Fiance’s Daughter refuses to meet me

[Goldbracelets]

My fiancé has a 13 year old daughter. He and her Mum separated 18 months ago and her Mum is NOT happy about it. She still sends nasty texts and accuses my fiancé of plotting to murder her, while begging for him back. It’s nuts. There’s probably some mental health issues there, and I don’t for one second forget how hard this is on a 13 year old. She has a great relationship with her Dad who she stays with about a third of the time. My fiancé have been going out for a year and both of us feel it’s just right and hopefully long term. We got engaged a few weeks ago, although we’re we won’t get married for several years. But we’d love to think about moving in together, and maybe even plan having a child together, since we’re no spring chickens. But although his daughter has known about us for a few months, she refuses to meet me. She won’t even talk about it. My fiancé tells her that I have nothing to do with the separation and that she’s not betraying her Mum etc etc but she just says “yeah I know, but I don’t want to meet her” and won’t say anything else. I am worried this attitude will never change. Her Mum tells her bad stuff about me and she just believes it. We don’t know what to do. Any advice? My mum is an educational psychologist and says she should meet me sooner rather than later because she’ll have a negative image in her head of me and once she meets mr she’ll realise I’m not terrible, but I don’t know. We don’t want to force her, but we want to move on with our lives all the same.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro
It is the OP's responsibility to decide for herself if and when she is willing to inflict herself upon this unhappy and unsuspecting child. The OP's fiance can invite her to move into his home, but only the OP gets to decide if or when she will go.

Desperately wanting something does not necessarily make it the best or most appropriate choice. Timing and surrounding circumstances often inform the advisability and appropriateness of a particular action.

The answer to the OP's question about moving forward is that she should step back and let both her fiance and his daughter have more time to adjust to their new normal.

If there is genuine love and true sustainability in their relationship, it won't disappear because they are.living apart. Sharing the same house has never been one if the factors that ensures a long or happy relationship, but moving too fast or too soon is one of the ways to ensure an early demise of a relationship.

Having a secret engagement is a pretty adolescent approach to what should be a mature decision. If someone were to suggest to me that I should be a part of a secret engagement, I would view it as them asking me to be a part of a dirty little secret.

If you engagement cannot stand the light of day, your relationship is trying to survive in shade and darkness. What healthy woman wants or needs to be a part of that type of arrangement?

OP find a man who is prepared to and has conducted his life in such a manner that your relationship can be openly celebrated. If this is the man for your, you should tell him to leave and to return when you relationship can withstand the light of day.

@Palavah

How are you engaged to someone you don't even live with. Are you quite religious?

Not everyone lives together before they’re married. There are even some married couples who don’t.

If we let our children make our important life decisions we'd all be fucked.

Brining a step parent into a relationship is making a decision the child is going to have to live with every day. When that happens, particularly when you are talking about teenagers, you consider their feelings when making the decision.

[quote Tiredoftattler]@Getyourarseofffthequattro
It is the OP's responsibility to decide for herself if and when she is willing to inflict herself upon this unhappy and unsuspecting child. The OP's fiance can invite her to move into his home, but only the OP gets to decide if or when she will go.

Desperately wanting something does not necessarily make it the best or most appropriate choice. Timing and surrounding circumstances often inform the advisability and appropriateness of a particular action.

The answer to the OP's question about moving forward is that she should step back and let both her fiance and his daughter have more time to adjust to their new normal.

If there is genuine love and true sustainability in their relationship, it won't disappear because they are.living apart. Sharing the same house has never been one if the factors that ensures a long or happy relationship, but moving too fast or too soon is one of the ways to ensure an early demise of a relationship.

Having a secret engagement is a pretty adolescent approach to what should be a mature decision. If someone were to suggest to me that I should be a part of a secret engagement, I would view it as them asking me to be a part of a dirty little secret.

If you engagement cannot stand the light of day, your relationship is trying to survive in shade and darkness. What healthy woman wants or needs to be a part of that type of arrangement?

OP find a man who is prepared to and has conducted his life in such a manner that your relationship can be openly celebrated. If this is the man for your, you should tell him to leave and to return when you relationship can withstand the light of day.[/quote]
Inflict herself? Wow.

Again, it's up to the actual parent to handle the child - new girlfriend dynamic. Not op.

Most children aren't ready to meet a parents new partner straight away. Thats normal.

Whilst I agree with a lot of what you've said in that I would not want to be in a relationship like this, it's not up to op to fix it. It's up to her fiance.

I agree she should step back, because again it's up to her fiance to fix this.

@BoredZelda

If we let our children make our important life decisions we'd all be fucked.

Brining a step parent into a relationship is making a decision the child is going to have to live with every day. When that happens, particularly when you are talking about teenagers, you consider their feelings when making the decision.

Oh yeah their feelings should be considered but their feelings shouldn't take precedence over everyone else's.

No judgement OP but were you the OW?

As a general principle, don't accept a marriage proposal, or even an engagement to be married from someone where

• they are not (yet) free to marry you
• they want to keep the arrangement secret
• you have not met their friends and family, so you have not seen them against their own background
• they badmouth their 'ex' and tell you how crazy they are
• they do not even have the financial settlement of their divorce agreed yet
• they seem to be in a rush to secure you
• there are so.many.reasons to not rush into a relationship

Turns out, the daughter not wanting to meet the new GF is way, way down the list of reasons.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro
At the moment there are only 3 people involved in this decision making process , how exactly would you accord precedence?

The father has a prior and unbreakable relationship with his daughter. The OP's happiness is her primary concern and she wants the man even without having observed his interactions with his daughter or presumably his other close family members.
The fiance seems capable of pretty rapid movement from a great up to his next engagement. He is an adult who offered another adult a secret proposal.

The daughter seems to be the only one committed to slow movement and caution. Obviously her not wanting to meet her dad's girl friend has not prevented him both from moving forward with a new relationship or from becoming secretly engaged and possibly planning to have another child.

There does not seem to be much logic or thoughtful planning guiding any of the decision making in this situation. It just seems to be all driven by some kind of urgency without much thought given to likely or foreseeable outcomes.

[quote Tiredoftattler]@Getyourarseofffthequattro
At the moment there are only 3 people involved in this decision making process , how exactly would you accord precedence?

The father has a prior and unbreakable relationship with his daughter. The OP's happiness is her primary concern and she wants the man even without having observed his interactions with his daughter or presumably his other close family members.
The fiance seems capable of pretty rapid movement from a great up to his next engagement. He is an adult who offered another adult a secret proposal.

The daughter seems to be the only one committed to slow movement and caution. Obviously her not wanting to meet her dad's girl friend has not prevented him both from moving forward with a new relationship or from becoming secretly engaged and possibly planning to have another child.

There does not seem to be much logic or thoughtful planning guiding any of the decision making in this situation. It just seems to be all driven by some kind of urgency without much thought given to likely or foreseeable outcomes.[/quote]
What do you mean? Honestly I can't even be bothered reading all your all knowing waffle in which the woman is always to blame.

@ittakes2

I would contact her mother and ask to have a coffee. I would work on this relationship first and see how things go. The daughter needs time and if you are in it for the long haul than you need to give her as much time as she needs.

What on earth??? Why would you suggest this

OP definitely don't do this. The DC's mother had nothing to do with you!

The DC's mother has* nothing to do with you.

@Getyourarseofffthequattro
There is no blame in this situation. There are only people motivated primarily by self interest. There is nothing wrong with that ; very few people act against their own interest. The problem comes in when self interest and best interest of all involved are not aligned.

What is best for the OP may not be what is best for the child. I suspect that what the dad wants in the long run will not best for the OP or the child.

This is my opinion. It is not an Oracle from on high. You may be right and I am probably completely wrong. We can only express our individual thoughts. If the OP is wise she will give them the value that she has paid for them and little else.

We do not need to argue amongst each other ; the OP should be capable of making her own judgments.

She didn't come back then. Perhaps it all got a bit unfair, but I do think she was being very simplistic about the whole thing. Allowing the 13 year old some agency over her own feelings would be a good start.

I haven't read many of the comments past page 3 but the general gist is one I expected, I don't actually disagree with many of the sentiments, just who those sentiments are aimed at - still find it baffling that actually people are going hell for leather at op and not at the fiancé tbh, as he's the parent and main controlling player in this game.

The getting engaged thing is a red herring. I can't sit here and say it's too fast give how fast things happens in the war time with my grandparents, that too was a odd time. Someone's fast is someone's normal ect. The gasping into hankchiefs at the speed is pretty ridiculous, given most people haven't ever been in a global pandemic before so people are going to have different approaches and there's no right way or wrong way to be.

The responsibility to parent and act like one is down to Fiancé not the OP. Absolutely you cannot try to step into that role, or force it.

In OPs shoes I would not be pushing to meet SC before she's ready and yes I would like to think that OPs fiancé would be checking in with his daughter and acting accordingly.

Red flags 🚩

• my ex is a nutter. She maybe but I dislike anyone that says with no accountability on what they did wrong for the relationship to go down
• being kept a dirty secret. This isn't Romeo and Juliet

@DancesWithTortoises

So many people taking delight in giving OP a good kicking.

Step mother haters out in force today.

OP, this place is not helpful or useful for step parents. Too many people just like to put the boot in.

She’s not even ‘met’ the child.

How is she in anyway a ‘stepmother’?

@Palavah

How are you engaged to someone you don't even live with. Are you quite religious?

I was thinking this!! It just gets weirder So op were you "the other woman" I have a feeling of drip feeding here

@Goldbracelets - nor surprised you haven't been back to the thread for a while!

Look, she's 13. It's a PITA age at the best of times, and this isn't one of those. She obviously feels fiercely loyal to her mum, and regardless of what her mum is saying about you, she's probably also hoping that her parents will get back together. Even if she knows that isn't ever going to happen, your existence in her father's life does definitely exclude that as a possibility.
Another point to consider is that she doesn't want to be put in the "piggy in the middle" position by her mother - who will definitely want Details of you, so she can rake over them.

So what can you do - I would leave her alone, in all honesty. Do NOT ambush her - that will create such an almighty mountain of resentment there would be no coming back from it.

Your mother might have a professional view on the situation but it's not necessarily helpful when you have a recalcitrant 13yo on the other end of it, who doesn't want to get caught up in what she sees as her parents' drama.

I would suggest that you tell your fiancé that he needs to ASK his daughter if she's ok with you getting engaged, not just tell her it's already happened - if she says no, then that's too bad because it's going to go ahead anyway, but it's marginally better than telling her flat out it's already a done deal.

I have a friend whose DH had DC from a previous relationship. The mother did the parental alienation thing - he would go to collect, the DC wouldn't be there, or she would refuse to answer the door. As a result, his DC (now adult) and my friend have never met. They've been together for well over a decade now.

Obviously your situation is different because your fiancé's DD DOES stay with him a fair bit - but you will, at some point, move in together and she does need to come to terms with that.

Your fiancé needs to sit down with her and give her a rough timeline of when you expect things to happen, so that she can mentally adjust to the situation. She cannot expect you not to be there when she comes to stay, if you're living together!

I feel my post is a bit all over the place but take home point is that your fiancé needs to have a chat with his DD, explain that things will be moving forward with you, give a rough timeline to give her the chance to come to terms with it all, and then leave her to absorb it for a while. She does need to understand that you will be there and she can't avoid you forever, if she's coming to stay with her dad regularly.

Oh yeah their feelings should be considered but their feelings shouldn't take precedence over everyone else's.

They should be pretty high up in the pecking order. Making a decision for your own convenience when it will make your child miserable is a pretty shitty thing to do. In this circumstance, OP and the dad have no immediate plans to marry or even move in together. There isn’t an impending birth, so to jump in and get engaged right now when the child hasn’t even had a chance to get her head around the fact her parents have split is a ridiculous thing to do and doesn’t even begin to consider the child. The thing to do is to let the relationship evolve and take it slowly with the girl so she doesn’t feel pushed out by her father. That isn’t letting her feelings dictate the situation, it is actually being considerate of how she feels. That’s what good parents do.

Funnily enough, I was thinking if this thread as I woke up this morning, so potentially been dreaming about it.

I'm not usually very keen on responses which attach all the 'blame' in a situation like this to the woman and let the man off scott free or at most with a 'what do you expect from men' type comment.

Here, though, I think it is a major error to consider someone your fiancée when they are not fully divorced, indeed we have heard nothing about how far the divorce has progressed, even if it has been started.

Likewise, if someone (who is not free to marry) wants to be engaged to you and to keep this engagement a secret, there is something not right.

Thinking that the significant issue here is that the married man's DD refuses to meet you, suggests that you really don't understand what an untenable situation you have got yourself into.

I'm guessing OP is quite young and wonder what her own parents think of this situation. I hope they know and are kind, rather than oppositional, driving her further into his clutches.

@FinallyHere

Funnily enough, I was thinking if this thread as I woke up this morning, so potentially been dreaming about it.

I'm not usually very keen on responses which attach all the 'blame' in a situation like this to the woman and let the man off scott free or at most with a 'what do you expect from men' type comment.

Here, though, I think it is a major error to consider someone your fiancée when they are not fully divorced, indeed we have heard nothing about how far the divorce has progressed, even if it has been started.

Likewise, if someone (who is not free to marry) wants to be engaged to you and to keep this engagement a secret, there is something not right.

Thinking that the significant issue here is that the married man's DD refuses to meet you, suggests that you really don't understand what an untenable situation you have got yourself into.

I'm guessing OP is quite young and wonder what her own parents think of this situation. I hope they know and are kind, rather than oppositional, driving her further into his clutches.

This all of this ^^

Glad I'm not the only one who really debated about this post.

I don't understand how you would be engaged without having met his child. She doesn't have to love you but meeting you is surely a basic if you and he are serious. You also say you won't get married for years - why? What is the point of being engaged?

When you consider we've been in lockdown until very recently, I am surprised you have been able to spend enough time together in the year you've known each other. His daughter is bound to be a bit sceptical as he only split from her mum six months before getting together with you.

It all seems a bit rushed and - odd - for mature adult people.

OP, I'm concerned you don't have a strong family to back you here. If your DP's divorce has not come through, you are on sinking sand, and I'd hope your folks would be gently warning you about this.