Spousification / miniwife is real and not a pseudo science

[truthwithin]

I have read some threads recently that mock SMs for suggesting their Dsds are miniwives.

Whilst some of these threads are typed in a moment of despair or anger and may come across as jealous or hateful, living with it is both detrimental to child and partner.

I only have experience of father / daughter spousification and, although this has been managed over the years, still causes tension and hostility every now and again.

Backstory: DP left Dsd18 at the age of 4 and in another country at to be with ExW, ( yes I know it's shitty & have told DP so myself).

DP left ExW when Dsd10 was 4, (reoccurring theme, I know), and the guilt of his first breakup has followed him. DP has said he regrets leaving Dsd18, although they are building a relationship now.

From the age of 4 till now DSD10 gets told she is the most important little lady in his life. I don't particularly like that as DP does have an older female child.

DP had 4 yrs of non-stable relationships, non of whom were introduced to Dsd10 and effectively they existed as a single unit. For part of this time DSD10 also lived full time with DP.

DP has deferred to Dsd10:

What car he drives. Expensive convertible, soon changed for something more practical.

Our first home. I didn't realise DP had already viewed it with DSD10 and found it acceptable.

Family pet, again a stealth viewing.

Things have got better over the years but DP does occasionally defer adult decisions to Dsd10, instead of discussing as a family or as adult choices.

DSD10 does sometimes see me as a rival for DPs affection, even though it is a totally different type of love. ie: DP cannot touch or be near me when Dsd10 is here. DSD10 will actually kiss DP and then check to see if I'm looking and smirk.

Dsd10 will want to check any items we are buying, sofa, car etc. are Ok.

DSD10 must be sat next to DP, holding his hand & being spoon fed at any function that requires eating. Any other female s that approach are given lasers, including DPs own mother!

Tbh, I just leave them to it now as DP is oblivious & I enjoy the peace & quiet.

It has taken me some time to realise that DSD10 is probably jealous of the affection between myself & DP and I am better off leaving them to their own relationship, however I know many SMs will notice a significant change in their DPs behavior towards them when Dsc are around.

Talking about miniwives and dsd's jealousy makes it far too much about the child involved as if she's knowledgeably manipulating the situation when it's actually one her guilty father has forced her into. His lack of boundaries and wanting her to justify his choices to somehow make up for the fact he won't apply himself to having a proper father daughter relationship sound like they've led to her learning that's the way to have a relationship with him. Very damaging for her, perhaps concentrate on getting that over to him rather than thinking about mini wives.

It's poor parenting/lax boundaries dressed up as something else.
Poor kid.
How did you come to be involved with this man op? He sounds crap.

He sounds beyond awful.

She's not a "mini wife" she's a CHILD whose father didn't implement the correct boundaries and gave her a role that she wasn't equipped to take on, what with being a CHILD.

Nikki why don't you just not read these threads if you're so bored of them. No one is blaming the kid!!

it does sound an awful lot like the child is blamed.

Of course the child is blamed. This is just misogyny dressed up as science.

Attributing bitchy, jealous traits to a child that your adult male husband abandoned just looks low.

The little girl is 10. She has a fairly useless father who has messed her about. He needs to be a better father to her

And so what he swapped an expensive convertible for a practical car. Most parents do have practical cars. What an odd detail.

I disagree that it has been mocked recently.
However I would say it has been challenged.

I have seen MWS trotted out on all manner of threads and frankly the term disgusts me.
I am afraid your post does nothing to convince me otherwise and just confirms to me that it is a label usually given to a child/young adult by the SM.
When you look deeper in to the father-daughter relationship you find that it is in fact the fault of the adult not the child.

I will never understand how a grown women can be jealous of a father-daughter relationship to the point where they use such words to describe them. Vile.

For me the answer does not lie in labelling the child it lies in the adults involved, looking at and correcting their own behaviour.

But than I suppose it is easier to blame the child than admit you/father/mother could be the problem

Look to the parent not the child.

The parent is failing here. The terms are ridiculous.

XmasMenace I agree with you & my post does not blame DSD10. It is DP, who through his own guilt at leaving DSD18 has given DSD10 an almost elevated, decision making role.

This may well have been fine until another female adult has come into his life who has taken some of that 'power' away.

Those SMs who live with this should be supported and not vilified. The first year of my own relationship was hard work as DP continued to defer household decisions to DSD10. My choice was to either walk away or pull him up on it, which I did and still do. This has made my own relationship with Dsd10 better and to an extent DPs relationship more adult / child instead of peer to peer.

The op feels uncomfortable expressing what an ineffectual twat her partner is, so is suggesting that it's a two-way thing, with a little mini-spouse/princess/zilla who bares equal responsibility here.

If she was not blame-shifting, then her op would read something more like this:

DP left his DD when she was four. Then he left his next DD when she was four. Since then, he's had on and off contact with them sometimes part time, sometimes full-time(?) He lets DD make important decisions about the family. He gets her to keep his secrets. He feeds her(?) like a baby. He encourages her to treat all other women as the enemy(?) He bows to her every whim. Is there something wrong with him? Will it harm her?

Answer - yes.

Those SMs who live with this should be supported and not vilified.

I won't vilify you but I struggle to support a woman who chooses up make a new life with a man who repeatedly abandons and fucks up their children.

PerpendicularVincenzo again, I am saying this is learned behavior rather than DSD10 being manipulative.

I actually think this has been quite damaging for her emotional well being as she struggles forming friendships with peers her own age. At social gatherings DSD10 will not go off with other children & prefers the company and attention of DP. DSD10 does get extremely jealous of other females who engage with DP.

It's quite sad really. I also believe DP did what he thought was best and made DSD10 happy at the time. This wasn't done intentionally or with malice. It does however mean lots if hard work to get back to that parent / child role.

Those SMs who live with this should be supported and not vilified.

They are not vilified they are supported.
Just because some will not join in with the child blaming does not mean they are vilifying them it just means that we hold a different pov.

If you run with the label MWS then you end up with the mind set that the situation/problems is the child's doing.
Therefore the adults sit back happily holding the child responsible and attempting to change the their (child's) behaviour which obviously never actually changes the situation because it is the adults behaviour that is the cause.

Isn't it more productive to look at everyone involved and see where changes can be made all round to improve the situation?

'support' does not always consist of ' there there, you are right, she sounds awful'
That is nice to hear perhaps but if it is just platitudes which make the poster feel better but does little to address the problem then it is pointless, indeed possibly harmful.

'support' might be 'that all sounds awful but it seems as if the father is the one who needs to change. The child is displaying behaviours born of her situation which are encouraged by her father. You appear to be focussing on the wrong person in this scenario'

Support is not mindless agreement.

OP I agree that you need support and also that the little girl needs support. The person that is letting you both down is your partner.

I think the wording of your post does suggest that you blame the child, as if she has some control over the situation. She doesn't. She is powerless to change anything, if she is indeed suffering from this spousification syndrome, then she needs help.

Are you going to get the support for both yourself and her, or are you going to allow this man to treat her like this? Alternatively you could leave the relationship as she is not really your responsibility and no-one would blame you if you did.

I think it's a good point that the SM in this situation is probably deserving of some support and compassion, and it's not just about attributing blame and leaving it at that. Because, she probably DIDNT know what she was getting into interms of this dynamic! This is a step parenting board, not a stepchildren board. It doesn't all have to come back to 'poor child, you should be feeling sorry for her and not have any other feelings of your own'. Can't we spare sympathy and concern for more than one party here?

OP, it sounds awful really. But great to hear in your last post that things have been getting better over the past year. I hope things continue in that trend. I really think now is the time to break some of these patterns, before teen and years hit. Would your DP be amenable to outside advice/counselling/parenting lessons or do you think that'not necessary?

Take the focus off the child, as the behaviour is just a result of the father's actions.

What will your dp change? How will he undo some of the damage?

Does he talk about it with you, and acknowledge it.

JohnFarleysRuskin DP is not the man he was years ago. I do think he made poor choices and was in essence, an ineffectual twat as you put it.

The issue is undoing those years and keeping the family dynamic stable. Not just for Dsd10 but my own children.

Dsd10 does have emotional issues. Is it hard work - yes. Do I get frustrated with Dsd10 & DP - yes. Does my patience get tried - yes. Have I considered walking away - absolutely.

I have blamed DSD10 in anger on here & I think a lot of SMs post whilst angry or upset. This doesn't make us monsters, just human.

I hope I am sympathetic to anyone in this tricky situation. But I would be much more sympathetic if there was not so much denial about their partners behaviour.

Op of course sneaking around with her/house hunting behind your back was intentional. I presume The guy is not stupid as well as everything else.

Cross post op.

I hope he is improving. All parents feel guilty ab

river I agree that support and compassion should be given in most situations but it shouldn't be confused with blind agreement as that can do more harm than good.

I don't think the phrase 'you knew what you were getting in to when you married him' is helpful at all and I will shoot it down whenever I hear/read it.
I have had difficult times with my own children and for all they were planned and I thought I knew what I was getting in to the reality was bloody far from it So the SP should never be blamed in that respect.

I think it is about balance. The family unit needs to be looked at on a whole and although I don't agree with child blaming I would never tell a SP to just put up and shut up.

OP says in her last post that they have been talking about it and also that her DP/DSD's relationship is starting to become more parent/child instead of peer/peer.

She also points out that her DP wasn't acting out of a wish to damage his DD but rather doing what he thought best at the time to make her happy. I think this is very understandable, if short sighted and weak. He sounds like a human to me.

I get that a lot of peple think the SP board was too prone towards child blaming (though it REALLY wasn't my overall impression of the board in the 5 years I've been here) but swinging it back the other way to mean 100% sympathy for the child and none for the stepparent is hardly an improvement. People are human and fallible and imperfect, few situations are black and white. It's comforting to boil a situation down to good and bad, assign blame, say LTB and move on, but that isn't how life works as I know it.