Hello! I’m fairly new to mumsnet I just posted a thread for the first time this week and I really enjoyed reading the feedback. I hope I don’t sound like all I do is moan in this but I have a couple of things to get off my chest.
My partner and I met when I was 20, he was 30 we have been with each other for 4 years now and we have shared amazing memories. When I met my partner he explained that he has a daughter who had just turnt 11, that lives with him full time and has since the age of 4. It took about 6 months of dating each other before I met her. The situation with him was amazing as we never had any distractions. If we planned a date night on a weekend it was never disturbed, what I mean by that is he had support from a baby sitter and his father. So it wasn’t like he had to cancel on me last minute, ever.
We were so in love and with his career he was extremely flexible so we had so much time together.
When I fell pregnant with our son we were both over the moon and he was a perfect little addition to our lives. Anyway, my partner changed career when my son was just 2 months old and he was no longer as flexible anymore. He would have to work away mon-frid and we only saw each other on weekends. This meant I was left with my step daughter and our newborn son. I felt rather lonely at times although I had help from my mother on her two days off a week, which helped me immensely.
Here’s the issue, my step daughter would see her mother once in a blue moon and always came home from her visits with bad habits! I don’t want to get into it too much but there was extremely bad hygiene issues when it came to the bathroom. She wouldn’t flush the chain no matter what she had done down there! The bins were left, again in a very unhygienic state and her room was always a mess, she never washed her hands after using the toilet etc this would obviously bother me when she would then handle my newborn son. She would also lie to me all the time, one day I could smell something funny in the house so I questioned her and she lied straight to my face, claiming she didn’t have a clue what it was. Turnt out she was smoking in her en-suite bathroom!!! shock
Here’s the other thing, she is extremely spoilt and always has been from her daddy, he would buy her designer clothes, jewellery, she has always had sky with all the channels in her room, Netflix, brand new iPhones with unlimited data and calls it’s insane. The girl is now 14 and I wouldn’t say she is a brat at all but whatever she wants she gets from her dad.
Whilst my partner was away on work I would call him with the things that were bothering ie the bad hygiene, I even now to this day don’t feel bad about this because I had a young baby in the house so didn’t want the place running to shit from a lazy teenager. Anyway my partner would get so annoyed and tell me to deal with it and stop calling him to complain about “trivial things” shock. He supposedly wants me to discipline her instead of “whining to him about it all the time” I find this extremely awkward and it’s like I’m picking up the pieces from something he failed to teach her. Now I’m not a clean freak but I like my house being clean, I feel ridiculous having to run up and check all of the bathrooms before I have visitors, just in case there’s an unsavoury surprise awaiting.
I used to pull her up on it all the time but it took months for her to actually pay attention and pull her weight. I’m also so sick of the white lies, she thinks I’m stupid, clearly. I think she must forget that it wasn’t too long ago that I was a teenager myself!
I feel extremely awkward disciplining a teenager who I’ve only known for 3 1/2 years. I’m sick of the extreme spoiling and he lies to me about it, his daughter needed new glasses and it was only 6 months ago her Mochino glasses got stolen from school because they’re expensive. Anyway I told him when you take her shopping for glasses get the cheaper brand not a high end pair! He turnt his nose up and felt offended that I’d got involved, he ended up buying her not just one pair but two, one was Balmain the other was Monchino. I give it a couple of months before she looses them again. She lost a pair of bloody Gucci earrings down the sink and he didn’t even mind! This isn’t the first expensive gift hat she has damaged or “lost” It really infuriates me.
He is just the same with his mother he spoils her so much and I must say he is a massive mummies boy. His mum wanted a tv for Christmas so he spend £900 on one!!! I don’t even know why she accepted it, but she was certainly rubbing her hands.
Don’t get me wrong he spoils me but I don’t care about these materialistic things like that. I look after my things and make sure they don’t get damaged as they mean a lot to me because they’re from him and I know how much he has spent on them. His daughter on the other hand has no clue about money and has that mentality of “well daddy will buy me a new one”. Even when we go out for dinner she orders mocktails without even asking permission and it doesn’t phase him at all.
Sorry to drone on and sound like a real misery but I find this extremely frustrating. His daughter was attending two after school sport clubs that she just randomly quit and made excuses that the clubs were cancelled, she just didn’t want to get involved, her life is coming home to FaceTime her friends that she has spent all day with at school. I hate the lazy attitude.
My partner has recently told me on numerous occasions that his mother comes before me he basically more or less expressed that his list of importance was 1, his daughter and our son 2, his mum 3, his sister then I came bloody last of all!!! Plus not to mention I’m 6 months pregnant with our second child. I bring up all the time that he puts me last of all and he looks at me and says “look I’ve known you for 4 years, obviously my mum is going to come before you” sorry but I find that quite outrageous, after all I’m the mother of his son and of his now unborn child. Isn’t he meant to be In love with me?! I’m sick of feeling like I’m an outsider.
His mother loves this and she knows that she comes before me, she expects him to be at her door at a click of a finger. He sends her money all of the time and helps his sister financially too, I don’t care about that really it’s more the emotional side. His mum always thinks my opinions are not important and disregards them, every conversation we have she has to be negative and tell me I’m wrong. Every bloody breath I take is questioned. She hardly ever asks for my son and never spends time with him but sees my step daughter every Friday without fail. She hasn’t seen our son in 2 whole months.
I genuinely feel like she doesn’t like me as much because I’m white and they’re black, I don’t know if that is the situation but when my partner told her he was with me her reply was “what’s wrong with a black church girl?” Bloody cheek of it! She always brings up discrimination and tells me “I’ll never understand injustice”. It’s like whatever I do will never be good enough, my parenting skills are questioned too. My son is not even two yet and we still co-sleep not that I should have to explain this but I breastfed him for 15 months and tbh it was easier having him in bed with me. He was also a very bad sleeper. She always questioned me about this and expressed infront of my family that “I’m mad for sleeping in the same bed as my baby” apparently my son thinks he is the boss and that she would never do things the way I do. This is just a few of many times she has made me feel like shit.
I’m sick of this and I just don’t know what to do. My partner thinks his mum is an angel and she is never wrong. He thinks I should click my fingers and turn into Mary poppins, I’m sorry but I met his daughter at a difficult age. She was just turning into a teenager but I’m expected to love her the way I love my son. I find this extremely uncomfortable and pressurising but I’m made out to feel like a bad person for not being affectionate towards her like I am my son.
I don’t know what to do, one minute I love my partner and love his company, the next I feel like I don’t even love him anymore. I’m so stuck and I’m just hoping I can get some sort of advice. Surely I can’t be just overreacting?
Thanks in advance blush