Need a bio dad's perspective
I am engaged to a wonderful guy, are are supposed to be getting married on June 9, 2012. I however am having second thoughts. He has a daughter from his previous marriage who used to be awesome! She and my two daughters got along and she seemed to have taken to me. Over time I've realized, this kid has issues. She has been over accommodated to and is very selfish. My fiancée family has told me stories of things like how her mother would give her ice cream before dinner if she didnt like what was being served. She is disrespectful to her father and from what I understand the behavior has been and continues to be encouraged by her mother. Meaning this behvior is not only tolerate but encouraged and perhaps even rewarded. My soon to be step daughter is 12 years old and can't sleep alone, she sleeps with her mother. This obviously created issues with over night visitation. My fiancé moved in in May this year. Since then, time with his daughter has declined greatly, both in quality and quantity. We went from weekends, to daytime only and now I have not seen her for over two months and the only time my fiancé sees her is when she allows him to take her to dinner on tuesday nights and when he is allowed to take her to her various sporting events. During these times she is disrespectful to him. She has told him everything from "you're on thin ice!" to "I hate you," and my presonal favorite "I hate riding in the car with you!" the last was stated when he told her he wanted to see her more. Once he was expressingconcern over her diet (she refuses to eat meat and gets no protien). This was met with her telling her mother about it and her mother calling and screaming at him, of course in front of their daughter. It was made to seem as if a dad inquiring about his daughters diet was a bad thing... Apparently he isn't to say anything at all to her.
His ex-wife has a history of mental illness and is a narcissist at best. His ex will in front of the child says that our house is "bad." she has told my fiancé that I am not to get her daughter any gifts and she is not to see me. I dared to get her a t-shirt from another country when I was there for work recently. She also seems very paranoid. Upon sending his ex a text recently she responded as if it was me sending it.... I am not sure I was in the same state with him at the time. Also, anytime he asks for any time with his daughter, it is greeted as if I were the person making the request.... I am not. Recently it came to light that I was the person who took SD to get ther mother a birthday gift. fiancé had given her $20 to spend. At the time SD wanted to get her mom a spa day, that made me giggle... As you ladies know spa days are way more than $20. It was a "that's really cute" giggle. In present time that has come to light as my mocking her and making fun of her... In reality I threw in some of my own money in so she could get a nice gift for her mom. No matter what I do, I feel like a villain.
I know that I will be told to disengage,that has been done, I haven't even seen her for some time. At this point it feels like I have to disengage from my fiancé. This is painful. He is all consumed with "getting SD to want to come over." He is consumed with "making her comfortable." he is running all over town to get to her events and "be there for her." that's all great and I would encourage it, if he wasn't so beaten every time he sees her. But right now I feel like I am with a person who is willing to let people abuse him. When ia sk if he wants to do something over the weekend it is immediately met with "I have to see if SD has a game" or "I have to see if SD wants to spend time with me." so even in my disengagement I am still very much run by SD. I feel like SD is something we can't even talk about because I do just get frustrated by the way he allows himself to be treated. I can't find it in myself to say things that I don't feel. You see SD was given the power to determine when she will come over and for how long, this was suggested by her therapist.... I question the therapist. SD has decided that she wants nothing to do with her Dad other than when she needs a ride. I feel like I am in a relationship where I gave to watch the person I love be abused. The person I love takes it and does nothing to stand up for himself. I am not sure I can watch. I can't support someone who won't stand up for themselves. I also feel that I have to disengage from my fiancé... And that can't be a healthy way to start any marriage...
Please share with me any thoughts or advice.
I am so sorry you're in this
I am so sorry you're in this position. We had this problem in the beginning and honestly, if he refuses to see it or do anything about it, it's not going to change.
I had to have the conversation with my DH where I would ask him if he would ever behave in this way, of course the answer was no. I asked if he would permit some friend to behave this way, once again the answer was no. I then asked him why it was ok for SD to treat him this way. He had no answer. It finally came out that most of his extra accommodating was stemming from the fact that he hated the way she treated him, didn't like being around her because of it, and felt crazy guilty over it. He also didn't know how to fix it.
We were in the same situation where BM approves of SD treating her dad like crap. It took me, my dad (who's a step dad), and one of DH's siblings pointing out that what SD was doing Was abusive before he really sat down and went "Oh crap." He was finally able to realize that boundaries were required and rewarding SD with treats after she'd just been the most awful brat, screaming insults and profanity, was probably not the best idea.
In our case, I guess it hasn't turned out so well for DH, because neither of us has seen SD in about 9 months now. But I wouldn't have married him if he'd continued to be her doormat. It is absolutely infuriating to see someone treat a person you love so badly and it will be incredibly stressful. I got lucky - my DH is pretty introspective when people start pointing out a problem they see. He finally realized that being treated like crap was hell for him, hell for me and wasn't making SD Like him anymore. There was zero benefit and all kinds of downsides. So he finally pulled his head out of the sand, realized that if his main goal was for his daughter to "like" him, he wasn't being a very good parent and wasn't taking care of himself.
I would sit down with your guy and tell him how you feel. If therapy is any kind of an option, I would encourage it. We had several fights about her behavior before he got it. I got all kinds of bs from him about how I was jealous and I just didn't like her and she's just a kid, blah blah blah. I kept focusing on the fact that it was the behavior I didn't like, the behavior I couldn't tolerate and it had nothing to do with the fact that it was coming from his daughter and that it wasn't coming from a 2 year old who didn't know any better.
I would really consider whether you can live with this for the rest of your life, because honestly, if he tolerates it now and won't recognize the problem, it's not something that will go away when she's 18 or 25. You'll still be dealing with the abuse and entitlement when she's 40.
Best of luck!
Hi. I know you were looking