Hi
A few weeks ago I entered a new relationship with a single father of a young girl (toddler).
I have been reading about step-parenting and some of the issues that can arise. This is partly because I feel I need to be aware of them just in case, but partly because I already have some concerns of my own. Mainly relating to boundaries between father and daughter. I have not yet met his daughter – these are my observations based on what I have seen and heard so far.
Some of the things that have bothered me are:
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He has (no exaggeration) about 60 photos of his daughter (nobody else in them) around his home, and only a couple with other people in.
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He calls his daughter “his Princess”. However, when he forgot about one of our dates a few weeks into our relationship and I said I always thought that if a guy really liked you, he would remember things like that and pull out all the stops, he told me that that was ‘fairytale’ thinking.
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He said to me that Valentines Day was not important to him, but that it was an opportunity to give a nice gift. We exchanged cards and gifts. I knew that Valentines this year would fall on his weekend with having his daughter and I was not expecting him to change that. However, I was secretly disappointed not to have the opportunity to do something special with him. I guessed he would have a quiet evening at home with his daughter. I was wrong. He took his daughter out to dinner in the evening. Not something he normally does. Which makes me think that Valentines DOES mean something to him… if it involves his daughter. When I asked him about this, he again said that it was ‘just an opportunity to do something’. He also made no secret of his plans for Valentines evening amongst those who we know – which made me feel humiliated.
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His daughter sleeps in his bed, but he says he tries to get her to sleep in her own bed. One time, he said to me that it would be nice if both his two favourite ladies (or something along those lines) could both sleep in his bed. Meaning her and me.
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He tells me that a ‘beautiful little lady’ is coming to visit him for the weekend (barf), meaning his daughter. He also calls me his little lady.
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There are two movies that he told me were ‘must sees’ and that I really ought to watch. So I did. Both were about “super dad”s who go to extreme lengths (killing people, willfully inflicting injury on themselves etc) to save their child and/or win the admiration of their child and ex wife. I can’t help but think it was pretty insensitive to get me to sit through BOTH of those movies.
It seems contradictory of him to expect me to take a more ‘alternative’ view of Valentines Day with few ‘fairytale’ expectations (which I generally do not have, though I can’t deny I like to be treated a little special – who doesn’t?), and yet he appears to be bringing up his daughter in a very conventional and princessy manner. For example, he calls her his “Princess”, reads her fairytales at bedtime, he buys her very gendered toys And takes her out to dinner on Valentines.
On top of this, his daughter’s mother occasionally threatens to stop him seeing his daughter. So he is fearful of doing anything that might jeopardise the present arrangements. This makes it difficult for him to present a girlfriend right now, for fear of what the mother could do.
I would be grateful for your thoughts on this. I am scared that there may be some red flags here, but don’t know if I am overreacting. Am I walking into something that I should run from?? Is there anything I can do?
I do not have children of my own. He has said to me that, all being well, he would like to get married and have more children however.