Feeling sidelined as my teen prefers her dad's more conventional home

[Holdinguphalfthesky]

My DD’s dad was emotionally abusive during our relationship and maintained an inappropriate “friendship” with another woman, now his wife. Over the years he has often prioritised her children over our DD, and DD has repeatedly told me she feels she rarely gets one‑to‑one time with him, that he treats all the children exactly the same, and that promises he makes often don’t happen. She likes her step‑siblings but feels pushed out and has had issues with them interfering with her things when younger.

He won’t buy essentials unless I ask (uniform, shoes), but will buy her expensive clothes right after I’ve saved up to get her something. He has refused to save for her future or contribute to trips, hobbies, or activities. I’ve taken the financial and career hit to support her, and my partner and I have always made sure she has trips, experiences, and quality time- including trips abroad and to UK cities.

This summer her dad has suddenly provided two big things she’s wanted for ages — an experience and a longer foreign holiday — and she’s now posting happy family photos with them on Instagram. She has never posted pictures of me or my partner.

We live off‑grid and she has never brought friends here. I’m now wondering if I should sell our home and move somewhere more conventional so she feels comfortable inviting friends over. She’s going into Y11 and I’m thinking about the next 5–8 years.

I feel devastated that years of steady support seem overshadowed by one holiday. How do I deal with these feelings, and should I consider moving to a more conventional home for her sake?

i used AI to shorten my post as it grew enormously!

Stick to your values!
Your lifestyle sounds fantastic. She may not appreciate it at this stage in life but I’m sure she will when she is older!

I think you've jumbled up a lot of (understandable) feelings here.

It's quite a jump to 'she prefers her dad'. There's probably some truth to the fact she'd prefer to keep her slightly more unusual living arrangements private.

I can understand that. It doesn't mean she doesn't like them herself, just that she doesn't want the attention from it.

Insta isn't real. It's the snapshot you show to the world. I'm sure the holiday and lots of people around me fits with this.

It doesn't mean she doesn't love and care about you or understand you provide her stability.

Don't make a big thing of it by talking about moving. She doesn't feel secure in her dad's attention in the way she does yours. That's all. She wants that and is using insta to try and show it is there really.

She's also still in school and the conformity stage of life but on the cusp of stepping out of it.

You'll do active harm to your relationship now if you start to show these feelings. From her point of view her dad is finally giving some of the relationship she wants and you want you mess it up (I know its more complicated but that's what shd will see). Let it out here but not to her.

I think your boat sounds fabulous and if it works for you all you shouldn’t change it but yes, in a world where adult children are staying at home longer, yours is more likely to want to move out early for more space, privacy and maybe a more conventional toilet.

That said, her not wanting friends round as her home is her sanctuary may be genuine and could still be the same if you did move.

We live in a very traditional, nicely decorated, well kept detached house and my kids are not big on having friends over either (neither am I tbh!). They are sociable but they love their rooms and don’t particularly like friends touching their stuff/ sitting on their beds/dominating the PlayStation etc. They much prefer to be visitors.

Your boat is her safe space.

I agree but maybe there isn't space to entertain friends when they want a private chat. Also the compost toilet might be an issue, the people I know who have lived in Narrow Boats have used chemical toilets and had facilities for emptying them at their moorings. I can appreciate @Holdinguphalfthesky might not want to use chemicals although you can get chemicals now that aren't supposed to damage reed beds etc..

It feels a bit late to make this change OP, when DD may leave home in a couple of years. She seems to enjoy some aspects of her dad's family's lifestyle and these are the ones she puts on social media. Let her make that choice, she's expressing herself. Doesn't mean she dislikes everything about her life with you.

Having read your update about friends i think that's a big part of it too.

She's not 100% secure in those relationships either. If she's been hurt before she will be more closed and less willing to share all of her life. It's probably sensible.

But this is about fitting in as a teenager and absolutely no reflection of the strength of your relationship or how she feels about dad versus you. And if you didn't have your history with him it wouldn't upset you like this because it's fairly normal for teenagers to pretend we don't exist.

I do. Teens usually want to fit in and I don’t know anyone who lives on a boat, despite me living close to where I see boats all the time.

@ChapmanFarm yes exactly, I don’t want to be desperate here or jealous.

Part of the reason I was in the relationship with her dad in the first place was my lack of self esteem. I’ve done a ton of work to improve that in the last decade, and have seen a massive change for the better, but because she’s so important to me, that relationship with her is the one where I still have The Fear of being inadequate, of being dumped. It isn’t logical but it’s real.

I would probably resist referring to a different lifestyle as ‘conventional’, as that is often used as a synonym for ‘boring’ and it may sound like a criticism.

Children love to fit in with their peers so of course she is going to value a special experience or a holiday.

I don’t know. This thread has brought up some odd memories for me. I suffered some acute feelings of embarrassment as a teen due to my ‘different’ upbringing, especially the bad second-hand clothes (before that was trendy) and having to fucking walk everywhere (including in the evening) because my father refused to give lifts (my mother couldn’t drive for health reasons) unless one of my friends’ mums was kind enough to give me a lift in her nice little hatchback.

I don’t look back now and think how cool and anti-consumerist my parents were. Interestingly they used to cast aspersions at people who were money-focused or ‘flashy’ and try to dress it up as a question of values.

Instead I look back and see my father as a highly controlling financial abuser who didn’t give my mother any access to money (she was a SAHM and had no access to joint funds) and who prioritised his own very early retirement over properly funding his children through their education. Oh and prevented us from accessing student finance or learning to drive too. Yes, you read that correctly…

Needless to say I was out earning my own money as soon as it was legally possible (age 13) and, at a young age, found boyfriends who had their own cars and believed it was ok to actually spend money on meals, consumer goods or having a nice time. Funnily enough, I found that quite attractive…

I would have a hard think about what your chosen lifestyle objectively offers your daughter now and in the future.

You’re trying to hold on to her ankles at exactly the age where you should be letting her fly! What’s that phrase? “If you love someone, let them go…”

The best way to ‘not lose her’ is to not lose your own shit now. Suck up the feelings about your ex. Be cool. Support her choices and be her consistently warm safe space.

Your daughter needs to have a good relationship with her dad. And that also includes his current family. So, for both your sakes, swallow that jealousy and send her off to dad with a smile not being made to feel guilty. That horrible jealousy will do untold damage to both of you. Your daughter loves you - but she must also be given the freedom to love others. This isn't about a boat, or a loo.

I suspect she does appreciate you more than you realise. She’s away at the moment. You will be reassured when she is home.

I feel I need to defend myself a bit. I have taken and continue to take steps to allow my daughter autonomy and independence, including money saved for her that she knows about, trips and experiences both with me and with school. She has a job, she can use that money however she likes and I continue to give her pocket money and buy her her necessities. She knows she has my full support in whatever path she chooses after GCSEs, and that I’ll facilitate her choices as much as I can. I’m not holding her back at all.

We don’t use “conventional”, I’m just using it here to differentiate between our home and brick-and-mortar homes. She knows we live here for financial reasons (which remain sound, as we are in a very high-cost area and rent would be well north of £1000/month for a suitable house).

She’s always had tech, clothes, lifts, toys/hobbies/whatever. If anything, because she has things from both her dad and from me, she has more than many kids. We don’t have a madly alternative lifestyle, as I said before her stepdad and I both have very normal jobs, we have holidays and go out for meals, we have internet, watch films, use supermarkets etc, and I’ve also always made sure that she and I do trips and things together, without my partner, so she’s never been deprioritised.

I do keep my feelings about her dad to myself. She knows nothing of his behaviour when we were together, or the way he’s behaved to me about money since we separated. I don’t slag him off to her and I try to help her sort things out when she’s been upset towards him, without invalidating the way she’s felt or justifying any unreasonable behaviour on his part.

I think if she never had friends over to play much, then that could be part of the issue. She’s not used to hosting and having people in her home. Now that she’s older, it’s become more of a big deal because she’s also aware of the difference.

I wouldn’t be moving just to potentially make her want to have friends over as it might not work out. Defo broach the changing rooms again though.

I think this is more about your own insecurities than your dd. You say you're jealous and I can understand that.
But consider the bigger picture. Your dd lives with you, says your home is her sanctuary, hasn't asked to move out and live with her father. Nothing about this suggests that she's desperately unhappy with you or wants you to uproot your home and buy something else. Quite the opposite in fact.
Yes, she's a teenager and she's happy to take up the gifts and the holidays. Teenagers can be good at smelling the opportunity for more money and I bet that's why she wanted dad at the fair not you. Nothing surprising there. It doesn't mean she prefers him at all. Actually, quite the opposite, she sees him as someone to take advantage of a bit and she doesn't do that to you. Maybe she thinks it's time he chipped in a bit.
You sound as though you've done a great job bringing her up and balancing an ex who isn't particularly nice. Be kind to yourself.
And talk to your dd more instead of guessing what she's thinking. When you've asked her she responds that she's happy enough with how things are. That's probably true. I'm sure she enjoys the treats from dad but she's probably also very happy to come back to you.
Your living arrangements aren't conventional but they're not that outrageously out there either. Plenty of people live on boats. I think that's actually quite cool.

I wouldn't worry OP. She's going to come back and bitch like mad about what her dad said/how annoying her step siblings were/how ridiculous his partner is/what stupid clothes they were wearing etc etc.

As a pp said, kids will take holidays and experiences from anyone who offers, because they are all about themselves at this age. Doesn't mean she prefers her dad (you wait until the complaining about what went on starts!) it just means she's grabbing with both hands before she has to go out into the world and be self-sufficient.

Living off grid but using AI.

Okay…

@Holdinguphalfthesky The compostable loo might be a bit much for some teenagers (sensitive souls that they are!) but I really doubt overall that she’s embarrassed about living on a boat, a lot of teenagers would actually think it’s really cool. Where I live there are loads of houseboats and DD’s friends are always talking about clubbing together to buy one when they’re older. So I think she’s being honest when she talks about it being her sanctuary, especially if she isn’t used to hosting and is a bit insecure about friendships. Which also probably explains why she’s going all Insta life - that’s probably more about fitting in. Don’t move - you clearly have a great relationship and I’d just ignore what’s going on with her DF.

You don’t understand what off grid means.

The OP generates her own electricity.

I know what off grid means but thanks for your contribution.

I thought that. Possibly compost loo but a generator for electricity?

Have you heard of solar/wind power and mobile phones?

Everyone has their own take on what they read on MN. To me, you sound like a lovely mum. I totally get why you'd feel a little displaced and jealousy is a very normal, understandable human emotion, we don't have control of our emotions, we only have control of our actions and you're not doing anything wrong. Jealousy is rooted in vulnerability, and when your child is your whole life (as they should be) of course you feel vulnerable to the thought of losing them. I don't see, however, anything that points to you being at risk of losing her. I think that children are deeply wired to love their parents and, for the parent to lose the child, the parent has to do or consistently be doing something pretty terrible (and even then, often children can be extremely forgiving. It's maybe a little bit different nowadays with social media encouraging lots of quasi-therapy talk, concepts of NC etc, but I genuinely think those are rare extremes. In most circumstances, I can't imagine someone who's a loving, kind, stable parent, ever being in danger of losing their child.)
Your life sounds a little bit different and it's possible it causes her some emotional difficulty, though. But I would sincerely hope it's very, very mild. Just for comparison, my parents were, believe it or not, nudists, and forced me to go to nudist camps my entire childhood and throughout my pre-teen years up until about the age of 13. It was horrendeous and I couldn't even unpack the trauma of having this immense, shameful secret in my life until years later (I say shameful not because nudity is shameful per se - but because we were the only family I'd ever heard of,in our environment, who spent their summers completely naked and I was scared to death of someone I knew finding out. I had a very clear sense that it would mean social death). And yet I survived, so I think something as small as living on a boat - which could also be thought of as very romantic, quirky and charming - shouldn't do her any sense of lasting harm, even if she is maybe a little unsure about it right now, in the midst of her very sensitive teenage years.
You sound loving, humble, honest, vulnerable. I wish you the best & think you'll be absolutely fine in your relationship with your DD.

Don't feel bad about feeling a bit jealous OP: it's perfectly normal. It's how you respond to that feeling that matters. Even my happily married friend said she feels a bit resentful when she spends all day with her toddler then when daddy comes through the door it's "yippeee!" and she is cast aside while he spends his twenty minutes or so.

Your DD is going to want to embrace the developments with her dad, as it is a deep emotional need in almost every child to connect with their parents and feel loved and accepted by them. She will lap it up. Her reaction is normal.

Just keep your cool and be there ready with a big off-grid cuddle when she gets disappointed by him round the corner.

The teens are when most kids want to fit in with their peers. Her Dad is doing more conventional things with her, which is what she wants at the moment, so he’s going to seem like the preferred parent.

My Mum had some quirky ideas when I was growing up. I hated it at the time, but now I look back and laugh about it, and it’s given me some great stories to tell as an adult.

I think you need to speak to her, and ask her how she really feels about where/how you live. I bet she’ll say she absolutely wouldn’t want to move. But that doesn’t stop her enjoying that more conventional life she lives with her Dad.