Hello everyone!
I'm new to all of this so please be nice :)
So I have been with my partner for 3 years now - due to get married in December this year. He has a beautiful 7 year old daughter who we have every Wednesday and every second weekend.
I will start by saying that even after everything that is wrote below my step daughter and I have a very strong bond/connection and I love her dearly.
So my issue is my step daughters mother. She is a nightmare. For the purpose of this I will call her M.
So my partner and M broke up mutually when my step daughter was 1 so a long time before I was even introduced to him.
However when we got together M was constantly ringing him asking him for money as her and her new boyfriend were going on holiday. Then it was that she wanted picking up and taking to the hair dressers. My partner was even babysitting her two other children whilst she went out and got drunk. After a few months of this enough was enough so I spoke my mind. My partner fully understood and stopped the unnecessary contact with M. This did not go down well. M starting screaming and shouting about how he should of stuck up for her and got rid of me etc...
Next thing was we spoke to M and arranged to swap weekends for a few months time for my Birthday. She agreed so we booked to go to Paris. The day before we were meant to fly she turned round to my partner and said he had to have his daughter and it was his problem to sort. As such short notice we had to cancel the holiday. She's done this 5 times now...
Then M brought my 7 year old step daughter a fully functioning mobile phone....
The next thing hit me like a ton of bricks. As I said earlier me and my step daughter have a great relationship. I love having her and she loves being with us. She used to ask me to tuck her in at night and told me she loved me all the time. One day last year my step daughter came up to me and asked if she could add my on snap chat. I didn't even know she knew what this app was. However, as I didn't have the app she then asked if she could have me on whatsapp. I didn't see a problem with this but I told her to go and ask her dad just to make sure it was ok.
He was completely fine with it and every now and then my step daughter would send me a message about My Little Pony or what Xmas pressies she wanted etc. On this particular day she sent me a list of what she wanted for Xmas and then followed up the message with "I Love You". I was sat at work at the time and thought "awww bless her" and I replied saying "I love you too little legs".
Next thing I know M has seen the messages and gone mental. Rang my partner and said I am not to speak to her daughter etc. Then continued and called me a paedophile. We then found out what she told me step daughter that she is never allowed to tell me she loves me ever again and show no affection towards me. My step daughter has not said it to me again since this day and it breaks my heart.
The most recent thing M has done is now refusing to give us any clean clothes for my step daughter. As my partner has recently lost his job he hasn't been able to pay child maintenance. Any money he does get goes straight to M though as I'm happy covering the house bills. Well now M refuses to give us any clothes and simply says that "Jess needs to buy them". The problem is I always buy my step daughter clothes but once they go back with her we never see them again.
I am seriously at my wits end with it all and so is my partner. What can we do in this situation as we don't want anything to effect my step daughter. Every singles week something kicks off and its even making us argue as the stress is too much. She's already threatening about not letting my step child be at our wedding.
I'm so fed up, anyone got any ideas?