Good morning . My partner and Inare together a year . We’re both in mid fifties and we are both our teen/ adult children’s carers. Our children don’t have a relationship with their other parent, sadly.
my partners 21 year old daughter lives at home with him. We live 30 miles away from one another. She dropped out of uni , had some emotional challenges and works in a local shop. They live rurally and he drops and collects her everywhere as she doesn’t drive.
She is a pleasant girl and is friendly but is enormously self absorbed and goes from one drama To another. Largely , I think due to being rejected by her mother and all that manifests from that.
However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that she controls the household. She has no ambition to leave the shop job and move in with friends, to learn to drive or to gain her wings so to speak. I understand this completely. He is her safe space after years of chaos and rejection from her mother, boyfriends and indeed friends.
He is a wonderful father and adores his daughter but is becoming increasingly frustrated by all the different issues that seem to roll in to one another.
We don’t stay at each others homes overnight out of respect for our children’s space and also our own comfort. This suits me.
However , it is becoming apparent that she gets what she wants. For example, last week, we had an event. His daughter was in crisis .. relationship troubles.. so she spent the day and evening with us which was lovely albeit emotionally full on as she spoke incessantly about her problems.
She was due to stay at a friends but decided last minute she wanted to stay home which I understood , but I then had to go home.
The next day she was upset again so I cam
e and left as she wanted a day with her dad to be comforted , again understandable.
The problem
I have is that despite all of these issues, the support and guidance she receives, she doesn’t take on any advice and the dram continues over and over. He is so stressed and sick of it all but is of course putting her first and centre.
What are your thoughts about this? I’ve never experienced this sort of thing so would like some guidance about how to
proceed. She will often get sick when he has plans made but gets better once he changes his plans to be with her which in retrospect, I’ve only
realised lately.
Is she playing on his guilt and sympathy?
When a friend asked where we were staying after the event and I told him that our plans changed , he immediately said my partners daughters name as if to say his daughter wouldn’t allow it or was the cause of us not being able to stay overnight together .
sorry this is so long . I
am unable to paragraph .