18 year old daughter hates my partner

[mrsorourke1]

Hi, this is my first post on here and I apologise for its length but I'm in crisis with my daughter and would welcome any advice.
I have been with my partner for the last 7 years and lived with him and my daughter for 6. They have always had a slightly uneasy relationship as he likes a clean house and she is extremely lazy and resents him asking her to do things around the house. But he has done more for her than her own father, going to all parents evenings, university tours, financially supporting her through university, sending her other bits of money just so she can treat herself, listening to her and giving her a cuddle when she's upset about things etc..The only time me and my partner really argue is regarding my daughter and he gets frustrated that I always defend her which I know I shouldn't do if she's in the wrong.
She started university away from home last September and things settled down but due to the lockdown she had to come home. Since being home she has laid in bed all day and hardly done a thing around the house. My partner does have some mental health issues and he has also been struggling with lockdown and had missed some of his tablets. I'm a nurse and had come home from work with suspected corona virus and he had asked her to do a few things around the house as it would help me whilst I was unwell. He had specifically asked her to do the hoovering but after a few hours it still wasn't done. He lost his temper and barged into her bedroom with the hoover and a full scale row erupted, she pushed him as he was invading her space and he called her some vile names, I broke it up. My daughter has left the house and gone back to stay with her dad and is refusing to come back to the house whilst my partner is there. He knows he shouldn't have crossed her boundaries and called her names and is willing to apologise but she won't even come home to discuss things. She thinks that I should kick him out and can't understand why I want to continue a relationship with a man that treats their daughter this way and says that I should chose her over him. I want to stay with my partner but I don't want to lose my daughter either. My own mental and physical health are suffering and I'm at my wits end please help x

And let her natural father cope with her shit behaviour for a while. She'll probably be thrown out anyway!

Hi OP! I really hope you're okay, some of these OTT responses really aren't helpful. Your partner sounds like a decent human being who in the spare of the moment had a moment of madness, but it's not as though he assaulted your daughter.. we all know what it's like at that tender age, love a bit of drama and attention and exaggerate things! Leaving your partner wouldn't be an option, he hasn't done anything seriously wrong, however I would encourage him to grovel a bit and make peace with your daughter. I think she may be screaming out for a heart to heart with her mum, I would suggest calling her a few times and eventually she will come round! There are some crap parents/ step parents out there it would have a shame to let one incident Ruin your usually happy family life. Good luck xx

If she wants you to split up with your partner, who does she want to fund her through university

Well with no funding and parents who earn more than enough to send her then she will probably just not go or do what others do who have parents who are tight with money. Get a job

The tension felt in the house surrounds cleaning and sound like it has been there since day 1. Dp sounds like he has an obsession with cleaning especially now he has let his meds run down till he can’t get any.

Can you imagine the number of blood vessels burst if the Dp had come home to find dirty pans whilst dd was in the middle of making dinner.

I had a similar scenario with my mother who had a cleaning obsession but would complain I didn’t cook for her.

The argument and huffing and puffing because I hadn’t washed every utensil when I had finished using it or washed every pot and pan before before sitting down to dinner was too much

Never did that again.

She also moved her favourite sibling and children into the house who expected me to pay for their food.

I got no say in the matter as they were her family.

In the end it sounds like a turning point in your relationship with her. Is this worth it? Her laziness is slightly annoying but his barging in and powerplay is so much worse. It is not okay. It's also not just about this one incident if she now doesn't want to live with you anymore. You could lose your relationship with her.

"My 18 year old step son does nothing around the house, sleeps till 7pm and asks me where his dinner is, leaves his dirty stuff everywhere. His dad has been ill with coronavirus and he is still not helping.

I snapped and went into his room with the Hoover and told him he was a lazy bastard. He pushed me into a wall and left to go back to his mums. Is this all my fault?"

Not convinced there would be a lot of posters siding with the 18 year old

• @Wearywithteens it wasn't just laying in bed till lunchtime, she continuously lays in bed till 6-7pm and then expects us to cook her dinner when we get home from work!!*

When she was on exam leave this time last year, was this your family routine ? If so I can imagine why she might have expected the same. If she was cooking a family meal in time for your arrival for work then obviously ignore.

My first year uni student DS is at home and I've had a few chats because he's had to adjust to people in this house having a different routine to what he's used to in halls.

I always think of that Phil whatevers his name on US TV, he's a complete pillock but he says one good thing, 'do you want to be right, or happy?'

The OP might have been in the right in that the dd clearly doesn't do enough housework/contribute, but the outcome is that the dd has left home.

You can be right, but not happy.

If this was the straw that broke the camels back, and the OP's dd never came home, would it have been worth it? Over a typically lazy teenager who could have been handled differently?

This is a critical moment for the OP, as someone else said. This is not about hoovering. It's about who the OP prioritizes and step-parent tensions. That the dd has lived in a house with a step-parent for a long time, not her choice, with angst along the way and the step-parents MH issues to throw in the mix.

Even if she is lazy (which is easily fixed actually when they go to college and their flatmates don't like them! or by discussion and assigning chores and not having the internet on til they are done), it's pretty drastic to break a dd's bond with the mother.

I don't see the dd's motivation to come back for more of the same, unless her dad's is an unpleasant environment.

My 18 year old step son does nothing around the house, sleeps till 7pm and asks me where his dinner is, leaves his dirty stuff everywhere. His dad has been ill with coronavirus and he is still not helping. I snapped and went into his room with the Hoover and told him he was a lazy bastard. He pushed me into a wall and left to go back to his mums. Is this all my fault?" Not convinced there would be a lot of posters siding with the 18 year old

This with absolute bells on!

Totally agree that an 18yo boy and stepmum would have a totally different set of replies.

you

In both situations, sorry but I judge letting it get to this stage, and I judge not having more dialogue with the child. You can't parent a teen like you parent an 8 year old. Second- male loud shouty step-dads and female teens, it's a bad combination and not similar to a mum shouting at her annoying 18 year old son, the dynamic is not the same at all.

Nearlyalmost50

not similar to a mum shouting at her annoying 18 year old son, the dynamic is not the same at all.

Ha ha

The problem with people who have an obsession over cleaning is you can never do anything that is ever good enough.

If you wipe down a surface they will have to do it again. If you hoover you will have. Issued a bit.

In the end you don’t do anything and get called lazy. But you get called lazy if you did something as it wouldn’t have been good enough.

Oliversmumsarmy

The OP has said that he is "obsessed" with the house.

So why keep bringing up that he is "obsessed with cleaning"

@Oliversmumsarmy where did I say that he was obsessed with cleaning?? I simply said that he likes the house to be clean, please don't let your past experience cloud this situation

I think it IS relevant that the Stepdad is male and the stepdaughter is female - I think it should result in posters giving different advice. A male bursting into a young females room is different to a female bursting into a young males.

This is just a completely shite situation. Everyone is in the wrong. The step dad for being aggressive and going in the daughters room and the daughter for not helping around the house.

OP,
what did you do to get your daughter to clean? Did you leave it to you partner to do all the 'nagging'. If you weren't telling her to clean then I can see why she might not have thought it that important.

Problem is, it doesn't matter who is in the right or wrong the thing that matters is how it's going to pan out from now. If I were the daughter I wouldn't go back to your house. I wouldn't live with someone who was verbally aggressive. It wouldn't matter if I accepted I was at fault for being lazy either.

OP you are going to lose your daughter if you aren't careful. I'd stop trying to mediate and would concerntrate on trying to see and support your daughter from a distance. If you are going to stay with your partner then be upfront about it.

If my kids were lazy when they were teens there are were plenty of ways of dealing with it that didn't involve being aggressive.

I would tell her I am not choosing him over you, and you’re being unreasonable. Leave the door open to her. I would cut the university funding to what you, alone, can afford and tell her you asked your partner not to fund her, given her attitude.

She’s blackmailing and emotionally manipulating you. Part of that is her age, but she should realize at her age, that the world doesn’t revolve around her.

Agree with winterlife & jingsmahbucket.

Leave her at her dads to cool off and stop trying to appease her. The more you apologise, the more tight she thinks she is - and she's not. Let's see how her father deals with her long term - the dairy will soon come off when he doesn't get her dinner ready or provide finance. Just let her stew - she's flounced, let her work out how to unflounce - it will stand her in good stead to understand that life isn't always as you want it to be.

I think at 18 and a university student, she's a young adult not a teenager. She's old enough to pull her weight around the house and be part of the family team even if she's not contributing financially. If she's lying in bed all day that's clearly not happening.
Her flouncing off to her dads and giving ultimatums about either he moves out or I do is out of order. Especially after 6 years. I'd call her bluff personally. I think she's acting like a brat.

OP, your DD sounds like mine at that age, and also like me at that age! Teenagers can be an absolute nightmare! My DDs now will cringe when we talk about certain things they did as teens!
Your dp over reacted, but so did your DD. Be
Believe me, we've all been there, even the pps on here telling you how awful your dp has been and he should be shot at dawn for losing his temper. My advice is to leave her to stew at her father's place. It was her choice to leave, you've both tried to apologise but she is now trying to control you by issuing an ultimatum. Come September, she'll be off back to Uni and I bet she will be back home before then especially if she needs money!

As someone who had a stepfather as a teenager (father died) and has a ds with a stepfather (since much younger than your dd, father also dead) I am quite aghast your dp went to parents night and uni open days - unless your dd requested. You are the parent not him, your dd went over the top but sounds like both adults wanted to be a family and Co parent and your daughter may not have wanted it. I'll point out that I am close to my mother's husband, closer than his own children but he is not my parent, likewise my dp is not my ds's parent but they are close

@Murraygoldberg it was my daughter's request that he went to parents evenings and university tours

murraygoldberg the OP has mentioned the daughter asked him to go to parents evening and university tours in one of her previous replies. It might even have been in the opening post.

OK missed that but I would question how much she wanted it, I know that I liked things sonetimes to be just me and my mum and my ds likewise and it can be difficult as a child to voice it, my view is it should be the parent asking for things to be done not the step parent, I could be wrong but it worked well for me and appears to be working for my ds

Lazy teens are the worst. Everyone should be expected to do their bit helping out. I am on your partners side and would also lose my rag with an adult in the house who didn’t help out even though repeatedly being asked politely.