Step Talk

I'm not so sure the fact that she comes for week-ends still is the problem here. The problem is that sd comes to visit her dad and he doesn't visit w/her! Your fiance needs to realize that his dtr wants to see him, not you, and that is why she comes for a visit.

Let me ask you something....does he pick her up Friday night and leave her with you all week-end, until her return home on Sunday? Does he do this each and every time she comes over? When does he actually spend time with her? What does sd say about it? How often does she come?

I would definately approach him on this and tell him how you feel....honestly feel. Maybe try stressing the point that she is there to see him and he, as her dad, should be there to see her. What happens if you had plans for that week-end? Are you then made to cancel your plans?

I will keep watching here to see how this turns out for you. Good luck!

You're absolutely right, Zelda! He doesn't spend any time with her whatsoever during her every-other-weekend visits. He used to pick her up Friday nights, but I stopped that, as she lives over an hour away and they were getting home at 10 pm or so. So he goes Sat morning, picks her up, drops her off and usually goes to work. If he's not working, then he's in the garage working on some project or cleaning the house. (yes ladies, I have a man who actually likes to clean, lol!) The only time he sees her is at dinner time and then he's off to bed right after! (he gets up rather early, so goes to bed early too, as do I) She's with me her whole visit. She usually spends the time in her room, because I got her a computer so she'd stop following me all over the place. If she's not on the pc, then she's on the couch in the living room watching me clean or just sitting there, not talking. She loves coming, because her Dad has no rules at all, she can go to bed whenever she wants, eat whatever she wants and pretty much just messes up my whole house. She's like a tornado. Sunday she sleeps until about 2pm, then I usually ask him to take her home early (before dinner) and pretend it's because I want to spend that evening with him. I think that her not coming over anymore will force the two of them to spend time together and he can take her out for movies and lunches, etc. And I get my peaceful house full time! To answer your question about if I had plans that weekend, we don't cancel them - she ends up staying in my house by herself and that's when I come home to her in my bedroom, or sacked out on my couch in her pj's stuffing her face. I didn't point out that I have a 17 year old daughter of my own and she finds these weekends incredibly intrusive as well, since they don't really get along with each other. The other thing he does is force me to take his daughter with me when I'm doing something with my own daughter. He'll say right in front of his daughter "why don't you go with Lynda?", not giving me a chance to say I don't want her with us and that he should be spending time with her, not me. I've already told him all this and his reply was "You hate my daughter." Ugh. But I will approach him again and reiterate my feelings. This is seriously causing a lot of anxiousness for me the week leading up to her visits. I should also mention that he's been away working for 6 months and will be back at the end of Nov and we're moving into a new house at the same time. Smaller house too, so that may benefit my telling him she can't stay over anymore. Him and I are also going to begin counselling sessions, so more of this could possibly come out and maybe we can figure out a happy medium. I appreciate your comments very much, Zelda - thanks!

Please don't be upset with what I say.....

Could it be that since she doesn't get any attention from anyone at your house, she is doing these things to get the attention that she would like to have - even tho her actions are resulting in negative attention?

I feel terrible for your SD, she comes over to the house to be ignored by her Dad, but then you seem to cut her out of activities. What is her relationship with her mom? I would think that stopping the visitation would only hurt her more. I don't think it would force them to spend more time together, it may only create resentment towards her father, and maybe towards you for supporting it.

Please don't encourage your husband to abandon his daughter. I think you need to talk to your husband and stress that he needs to spend time with his daughter while she is there visiting, not pass her off, or leave her alone.

Just my opinion.....

I'm not upset at all at what you've said, Frog and in fact, I welcome all views. Definitely could be a case of "negative attention is better than no attention at all". Problem is, I've already talked to him about spending time with her and no deal. He thinks her just being in the house IS spending time with her and all it's doing is creating a lot of negative energy in the days leading up to her visits and the days of her visits. He thinks that as long as he's honouring his every-other-weekends, that he's doing his job as a father. That's why I think that if he picks her up and takes her out for lunches or shopping or dinner or movies, then he's forced to spend time with her. Maybe after he fashions a proper father-daughter relationship with her, then we can entertain the idea of her coming over. It's not my responsibility to watch out for her, I've only been in her life since she was 13. And I'm certainly not going to disrupt my life and leave the house every single time she comes over. That just raises my anxiety levels, since I know she'll be rooting through my things the minute I leave the house. The fact that we're moving into a much smaller house will make matters even worse as well. All I want is for him to spend time with her and not make me spend time with her. I feel like he's "pushing" us together and all that is accomplishing is me pushing her further away.

Her relationship with her mother is a very good one and in fact, she stays out of our lives completely, which is nice. I also have my daughter to think of and she's tried to get along with the sd, but to no avail. They just basically stay out of each other's way. The sd is quite rude and not very nice and makes fun of everything my daughter says and does and up to this point we have ignored that, since my daughter is a bit more mature than sd. I'm also hoping that the counselling we're going to begin once he comes back at the end of the month will help bring this out into the open.

Not to be rude to anyone and I certainly don't mean to offend, I really don't, but I don't understand why the relationship with his daughter and him can't be totally separate and apart from his relationship with me. Why do I even need to be in her life at all? I do not expect him to parent my daughter or spend time alone with her and we've all been getting along just fine. Pushing me to do things with his daughter because he wants to fix something in his workshop is wrong. I suppose I need to explain that to him yet again.

I appreciate being allowed to vent like this. I've been reading a lot of the posts from other people who are in the same boat as me. Do some of you think that sometimes you just can't all get along? Maybe there CAN be separate relationships and you don't all have to be one big happy family? I don't mean to come across as being "cold" and "unfeeling", these are my honest and true feelings about all of this. Once again, I'm so happy to be able to express them and get them off my chest.

In the pants!!!! They aren't even in the house together and that's supposed to be time spent together?? (as you said he's in the garage and at work) wow.

I didn't want to sound like you should just change your life upside down and fawn all over her, I agree that your hubby shouldn't be pushing you together, and no one should be going through your room when your not there.

I think everyone's situation is different, and while one big happy family works for some, it doesn't for others. I wish I could be of more help - maybe through an outside source (therapist) telling your hubby that spending time with someone isn't the same as being in their imediate vacinity, will help!!

I'd show him how "spending time with him his way" makes him feel. I'd find reasons to never be around him. Take a long bath, sleep late, clean an area of the house on the opposite side from him, if he's watching TV, read a book in your room. When he asks what's going on and why you haven't been spending any time with him, tell him that you're in the same house so that still counts!

But seriously, I don't have any constructive comments. I really don't know what to say. I don't think it's your place to force her out of the house but I don't agree with what he's doing either, so I don't know. Is there no way that it can be brought up to him that she's not happy on these visits? His definition of "quality time" obviously isn't what makes her happy and he needs to understand that, but I don't know how to get the point across.

*~So sayeth Nymh~*

Thank you Nymh and Frog! He certainly does need a swift kick, lol!! Good point to act towards him the same way he acts towards his bd. I'm going to let him know (when he gets back into town at the end of this month) that until we begin counselling there will be no visitations with his daughter in our house.
And I will tell him why and leave it at that. This will ensure that he take her places and I'm positive she'll prefer that to him working in the garage while she's there. She also lives fairly far away, so spending the day with her in the city where she lives will make everyone's lives a little easier, until we can approach this in counselling. He has no idea what being a father is all about and I'm not about to teach him (i've already tried). Let the therapist help him figure it all out, it's really not my problem. What IS my problem is ensuring we live peaceful lives inside our home. If he's got an issue with that, then he can move out as far as I'm concerned. There's nothing written anywhere that says I have to form any sort of relationship with his children and him pushing me towards them like he's doing is just making me want to run the other way.

If you want the kid out of "your" house, then you should kick her father out and end the relationship. Marrying a man with children means those children WILL be in your house and, for many of us, we've voluntarily assumed the role of co-parent with our husbands because that's how we chose to structure our family. It sounds like your fiance sees yours as a "traditional" relationship, where the female does the lion's share of the parenting or at least steps up and fills in when he's not around. You are 100% correct in that HE should be spending more time with HIS child, but I disagree that she's at an age where she doesn't need the weekend visits. I think she's at the age where she ESPECIALLY needs her father. It doesn't sound like this arrangement is for you. Do you see this child as YOUR stepdaughter, or just as your fiance's daughter? Do you ever want to develop a relationship with her? If not, this may not be the relationship for you.

~ Anne ~

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Thanks Anne, for your comments.
It's not that I don't want a relationship with his daughter, I don't want to be the only one out of the 2 of us that DOES have a relationship with her. She already has a mother and really doesn't want or need another one. Do I want her as a sd? If I end up marrying him one day - I do realize she comes as part of the package. I've just re-read my first post and have realized it's not her that I hate, it's HIM that's driving me crazy, lol! Read below and you'll probably agree!

There is way more to this story than what I've written and I've already written a couple of novelettes, lol!! I also didn't mention that he treats me very very badly in front of his kids and also in front of his family. (fortunately his family lives thousands of miles away) This is one of the reasons we are going to pursue counselling, which is why I didn't mention it here. I absolutely refuse to have her in our house until he stops treating me like that in front of her. He knows this too, by the way and has agreed to counselling to fix it. Part of this is my fault for putting up with it as long as I have. Since he's been gone for 6 months now, I've decided that I really like my nice peaceful home and now is the time to stand up for myself.

He has a son as well who is 18 and hasn't come visiting since he was 16, so that's why I thought she was too old to come over anyway. When I was 16 I sure as heck wouldn't have been caught dead with either of my parents. She only wants to come over because her mother is very strict and he's a Disney Dad and lets her get away with murder at our house. I've caught her talking to older men on the internet and on the phone and he's done nothing to stop this behaviour. He chooses to ignore it and in my opinion, it's very dangerous, what she's doing. At least at home her Mother has her on strict rules and she can't get away with this type of behaviour.

I've spoken to her about this and she shrugs her shoulders and says I can't do anything about it and continues what she's doing. We have rules in our house and she blatantly is allowed to break them because, as he says "she only comes over every other weekend." And, when she lies to me he says "she's 16, and 16 year olds lie". So, until his behaviour changes, she won't be coming over. It's really for her own sake and her own safety. Next thing you know she'll be meeting men right in front of our house in the middle of the night.

So, like I said - this is actually about my fiance, NOT his daughter, but it is very unsafe for her to be in our house without any supervision and until he figures out how to be a proper Dad, they'll be meeting for lunch and dinner instead.