partner threatened to leave me
Partner of 9 years has said she will leave me if I don't let her daughter come back home. Her daughter over the last 4 years has been at right cow. She was top in her year at school, she dropped out. Could not pursued he to go back at 15. Attitude towards her mum and I was unacceptable ,considering we were the only ones willing to listen and help her. Lazyiness, 2 years of staying up late, getting up late and no job. Taking boyfriend to bed in our house , when told not to. Unknown to her mum , he wasn't the only one. I could go on and on. I'm not perfect, but who is. Her mum sent her to her dads 3 months ago. He by his own admition is a shit dad. And his house is dirty and smelly. My partner said she can't stand her living there and because I said she isn't coming back this time. I'd had enough. It is so draining. She said she would leave me if I didn't let he daughter back. We didn't talk for 3 days. I either loose my partner or let her back.I said she could come back. Step daughter hasn't moved back in yet ,I don't even know if she would, partner hadn't said anything. But I now regret aggreing to her coming coming back. Because I was threatened and forced to make an uncomfortable choice. Any feed back would be appreciated.
You caved in to a threat. As
You caved in to a threat. As soon as DW made that threat I would have picked up the phone and called a locksmith to rekey the locks. I do not tolerate threats. Not even from my wife.
DW would have had a major moment of clarity when you finished your conversation with the locksmith then turned to your DW and informed her that she had better go pack her shit quickly since she had made her choice of her daughter over her husband and she would have to be out before the locksmith showed up.
Your partner is the one who sent her kid to live with the dad due to bad behavior and now somehow it is your fault that her daughter is not living with your partner? I would not accept being either the cause or the victim in this situation. A SO that puts a child over a spouse is not a worthy of the relationship.
All IMHO of course.
Not if it's his house which
Not if it's his house which it sounds like it is. If DW has no more respect for him than that then he is far better off without her. He will likely find himself with a pretty good chunk of money left over every month after she leaves. First change the locks on the house then do some remodeling and make it better for yourself and the way YOU like it. DW doesn't respect him and as a result her daughter shows no respect to him either. Of course it sounds like her daughter has no respect for anyone.
A SO that puts a child over a
A SO that puts a child over a spouse is not a worthy of the relationship.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I think this applies to adult skids but surely not children. People should not have kids if they can't put in the commitment for at least 18 years to raise them into respectable adults.
If this is an underage child, mom has every right to have her kid come live with her. If the SO can not handle it than he does need to leave. She should be a mom first until the kid is an adult.
Not sure the age of skid in this situation.
MOST parents would always
MOST parents would always choose their child over their partner....and their kids should come first.
From what he posted it's his
From what he posted it's his house so he won't be leaving. It also appears that SO's daughter dropped out of school and has been acting like the town tramp and bring guys into his house to have sex. SO doesn't sound like a good mother or a good SO. There's nothing he can do about her not being a good mother. But now that she's made the threat to leave I think I'd pack her stuff up for her and have it waiting on the porch for her. Best thing for him is to get rid of the pair.
She gave you an ultimatum and
She gave you an ultimatum and you caved,you made her choose between you or her child and she caved. Neither one works.
I don't know how old this SD is, but any child needs boundaries and limits to kindness and giving. Letting her come back to do the same things she was doing will not work, and you will only land in the same place as where you started. There should be conditions to her return and those conditions will need to be agreed upon by both you and your partner. How long can she stay? What are the expectations that can't be broken or she will be kicked out again? What will she need to contribute to the house? Does she either need to work or go to school? Will counseling be a condition of her return?
You say that you're not perfect, but no one is - not your partner and not your SD. You just need to come from a place of what is best for everyone and remember that even though she may do some crappy things, she is still a kid.
Good luck.
Most parents love their kids
Most parents love their kids unconditionally. We don't love spouses that way.
You pretty much forced her to make a choice between you and her child. In my mind that choice is a no brainer. There isn't a man in this world that I would pick over my minor child. Tossing my child out in order to keep a man just isn't an option.
I don't blame you one bit for not wanting the kid to move back in your home. I would have just ended the relationship long ago.
I agree with Disneyfan....no
I agree with Disneyfan....no man would win over a choice between my kids or them.
see this is a dreaded
see this is a dreaded scenario. Also I am looking to the future. At what point the step kid wants to come home and I say I would be leaving if you allowed. One problem if you made all the money in the relationship and paid off the house.
Now its two options you are left with.
A.) Live with dreadful SD and be miserable the rest of your life or until she moves out which your relationship will have been damaged.
B.) Loose half of everything you ever worked for while you watch your "ex" and SD take half of your things and go buy a house with alimony payments while you struggle to find a place to live, take out a new mortgage and make your payments.
Both scenarios are not fun
I agree with the others who
I agree with the others who said that she has to put her kid over a spouse. Think about it - your kid and the kids mother is drowning. You have one life ring. Who do you throw it to?
Women will invariably throw it to the kid because men are replaceable. Their primary purpose in life is to keep the gene pool mixed up. Men would have to think hard because you can always have another kid right? Providing you save the woman anyway.
If the kid actually shows up tell your wife that you are leaving temporarily until the kid is squared away and out on her own. Not divorcing, perhaps getting a Legal Separation (see link below) but moving into a bachelor apartment in the meantime.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=chr-greentree_ie&ei=utf-8&ilc=12&type=...
I find this a terrible double
I find this a terrible double standard --how is it that there are multiple other posts about SM's whose partners want to move their brats in and the SM says no and everyone tells her to hold her ground because her life should be respected too? Works both ways. You don't put the disrespect of a child over your spouse. The needs, yes, but not the damn disrespect, which is what his wife is doing.
Sir, your wife is a douche. I would have packed up and left too unless my husband made some serious promises in regarding getting his child in line. There is no one who can threaten me in my own home, and if they talk the talk, they better be prepared to walk. I DON'T commend her for standing up for her child because this is likely why she turned out the way she did--regardless of how shitty she treated everyone else, she always knew mommy dearest would stand behind her and protect her. This type of "choosing your child" deserves NO respect from me.
Holding your ground doesn't
Holding your ground doesn't mean things will end in your favor.
When you tell someone their minor child isn't welcomed in your home, you have to know that may be the end of your relationship. Some parents are willing to toss their kids out in order to keep a man or woman, but most aren't.
Hopefully mom will use this
Hopefully mom will use this time to get her daughter the help she needs.
Sometimes it's easier to correct problems when you don't have someone looking over your shoulders pointing out all of your mistakes. Or waiting for your child to fail so that he/she can say I told you so.
First, she's not tossing the
First, she's not tossing the child out on the street--the kid has a dad too and thereby another home. She wanted to leave, now she wants to come back.
A woman like that who wouldn't teach her child respect to her spouse had no business getting married in the first place--if it's so much easier to correct a child without someone there, then she should have stayed alone. A relationship is a two way street, if you can't respect your partner's needs because it's too hard to be held accountable for what you should do--because how you measure whether the child is improving (and whether what you are doing is effective) or not is BASED on her interactions with the other person--then you shouldn't be in a relationship. This goes for both men and women.
Without someone else being there to gauge it, the mom will most likely continue to bury her head in the sand and convince herself her child is okay when it's not.
Multitask it. Regardless of how hard it is. No excuse. You are raising another human being that inherits this earth after you, I sure as heck don't want my child growing up in a world of people with deteriorating morals and respect, and it is the parent's absolute responsibility to make sure their children are good people.
I completely agree with this.
I completely agree with this. However, it looks like the mom is not trying to help the girl, she just wants her moved in and she'll continue to do what she does. Instead, the mom should have been understanding of her husband's feelings, and made promises of changing the daughter's behavior and acted on it. Instead, she simply said she moves in or she's leaving, with no mention of how things will improve,w hat the game plan will be to help everyone involved.
I think unless the mother recognizes that she needs to be the one to change the daughter's behavior, this will not end well.
Just by letting the child move back is not going to do anything. It's showing a predisposition to enabling. All's fine when the kid's a minor... but this sort of behavior on the mother's part will probably go well into the kid's adulthood ...
Ditto!!!! The marriage/adult
Ditto!!!!
The marriage/adult relationship is THE priority for the partners at the center of the family or blended family situation. That relationship is the top priority and has no equal.
Kids are the primary responsibility of their parents but they do not take priority over the marriage. They are not a party to the marriage but they benefit from it. Kids need to understand clearly that a spouse may not come before the kid depending on what situation is in play but the marriage always comes before the kids.
If a marriage works on ultimatums then it is not much of a marriage and not worth much effort to save IMHO.
A door knob hitting them in the ass warning with the locksmith standing bye to rekey the locks is how I would I would address the OPs situation were it me.