I left :(

[mrshibbins]

Sorry - this is incredibly long ...

I've not posted on here for a few months, the reason being that I just couldn't take it any more and I left home, my DP and my SD (9) and it's been an awful awful time

DP and I are trying to work it out but this is hampered - and our relationship has always been hampered - by his child and by his inability to not treat her like she is a precious little toddler to be carried, spoonfed, wrapped in cotton wool and be the centre of daddy's world and for her to behave accordingly

when she WAS a toddler, he did have to rescue her on many occasions from her drunken mother, and I think they have become locked into this pattern, so that she actually needs to be rescued, and he needs to rescue her ...

Flame me all you want, but she is not a very healthy child emotionally and does all she can to get between me and her dad and demands his constant attention as soon as I am with them. I know it's not her fault, because of her upbringing but that doesn't help me - I just can't take it any more.

She is at 9 already totally neurotically attention seeking and already has a massive victim complex in which everyone is mean to her or trying to hurt her and she is terribly ill. in reality she is a terrible bully and even scratches herself to make herself bleed and makes herself fall downstairs to get attention she is having friendship classes at school and nobody will play with her because she is just too bitchy to other kids. i fear for her as a teenager if DP doesn't get this dealt with now. I tell him I think she needs counselling but he won't listen.

I have tried so hard over the last few years to be solid and sensible and be there for her and him, to give her a good example, and to provide the boundaries that DP is seemingly unable to provide her. but she constantly pushes situations where I end up having to tell her off, and then she immediately runs to her daddy to snitch on me and daddy then tells me to leave her alone and that i'm too strict ... while she listens, looking smug

It all got too much, the rows got too much. I started feeling like I hated her. I left at the end of November and for a few weeks our relationship was totally over

But then DP wanted me back. Started coming to see me again. But just for quickies in the daytime - just an hour in bed for sex and off he's gone to pick SD up from school. Not good enough I said. I want proper dates with you. Is that too much to expect?

So ... DP says he and I will have a date on Saturday - first time in a month - and that he has organised a play date for SD with a local girl, but it gets called off for some unspecified reason although I would be surprised if its because SD has been so mean to the girl (I've heard her on many occasions when she thought i wasn't listening and it's not nice). So DP turns up on my doorstep with SD, who has a face like sour milk...

So we go out for a nice walk plus packed lunch along the seafront. SD walks at zimmer frame pace, clinging to her daddy, complaining and moaning and claiming illness, pain, bad legs, you name it. i walk at normal speed (not fast, not slow) and when they have fallen around 50 yards behind i tell them to buck up. DP scolds me and says i must slow down to SD's pace the poor little dear cannot walk any faster. to which i say nonsense i walked her to school for 18 months and i know how fast she walks, and it's a lot faster than that. DP shoots me daggers, picks SD up and carries her, she gloats at me.

i am so irritated i pick up speed. towards the pier i wait for them to catch up. they do. i head across the beach to where we will sit. i look behind me. DP is 10 yards behind. SD is 20 yards behind. she can see both of us clearly. 10 secs later i am sat down. by the time DP reaches me, SD has disappeared and is nowhere to be seen. she has turned around, run off and hidden and will then tearfully claim to have got lost. she has pulled this stunt before and i know her style.

DP immediately become hysterical. shouts his baby has gone. swears at me that it's all my fault because i walk too fast and she cannot keep up. goes running off, cannot find her (suddenly her walking speed has picked up dramatically) and calls the police, who pick her up some minutes later skulking behind a concession ...

cue me being irritated beyond belief, a huge row and DP and SD depart, with DP swearing at me and SD looking smug and being carried again. we have not spoken to each other since....

I can't handle it any more, and think that I really do have to now completely sever all my ties with them

but I am heartbroken. If only DP could get a handle on parenting and not let SD rule the roost and manipulate him we'd have a chance. But he can't and when he does try SD won't do a single thing he tells her. when DP and I do manage to get proper one-one time, it is wonderful and we are wonderful. As soon as SD gets in she cannot even bear to see her dad peck me on the cheek she muscles her way in between us acts up, and if I tell her off (he never does) she immediately bursts into huge hysterical tears and wants daddy to pick her up ...

what do i do ... ? just brush my hands and walk away?

advice please!

if i were yu , i would walk away and stay away

the way she behaves is not her fault and any child who is so damaged she self harms for attention.. which is waht scrat hing herslef and falling downstairs is.. needs help

and you can't /won't and DP is complicit in the way she behaves, for obvious reasons

at th ened of the day, she is part of him, she is his child and they come as a package, so if you get back with him, she will always be there

he sounds like he does not trust you with her and is totally over protective and neurotic, and that is not going to change any time soon

it sounds l ike you don't enjoy being with her or mothering her and that DP is not very nice to you when she is crying out forr attentions.

what do you get out of this?

It sounds like your DP and SD have some issues between them that need working out, but neither of them realise it. Unless you can get both of them to agree to some sort of family counselling, I can't really see a way forwards.

why is life so hard.

I advise walking away too. Cut all ties, don't see him in any way as that will make it too hard.

His DD sounds like she needs a lot of help.

I agree with Maxpower - that both of them need counselling. The child getting counselling alone is never going to be successful because it's her father's mindset which has largely contributed to her behaviour so far.

In all honesty, I'd also walk away and stay away because it's highly unlikely that this situation is ever going to be resolved to your complete satisfaction (and I'm not getting at you saying that, just that the situation is so skewed) and if it improves at all it's probably going to take years ..... years in which you've still got to live with it ..... and what would worry me is that an added, and pretty imminent complication, is upcoming puberty where hormones are likely to make the manipulation and attention seeking even more likely.

Whilst you know that blame lies with her dad and not the child, you are still entitled to have feelings and an opinion and it's completely soul destroying to live the way you have been. For your ex to so totally dismiss your feelings and opinions - whatever the topic - isn't good either, particularly when you are belittled and sworn at in front of a child. Anyone with an ounce of sense knows you don't row in front of a kid when it's about them (and try not to even when it's not !) .... you sort out differences away from little ears otherwise the child soon learns to play off the adults against each other, and they are effectively given hugely inappropriate power. What's been happening is that the child rules the roost, whereas it should be adults setting rules and boundaries.

Really .... don't get trapped in this. I'd walk, however hard it is, all the while telling yourself you deserve more respect than this.

I agree with the others. Walk away from this situation. Your DP and his DD won't change, and you will end up hating them. You tried, but you have to protect yourself.

I think you need to walk away. It does sound like you're tried your hardest to make this work - some relationships are just jinxed.

But you maybe could write to your DP and explain, in cold hard bullet points, how his actions are going to affect his DD's chances of ending up a well-rounded, happy person. She does sound like she needs professional help - not surprising given her mother.

you have done the right thing, as a step parent myself i had similiar feelings regarding dss earlier in my relationship with my dh (attention seeking behaviour, no back up from then dp), but nothing like what you are experiencing with your sd. and as time has gone on and hes got older, and with dds arrival most of those initial problems have faded. I can't see this happening for your set up though

poor girl. if your dp isnt prepared to face up to the fact she needs help then there will be nothing but heartache ahead

all my friends tell me to leave him, and all his friends say they want us to stay together as I'm the best thing that ever happened to him ..

and it's incredibly hard, i've loved him so very much, and her too as much as i was able, and given my all to trying to build us up as a happy family. but as one of my friends said, i've always been on the back burner in terms of any real influence, because he never does back me up consistently, and undermines me and sides with his DD, in front of her. he also does this to her BM in front of her, and i don't think the fact that she is an alcoholic is a good enough excuse ... it's teaching SD that she can turn her daddy against the mum figure and have daddy all to herself.

my friend also said that because i have left the house SD thinks she has 'won' her father back and that now, when I am back in the equation, she tries to push his 'proof of love' to her. and that this pattern of behaviour will only grow as far as SD is concerned because it has to be bigger and better than the last time so that Daddy proves her how much more he loves her than me.

it all feels so wrong, wrong wrong

and i feel so powerless and heartbroken

I don't think I could love someone who treated me like that. I would have difficulty respecting a man who I felt was such a poor parent as well. Good parents are prepared to discipline their children and encourage them to be independant and pleasant. Giving in to selfish manipulative behaviour will just produce a selfish manipulative child.
I think you are going to have to walk away from this one. He isn't prepared to change his behaviour. A 9 year old should be able to walk as fast as an adult for short walks. He should have been getting angry with her not you.
If he's got that many good friends who care about him how come none of them could babysit her for the day whilst he saw you?
She's likely to be around for at least another 10 years, probably more if her social skills don't improve.
You've tried and it hasn't worked.

OH it just gets worse and worse

i have just discovered that since i moved out THEY ARE SLEEPING IN THE SAME BED TOGETHER CUDDLING

I FEEL SICK TO THE STOMACH

Oh Mrs Hibbins, I have read some of your threads before this...you poor poor thing.

That father/daughter relationship is just not right, and you are better off out of it.

It is terrible that they can't see that you being there would have helped them, and I think this is what his friends are saying when they say they don't think you should go.

But you cannot make these two people see sense no matter how much you love them

This is so sad.

But the only thing you can do really is leave, for your own sanity.

I think you need to contact someone official now. This is not remotely normal and sounds like it could very easily go off into the real depths.

They have a seriously unhealthy relationship and it could get one hell of a lot worse.

Your last post is quite frightening (understatement of the year!).

Though it seems awful, I think you need to call SS.

I am so sorry you are going through this awful awful situation, but it seems you are the only responsible adult around, and though I truly believe you are better off out of it, I do think you need to act before you put as much distance between them and yourself as possible.

It is dreadful, and I really hope you manage to keep out of it. (But do call SS first.)

I don't think I'd contact someone official. I've slept in the same bed as my son if the 2 of us went on holiday together occasionally when he was over 9. If it's an occasional thing it's probably harmless.
I would advise him that it's not a good idea regularly to sleep with his daughter.

how did you find out about the bed sharing??

he let it slip out in an email when i told him that IMHO him letting her kiss him full on the lips and lie on top of him on the sofa was inappropriate for a 9 yr old and that neither should he be helping her bathe. i said it was giving out all the wrong signals to her. he said i was sick and if he wanted to let her sleep in his bed and have a cuddle it was nobody's business but his. made me feel nauseous when i read it.

when i moved in with DP she was just 6 and social services were on the point of putting her into care, and they were very happy that i was there helping and later that year we got custody. i got her sleeping in her own bed within a month, but she used to try to tongue kiss me ... and used to talk about her friends at school kissing with tongues

after talking about it to my friend, who has now revealed that SD has said some sexually innapropriate things to her DD,i think i'm going to have to have a chat with her school ...

I think you should leave it alone. Its obvious you are competing for his attention and he is choosing to give it to his DD 1st.

At the risk of being unpopular but from the other side of the fence, I think he is right in doing so - that is his child.

And I really think you are trying to make an issue out of the sleeping thing where none is likely to exist. Sorry that's the way it sounds. Plenty of kids remain kids above the age of 5.

Since it's obvious you disapprove of his attention to his child, and by the sounds of it you are not going to get your way, then find someone who matches with your views. Best all round.

"to have a chat with her school ..." over something sd->dd->mum->you

Do you really want to down that route ?

Reading this thread it sounds like you are now out for revenge, and not a concerned person.

That is weird.

where does she normally sleep..when you lived with them?

The tongue kissing and her lying on top of him on sofa is weird I meant.
I agree though that if the relationship is over then you are probably best ignoring them both rather than stirring up trouble and that there is probably more codependency than abuse.

ah wildfish. but how can we possibly rebuild our relationship when we never see one another alone and he always brings her with him and she always always acts up? we are supposed to be dating again (were supposed to be ...)

say you were a single man or woman and starting seeing someone who was a single parent. would you expect a 9 year old to come on every single date and push between you if you so much as had a peck on the cheek?

or would you get a bit fed up with it?

i don't think i'm competing. is it wrong for a woman to expect to be even talked to by her boyfriend when he comes to see her?

mrshibbins I'm not saying what you want isn't right, but this isn't right for you.

What I do feel is that he and his daughter is a package. This is the package in front of you. Its is not what you want, so simply move on.

Its always complicated and I am not one for single simple solutions. Each case is its own, here it doesn't match. Whatever reason he has, whatever feelings he has, he is choosing to please/look after DD as a priority.

Much easier to move on at this stage I would think,