form of narcissism.

Op it all sounds normal to me.

What i think is actually the issue is female jealousy. New partners often get jealous of men spending time with a female child from a previous relationship. I have seen it happen a lot.

When my dad got a new girlfriend, she hated him spending any time with me. She was so jealous and nasty to me. She was so cruel to me, that i eventually got to a stage where i refused to be aused anymore and i refused to be around her anymore.

My mum would drop me at my grans and my dad would visit me at my grans on his weekends.

How big would this erection need to be 🤣

Not justifying, merely factually pointing out an incorrect assertion by a poster

I agree that teenage daughters should not share a bed with their dad.

Social services would not like it.

Its basic safeguarding

The people making jokes about the presence of erections in a bed containing relatives, have no idea how glib they sound.

Social services wouldnt even be involved

Because it's a ridiculous comment. How would the daughter know about his erection?

When I was ten, I actually shared a bed with with my much older adult brother once. He had been working away for a long time. He came to visit and we were watching tv in his room. I was young and innocent and didnt know anything about anything. I had missed him and i asked my mum if i could sleep in his room that night. She said yes.

I woke up the next morning and the duvet had come off him and i could see his erection through his lightweight pjs. He didnt do anything to me. But I was traumatised to see it. I was too young to see it.. I never slept in a bed with him again

Duvets come off people in the night.

You can see erections through pyjamas

I work in a school
if a teenage girl came into our school and said that she was sleeping in a bed with her dad, social services would be rang and it woukd be reported by the school straight away.

Well im sorry you were traumatised by an erect penis on your sleeping brother under his clothes. I saw my fathers penis in the shower once and also saw my mothers nether regions changing at swimming and neither traumatised me.