That's a tough one... I am in the same boat where I never had a father around and am not sure what a typical father/daughter relationship should consist of. It would definitely bother me if my fiance started acting the way you are describing though. Obviously children still need love and affection but once they reach a certain age, that affection can become inappropriate. Right now my SD is only 3 but she insists on getting kissed on the lips by her dad and myself. While this is obviously okay and cute since she is young, this would definitely need to change once she gets older. Maybe you should talk with your husband and let him know it bothers you. Remind him that you didn't have a father around so this is very new to you but that some of the behaviors seem a bit strange to you. Keep it about how you feel, not accusing him of anything or he will most likely get defensive. Hopefully you can get this straightened out.

I think often, how we feel about our SDs relationships with our DHs is influenced by our own relationships with our fathers.

I think the ideal father/daughter teenage relationship is somewhere in between where you feel and where your DH feels. I think it's great he hugs and kisses them a lot and is close with them, but I do think it looks sort of weird for SD to put her feet on DH's lap. Maybe he needs to ask her, how would you feel if your BF put his feet on his mom's lap? Maybe instead of her doing that, the next time he sits next to her, he could walk over and say, "so SD17, how has your day been?" If he has nicknames for them that he uses affectionately, i.e. "snookums," I think that is ok.

I think you need to pick and choose your battles wisely. I would definitely say something about SD's plopping her legs on DH but let the other stuff go.

When talking about the leg issue with DH, ask him, "SD will undoubtedly have more boyfriends. How would you feel if one of them got into a huge fight with her over this? Would you want that to happen?"

It's normal. I had the same relationship with my dad. He is gone now and I miss him so much. We had an amazing relationship. I was secure in him.

My SO and his daughter have the same relationship. I am glad. I can only speak for my self but I think I wasn't boy crazy or sexually permissive because I was secure in my relationship with my dad. I wasn't looking for a male figure to be in my life. I had one who thought I was the world.

Girls are affectionate especially teenage girls, even with each other. The description you have could describe myself and my daughter. She is 29 now but still needs to sit next to me touch hand and yes occasionally plops down in my lap.

It's not a bad thing...It will be to your advantage and theirs latter.

I am in the same situation. I was not close to my father, but I think the world of him as well.

SO is, what I consider to be, too affectionate with young girls in his family. He is more affectionate with them in public than me... he will hug them, and if they are sitting next to him, cuddling with him, he will play with their pony tail.

I cringe at it. It is not only his daughter. However, he says he loves my girls too, he is not that way with them.

I would love to know what the actual answer is.

My counselor says they are to affectionate... just from a pro's perspective. She says that how she treats her Dad is how she will treat her boyfriends/spouses.

I think it is normal. The way they act and the way you feel. It will probably slow down over time.

Just as long as he is not going into a bedroom with then and letting them stip and watch them change cloths, like another posters husband! :sick:

I feel the same way you do francke125. My father has been in my life since the day I was born and still is. We have an amazing relationship. We hug & say "I love you", but there was never was & still isn't any of that other stuff going on that you described. My SD16 does the same things with my DH and there are times when I have to leave the room because of it. I don't think it is normal to do things with your father that you would do with your SO. I can deal with the hugging each other, the kiss on the check, & the "I love you", but that's as far as it should go. If it goes further, I feel as tho they are crossing the line of a normal father/daughter relationship.

My 7 year old DD is extremely affectionate with me... I know she is younger than your DH's kids, but I don't necessarily think it's an issue unless, you know, it's an issue. He loves them, they love him, they have good relationships with each other - the weirdness that might cross the mind of someone outside the relationship probably never even crossed their minds. I see it being more and more common for kids to have more affectionate relationships with their parents than when I was a kid. I think it's a new cultural trend.

I think how you can tell when it crosses the line if it makes you uncomfortable...I am with you on leaving the room....Brief hugs and kisses on the checks is normal..."Luv you dad" is normal...being goofy with each other sometimes is normal. What is not normal to me:

Holding hands wherever they go in public
Constantly holding onto body or legs when standing next to each other
hugging and kissing on the lips several times during an hour
Texting over 50 times a day
Laying all over each other...one instance dad laying in recliner with his daughter laying on top of him and he had his arms all around her...I left the room on that one.

Welcome to the club francke!! My SO has that kind of a relationship with his daughters at least when they were younger. Now that they are in their 20's it has changed a little bit. Even though he is still affectionate with them he doesn't lay around on the couch with them in his lap or anything like that...that I am aware of anyway. I'm going to disagree with some of the other posters. Just because some see it as "normal" does that make it appropriate? I would have to say no and I don't think you are wrong in your thinking at all. I was really grossed out when my SO told me that SD20 sometimes lays her head in his lap when they watch movies together. I'm sorry but her head does not belong anywhere near his penis and I would LOVE to hear how that's 100% normal and ok. My feeling is that at the age of 17 they should not WANT to be cuddly with daddy. It's of course normal to be that way with your boyfriend but I'm telling you, I was close with my parents but I stopped the daddy snuggling when I was a little girl because I was growing up. I think it's unhealthy for 17 year olds to be sitting on dad's lap or for him to smack their butts or any of that. These are not girls they are young women and it's inappropriate for a dad to touch them that way regardless of how he sees these kids. I kind of wonder if fathers just don't see this or grasp this concept at all. They don't get that it makes people uncomfortable especially their wives/girlfriends etc. How many mothers do you see snuggling on the couch with their 17 year old sons? If people think that is completely different I would like to know why it's different. I'm being completely honest...I would like to understand that myself. I get being affectionate but healthy boundaries are so important. I don't want to think of my SO snuggling with SD's on the couch past the age of 8, that's just my opinion but when they are teenagers - no way. You're not weird at all for thinking this and if I were you and I saw that I would be mortified as well. My father loves me but come on...they have boobs and are developing, their not babies anymore...time to draw the line here.

I often wonder how he would react if my son was all over me like that ...or if my son wanted to go and come on whims and I did what ever he told me to no matter what the expense was to anyone...or if my son kissed me on the lips all the time...or if my son was immature and more annoying than you can even imagine....I bet there would be a different opinion on all that.

I had a "professional" relationship with my father. No "i love yous" or kisses. Once in a while a hug. Totally old world Western European; you know the stalwart father and the child wanting to be a "good girl" and behave as best she can.

I have a problem with clinginess in children which morphs into looking oddly like shades of emotional incest when teenage daughters (or older) hang all over their father. To me that is revolting.

It's the way I was brought up. I guess those who feel it's normal were allowed to cross those boundaries as youngsters.

If my dad would have smacked my ass as a teenager I think I would have been mortified. He did it when I was a little girl, and I remember that as I was getting older, I started shying away from it. I feel like I'm close with my dad and had a good relationship growing up. We tell eachother that we love eachother, and we hug. I kiss him on the cheek sometimes. a few months ago, we were parting ways and I went to kiss him on the cheek and somehow I kissed him on the lips (I dunno how) and I was very embarrassed. My husband was right there and I remember thinking "oh my god I hope he doesn't think we kiss on the lips aall the time, how weird and uncomfortable!"

I think your hubbys affection for his daughters is a little too much, but as someone else said... cultural norms are different as are individual people. But I know I sure wouldn't be sitting on my dads lap or propping my legs on him. Wweeiirrrrddd.

When DH and I first got together, I think SD was 19. On one of the first few occasions meeting her, she actually came into the room and sat on his lap! DH caught the look I gave him and told her to move over to the couch. We had a little chat when she left--more like I chatted and he listened. I already knew she was skanky (just from one or two previous meetings and word on the street). And, she only has a relationship with him when it suits her need$. I told him that was COMPLETELY inappropriate behavior for a young woman of her age and her father and I would not tolerate it. I also told him if that was how they acted, I was out of there! I found out later that his sisters had been telling him this for years, but he didn't listen. Guess he finally figured out, hearing it from a non-family member, that maybe they weren't wrong after all!

As a side note, we all had a good relationship with our father. He loved us, we knew it, but I can't imagine ever just about "making out" with him on the couch!

My dh is pretty affectionate with my dd13 and she with him. They hug each other regularly. She has put her feet in his lap ane wrestled around with her. She has rubbed his shoulders. I dont recall if he's ever smacked her butt ( I have though!). He is technically her stepdad but he's known her since she was 2 and is her only father. I'm ok with it-our 9 year old dd still sits on his lap and so forth. My ds is almost 12 and I still cuddle with him all the time. My dad was never real physically affectionate with me. But dh's family is. I like it-never felt it has crossed any boundaries in anyway.

This post has great timing. Just last night I looked over while DH and SD were snuggled on the couch together. I got a pang of jealousy, not because they snuggle, but there is an aire about it of her being posessive of him. In any case, I checked myself and looked around at my own kids. My dd12 was snuggled up pretty close with me and it's very normal for my ds14 to snuggle up on the couch also. So I tried to let it go.

Then........I looked over at DH and he leaned his head down on SD's chest like they were a couple. That turned my stomach.

So I've been trying to rationalize the difference, where does it become inappropriate, because that was to me. And how do I tell him that?

I think it has more to do with his actions not hers. You expect kids to push boundries, to want to keep being kids, to try to be more than they should be to their parents. When it gets weird is when the adult is an active participant also.

When my kids snuggle with me, I am the parent and act parental to them. It's when actions act more 'spousal' than 'parental'.

That's what I am thinking.

Also, I think some men sometimes have a problem knowing the difference between treating women/females as a parent vs. a spouse/lover. The think love is love. Not to the degree that they dont' know sexual boundries but still general affection is different. Maybe it's their own growing up with their parents that leads there, I don't know.

My BFs daughter is 17 and she is affectionate like this at times also. It makes me very jealous and I think it is unnatural for us because we didn't have that relationship with our father's so we find it taboo. However; I have noticed more and more daughters are like that with their fathers. Plus we see them as these developed young adults and not our children/babies like the fathers do. When my BF and his daughter were under the same blanket together watching a movie I felt betrayed in a way and had to go to my bedroom to watch TV it bothered me so much. My BF will also wrestle with her on the ground like boys do and get on top of her to hold her down, once again that makes my blood boil. I can't explain it either but it makes me not like her I know that much...LOL

I know this post is old, but it resonated with me. Have this same problem with my 17 year old stepdaughter, who is also very "developed." I understand that he sees her as his little girl, but it still makes me very uncomfortable. I also know from comments she has made to me when her father isn't around that she is not oblivious to the potentially sexual dynamic. For example, she has said to me before, "It's so funny when I talk to dad about my bras and thongs. It makes him so uncomfortable!" Once several months ago she was sitting in his lap wearing shorts that barely cover her bottom, hugging his head into her chest, giggling, saying things like, "Feel how smooth my legs are!" It made me so uncomfortable that I had to leave the room. Later I talked to my husband about it and my concerns made him extremely angry. I think he was upset because he didn't want to think that something inappropriate had occurred between his daughter and him. I don't think his daughter was really trying to cross an inappropriate line, but I think she likes to mess with him to see his reaction and "test" her sexuality. Anyway, after a couple of days he and I were able to talk about it more calmly. I can't say that they don't occasionally still hug closely and she is never in his lap now, but I can say I have not witnessed anything to that extent since then, thankfully. I am ok with physical affection between parents and children, but I do think as they get into their late teens and up, it may need to change or be toned down a bit, or else it will seem inappropriate.

My situation is very similar. The SD16 is all over her dad. She even told my daughter that she only dates guys with butts like her dad cuz her dad has a nice *ss! My daughter was disgusted! She also walks around in her towel after showering which I think is very innappropriate on many levels. And she only allows him to go with her to buy tamons, monistat 7, and various other feminine items. She begs to go to VS for underwear and insists he shops with her. I find it disgusting that she lays her panties all over the place. And dirty at that. I beleieve my SD has some serious issues and I don't think any of it is normal behavior. These girls are marking their territory. I finally stood my ground this time when she visited. And it appears as though I'm entering the new year single.