Am I being unreasonable?

[valdizzy]

I need somewhere to rant.

My partner and I have a soon to be 1 year old.
He has a daughter who is 5 from a ‘drunken night’. She lives with her mum 4 hours away.

My partners mum has her every Wednesday after school and every Saturday where she'll FaceTime so we can say hello etc.
My partners mum insists we have her for the weekend once a month.
It doesn’t sound like much or often and I understand the importance of my partner seeing his daughter however, my partner works away all week, he’s home at weekends if work is going fine, sometimes he has to work weekends too (construction manager, time constraints etc)
I don’t get any help from family as my mum fosters 5 children, the only break I get is to have a wee on my own when my partners home.
With my partner working so much, we haven’t been seeing his daughter every month, maybe every other month.
My partners Mum keeps getting annoyed by this.
We’re trying for another baby and the stress of it all is really getting me down.
It’s an 8 hour round trip if traffic is good, there and back on the Sunday. The mum doesn’t work and doesn’t drive so there’s no option of her meeting us half way.
I would drive whilst my partners at work but it’s not fair on my son to be in the car for that length of time.

Am I being unreasonable to think that once a month is a bit much... If we lived round the corner it would be different but it feels as if we’re constantly having to stop and start.

We tried a few weekends where we all went up in the car and stayed in a hotel but having a baby it’s so disruptive.

My partners daughter won’t share with my son when playing. She has no boundaries set by her mother, bed time is a battle. She shouts at me. Constantly says ‘I just want my mummy and daddy to look after me’. I never rise to it. I understand that all a 5 year old would want.
Even when we’ve driven the hundreds of miles within a few hours she’s saying ‘I want to go to Nana’s’.
I’ve suggested maybe she stays less but more throughout the year. My partner pays child maintenance and supports the mum with anything his daughter needs, he’s a brilliant Dad, it’s just how do we get the balance right. We have our own life and our family time too which rarely happens!

There aren’t many step parent threads I read on here that I think are as bad as many posters make out... this one takes the biscuit though.

Jesus, his poor daughter. Sorry his first child clearly gets in the way of your happily every after with his subsequent child. She is quite the inconvenience isn’t she? I hope you split up and he sees her once a month when he isn’t working.

Yabu. Very.

I am going against the grain here but I DONT think YOU are being unreasonable.. I DO think your partner is however.

You do not owe this child or mother anything. The mother decided to have a child with someone she had no relationship with.. not something I would do personally.. nevertheless she did... and expects your DH to be reasonable.. that alone is poor judgement. However.. there IS a child who chose none of this.
BOTH parents are guilty of lack of forethought.
You are not. YOUR responsibility is to your children.
If he can't be added it's his problem. It definitely isn't yours to fix..

added= arsed

Ooh that’s a bit harsh OP! I mean in your first opening lines you make reference to the ‘drunken night’ that didn’t read well at all. It sounds like you resent this little girl. I think you need to have a close look at those feelings towards her and in no way can you suggest he doesn’t see her on this once a month visit. Don’t be a wicked step mother!

Time to grow up OP

You do not owe this child or mother anything. The mother decided to have a child with someone she had no relationship with

I disagree. The OP chose to have a child with someone who already had a child and as such, owes it all of them to fit into the agreements and routines they already had. After all, the OP is supposed to be an adult and it’s a young child’s life that is the point of this thread.

Yabvvu
Pp have really said it all.
You sound completely horrid

The mother decided to have a child with someone she had no relationship with..

Eh what? You do know that being a decent parent isn't reliant on whether you're together or not.

She didn't get herself pregnant did she? They had sex, a baby was conceived and they BOTH have a duty to be decent parents. OPs man isn't doing that. And OP has a pretty nasty attitude towards a wee lassie who never asked for any of this.

Jesus Christ op.

Please just take the time to read the replies and have a long hard think about everything.

Just imagine how you would feel if he only saw your child once and month and that some else saw that as an inconvenience.

Please please take it all on board before you two destroy this poor five year.

If you have the time, energy and resources to open your legs and create another life with this feckless excuse of a Dad then you most definitely have the time, energy and resources to parent the existing child other than yours, that he already has.

You sound horrible and cruel, personally I think that little girl is better of without both of you.
Oh and remember, if he can treat his first born like this then you and yours are no different and are also expendable.

Sort yourself out.

And his daughter was not the result of a 'drunken night' - she was the result of your loser boyfriend not taking responsibility for his contraception and if he wasn't too sure then he should never have had sex.

BOTH parents are guilty of lack of forethought.
You are not.

Actually OP is too as she very clearly didn’t foresee this child playing any sort of role in her family despite choosing her father as a partner. She also ignored very clear warnings that he was a shit parent and went ahead and created a child with him.

If you have the time, energy and resources to open your legs and create another life

Urgh. What a vile turn of phrase. What’s wrong with you?

Have you considered moving closer to your partner's eldest DC so he could see her more regularly.

Once a month is pitiful.

How often was he seeing his child:
1: before you came on the scene

1. Before your child arrived

Thank god for the grandmother who has a moral code and a sense of duty to her family. Your DP is a waste of space and you are enabling his behaviour- but then the message is loud and clear - you find her a complete inconvenience.

What you have not learned yet - is she is your new family - so your family time needs to include her. But obviously 3 weekends per month is not enough.

I am literally gobsmacked at your attititude and if he says she was a "drunken mistake" - he is a lowlife piece of shit for even voicing those words.

Fucks sake OP. Just when I thought the step parenting board was starting to make strides you have to come along and give us stepparents a bad name again. You sound horrible.

@OhRuddyHell, don't worry, I don't think the op can remotely count as a stepparent!

I hope you aren't genuine.

You sound like an utter disgrace.

I pity that poor little girl. She'll grow up feeling like she doesn't matter and you'll be the cause. Shame on you.

Oh and I'm waiting for the deletion message too

At which point the OP will go back to her 'own family' and not change A. Fucking. Thing.

This is such a sad sad post.
I’m hoping it’s not real

Woah. I could tell just from reading the post that this was going to get nasty in the comments

OP is it the case, given the way in which the child came about, that your partner has never been particularly involved in his daughter's life? A majority of the step families on here come about from a couple who have separated and therefore gone from being with the child full time to having to see them less, and generally speaking in that set up they would expect to see their child more often than once a month and be very sad not to. Its got a lot of people clutching their pearls because they are coming at it from that angle but I do think it's more common than people have considered for parents who have never been heavily involved in the child's life to see them less often or visit in the holidays etc, it's just a very different set up. Not everybody will accidentally get pregnant from a chance encounter and move their entire life to accommodate, they may just choose to be less involved.

It's a tricky one because it will never be a negative thing for him to want to see his daughter, you've had plenty of comments explaining why. The problem is that you live impractically far away.

Does his mother live closer, is that why she has her often? I would either make it a thing that you visit MIL every month as a family and have her there, or as you say, have her for longer visits in the holidays instead.

But if your partner wants to be an active presence in her life then yes, you will need to accommodate it, because in that scenario once a month is barely anything as it is. Your partner needs to stop working weekends in that scenario though, because it's not your responsibility to do it all for him if you don't want it to be.