You know that is a good point about the 8k ortho bill. She already has poor oral hygiene to boot. As for the sexual abuse, no. It's just that he treats her like a baby and she acts like it. UGH. This kid is going to cost us a fortune whether or not it is dental or therapy. It is not her fault I know. It is her father's. Hope he finds a way to make extra money to afford all her treatment!

I know that there is a 75% chance that if I bring it up tonight we will have a fight. I have been stewing about it all day He has been at work and comes home tired and unwilling to discuss "heavy issues". This is an ongoing dynamic problem in our relationship but if he brings it up I will say something. I know that I won't put up with this sleeping arrangement. Should I say something to the SD? She is old enough I think.

I agree that she needs to be walked back into her room and that my SO should sleep with her there if he wants to. She is waking both of us up and he should at least have some idea that I need my sleep too.

OOOOH I am so red hot mad! Glad that he isn't walking through the door now.

Willow...yes...good dialog. I will try and keep my words fact specific and non threatening to his parenting styles. The marital bed needs to be preserved!

Yes. I can see your point. I just spent 15 minutes in the shower trying to plan a non-threatening approach to raising the issue. Truthfully I am pissed off just having to take that time to plan it out. I should be attending to my needs today. Instead, I am fuming and getting more and more in a nasty mood. I told myself I was going to try and ignore some of the kid's behaviors to have greater harmony in the house but honestly it just seems to build up to the point where I can tolerate NOTHING. I don't want to be passive aggressive and I generally don't consider myself to be. I am a straight shooter kind of person but my SO is so easily offended and sensitive and does not like confrontation. We have two different fighting styles. But this should not HAVE TO BE a fight but anything involving his daughter or money causes a fight. We don't really agree on either. Now of course there are so many wonderful things about him and US AS A COUPLE and those things outweigh the bad but man when I am in the thick of it as I am now, I feel like throwing in the towel sometimes. In the last few days the kid's behavior has really gotten on my nerves as she is not expected to do anything and won't pick up after herself. She leaves things around all over the house without any regard to anybody else's space. I always have to remind her to pick her things up etc. I always do it in a nice way. I use please and thank you and use "sweetie" between my teeth but I hold it together. Today I got fed up with her leaving this stupid little school art thing in the kitchen. IT was part of her homework so she said but didn't make any effort to put it in her bookbag. So I threw it in the trash. I know that is passive aggressive but I feel she needs consequences. My SO certainly doesn't take care of her things so why should I. If she gets in trouble for not producing it at school so be it. I have taken to throwing out many of her little papers of drawings etc that my SO lets her leave around. It feels good when I trash them.
How do I buck up before my SO and SD get home? The way I am feeling now I just want to hide in our bedroom. And I am pissed really at both of them.

Yes Bojangles you are right indeed. My man needs to mull over things awhile before he gets it and doesn't like to give into me right away. It is especially better if he gets it from a third party, although he is defensive by nature. I just had a phone conversation with him. Told him I didn't like what happened last night. He didn't get mad but basically said that he is not going to wake up to take his little girl back to bed when he has to get up at 5. I told him then she needs to sleep on his side next to him and not in between us. I was fuming. I knew it would go like this. I stopped talking before I lost control and just changed the subject. It will come up again. Most likely he will take some time to process it and then we will discuss it. I am not going to put up with it though. I am standing my ground. I just feel like one day we are going to be at the final standoff where it will be a "her or me" scenario. IF that happens, I am OUTTA HERE.

Oh Bojangles I so agree! LOL It's times like these when I can't believe how selfish he can be. We did get into an argument. Now we have gone to separate corners. Actually I am better that way. I did manage to have a good conversation with my SD about her thumb sucking. I did research on how thumb sucking past the stage of baby teeth can cause the arch of the mouth to change to the point that when orthodontia is needed the jaw has to be broken. I told her about this and how much I love her and don't want her to be teased. I told her to think about it. At certain points she looked like she wanted to cry but then I smiled and said something funny and we laughed about it. She may still go to my SO and cry about it later which could another fight but I don't really care. She is 10 so I feel like she does understand things and deserves the respect of knowing the truth.
My SO does not seem to care about my sleep; rather, he cares about his daughter's needs and his needs over my own. We are not living together at the moment but going back and forth thousands of miles away to visit each other. This will change in about 3 months. He has on more than one occasion "threatened" in anger that perhaps we should not move it together and that he should stay where he is. I guess looking at it I have more issues than the marital bed!

Widget...hats off to you or as they say in the states..." YOU GO GIRL".
Bojangles....He is moving to me and will be living in MY HOUSE. We had this idea it would eventually be our house ( I would put him on title) but the way the relationship has gone ( his threats to end it) I am insecure about its future so I WILL NOT PUT HIM ON. This will remain my separate property. The funds will be kept separate. I might even ask him to sign a post nup. If he does not want to then I guess I know why. He often tells me that he worries that I will try to Lord over him with money since I make more ( for now) and he will be in school but not working as much. He still makes a great income even if its part time. I suggested we keep our finances separate. He initially wanted to be the family's money manager and I agreed seeing as he has an accounting degree ( that is not what he does for a living) and plus I thought that would help his pride a bit since he was feeling a bit insecure by not being able to fully contribute. Strangely he was also worried that I would dictate his spending and that giving him an allowance ( it was really a set amount that both of us would take for spending money each month) would be degrading. I kept thinking of it as a mutual budget to which both of us stuck too. Now, however, I do not feel the same way and think we each should manage our own money.
I am convinced no matter who makes what we need to keep our finances separate.
What do you think?
Anybody have separate finances because they do not agree on money?

Well it doesn't look good for us....as of tonight anyway. I tried to approach the issue again of the sleeping in our bed and got met with a lot of hostility. I then switched tact and told him that it doesn't help things when he threatens to stay where he is at every time we argue. It went from bad to worse and he told me to " F OFF". This guy is a real hot head when he is mad but can be sweet as pie when he is not. He accused me of being in a bad mood and taking it out on him when he got home. He always says that when we have an issue I want to discuss. Tonight, however, I think I needed to be heard on the sleeping thing. He said basically 5 times loudly " I AM A PARENT, I AM A PARENT' and said that just because he has an "asshole" partner he is not going to stop being one.
Then he told me that I know " F all" about thumb sucking anyway. LOL. I gotta laugh actually. It has become ridiculous at this point.

Oh one more thing, I did manage to get in that I WILL NOT TOLERATE KIDS IN THE MARITAL BED. I don't know if he viewed this as a deal breaker but he did not respond to it. Guess the ball is in his court so to speak. I am entitled to my boundaries surely.

Just Wow and Tog...you do have a point. I have been doing a lot more thinking about this. I am going to sit down with my SO and talk about moving. We have done the back and forth for a long time, made great financial (mostly me) , personal and professional sacrifices to be together, finally got married and are at the point to start our lives. He is moving to me and changing his life and his daughter's. He will be moving with his daughter. This is what both of us have wanted and planned for. There is a lot of love and we all really do have a lot of fun together as a family but......he and I have different ideas about how his daughter should be raised ( namely not like a baby, should be held accountable, encouraged to mature and take on responsibilities, think beyond herself, etc). This is a constant source of arguments that never get resolved. Like you said, these issues won't magically go away when he moves. They will compound most likely. IT is how we deal with it as a couple, how we communicate, which is not well, as he is prone to immature outbursts and is verbally abusive. I dread confrontation with him but I am the type of person who is cannot avoid or just sweep things under the rug.
We both need to think about some things. He needs to think about the degree to which he can really live with someone else who may have opinions divergent of his regarding his daughter. Can he really accept the ways of another and honor/respect their personal boundaries? He always has the "rifle on the shoulder" willing to blast someone who dare disagrees with his parenting. Will he ever trust me, his spouse, and put it down? Will he want to keep his marriage second or subordinate to his the relationship with his children?
I need to think about whether I will continue to tolerate this verbal abuse, emotional immaturity and defensiveness when we have issues. I don't feel very secure in the relationship and feel that it has a high degree of failure at the rate we are going. The more he slings his vile words at me, the more I see him as vile. I admit that I am losing a bit more respect for him as time goes on and sometimes question his respect for me. More money, more emotions will be invested if we stay together ( as most relationships go) but if it has a high chance of failure should I cut my losses and end it now?
We are different. He has had only a few relationships in his life and his last marriage was horrible. He endured the worst type of situation, a drunken cheating spouse. who in the end actually left him. He admittedly would have stayed and not filed for divorce due to his religious beliefs. In my past relationships and especially in my last marriage ( to a drunk as well) I was the one to call it off AND QUICKLY. I won't stick around for more misery once I know it's over.

Thanks for the comments. I wrote an email to my SO laying everything out. I didn't sugar coat anything but I don't think I was rude either. I listed my concerns and my fears. I also sent him some articles on kids sleeping in the marital bed. He actually had sent me one last night but conveniently left out all the other comments on a blog and I copied and pasted those to him so he could see that the majority of the bloggers were AGAINST IT. If I was a betting woman I would say that he will read my words which I so carefully laid out and misinterpret them. He might even think I want to end the relationship. Will he end the relationship because of this? I dunno. I won't try to stop him if he does. That will be his choice, his loss and his failure. And that is about all I can do. Thank you all again for encouraging me to have my boundaries and supporting me. Any other comments would of course be welcomed. I realize that this is turning more into drama than a constructive discussion on a subject so I apologize for that.

Update. He read my emails. Responded at great length telling me a bunch of horrible things. Name calling including "Immature and bully".Turned my words around and made himself the victim. Interpreting what I said in the worst possible light. I am temped to post the emails here, but I won't. In so many words he said that he is not coming and our marriage is over. Told me that he does not like telling a partner to " F OFF" but didn't apologize for it. Told me to find someone who doesn't have kids. Oh yeah, I that I ruined his children's dreams of moving out of state.
A tactic he uses all the time is to turn my heartfelt feelings into something awful and flip the whole thing around to how he is the victim.
I was pretty sure this would happen. I don't know where to go from here and I guess there is not much more I can do.
I feel numb right now, for some reason even scared. Not scared physically just scared. I feel given up on and completely disrespected. Feelings invalidated. I guess he really does not care. I put my soul into this relationship. How am I going to explain to all my friends and family what has happened? How do I return to work and cope? I am at a loss. I am lost.

Bojangles...your post was dead bang on. He told me I was the control freak. He is the master of projection and yes our spouses do seem alike. Mine, unfortunately won't consider counseling. So I guess he does not love me enough to stay in the relationship and try to work it out. Seems to me that he is done. I even tried to talk to him after I got his email. He flipped things around again, told me that I have a problem with him loving his daughter ( HUH????) Told me that he did not trust me after I told him " how can I trust you to stay with me, to get embroiled financially with you when you constantly threaten to end the relationship when we fight?" Made the trust issue all about how he feels. There were red flags with this guy early on and I see it ever more clearly now. This is a heartbreaker. How he can tell me things like he has never loved anybody like me and I am perfect for him, etc, etc. and then just throw our relationship away is mind boggling.

Thank you WOW, BOJANGLES and Brie....your posts were really comforting. I am trying to stay unemotional here and balanced. I have been online with some of my contacts but I honestly feel like I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I heard him banging around our bedroom moving things. I think he was getting rid of anything to do with us as a slightly mad physical way to purge himself of me as soon as possible. I didn't go it. I don't physically fear him I just don't want to subject myself to further verbal abuse.
One of my friends suggested that he might be a borderline personality disorder. He had a really abusive childhood, doesn't have any friends because everybody disappoints him and he is has cut off his family ( well he says they cut him off, so now I wonder).
He is downstairs banging around now. Probably drinking. The little girl is with his ex and thank God for that. Poor thing, I wouldn't want her privy to any of this.
At any point I feel that he might burst into my room ( the guest room) and demand that I leave his house. I am not sure where to go. It is a residential area but I can call a taxi.
I wish we could talk this out like reasonable rational adults but he is neither. I also question the adult part at least in emotional maturity. Geez we just celebrated our 6 month wedding anniversary last week. And my birthday is this Saturday. Last year on my birthday I was signing hospice papers for my dying mother. I had no idea I would be ending my marriage with the man i thought was my soul mate.
Thank you for your suggestions especially on how to handle my friends/workmates. There was a lot of people weighing in that this relationship would not work out because it was long distance and so many changes had to be made for us to be together. I hate the fact that some will be thinking ( if not saying ) "I told you so". Like you said I need not care about that really.
I am not sure he will want to make up or even apologize. We have never broken up before so I don't know. It seems the more I know the less i know. He is spiteful and isolating of others so I guess I just might fall into the category of casualties along the way.
I feel like this is a bad dream.

Bojangles I read your post again from earlier describing your husband. Yes. It is exactly like mine. It is uncanny. You have a lot of great insight. Thank you so much for your helpful comments!

Thank you all SO MUCH for your kind words of support and advice to stay strong and keep my head held high. Since your responses,he wrote me an email basically repeating the same things like I am immature and twisting my original email around to suit his distorted views. He really flipped out that I was not going to put him on the house saying that he wants to be a marriage where the two people share everything, bla bla bla. This is from a guy who stuck the middle finger at our budget and took his daughter on a $3500 trip just because I could not join him out of state that week. Tonight it is late, I am tired, but strangely I have greater clarity that I have had in months. I wrote him back and addressed some of his distortions but basically said that if he doesn't want to be with me then so be it. I didn't get emotional. He didn't see my cry tonight as before when we have argued. I just simply retreated to the guest room.
Let me respond to the health thing. Funny Brie you mentioned this. Since my mom died my health took a crap. My previously well controlled blood pressure was suddenly immune to the current med i was taking to regulate it and was fluctuating wildly. After about 2 different ones, it finally became stable. My neck went out. I lost strength in my arms and an MRI showed a C6 issue. I was also having terrible intestinal problems. Just a few weeks ago I had to go into the hospital for an emergency colonoscopy/ endoscopy which revealed a hiatal hernia. So yes, perhaps a combination of all of this has led me down the poor health track. Previously I was healthy and fit. But I am determined to get back on the road to good health. I have been seeing a therapist so that is in place. I am going back to work ( I actually had to take some sick leave time) so it will be nice to get back into the swing of things.
I have been reading online about emotional abuse. Funny, I never saw it coming! Seems like things kicked up into high gear after the honeymoon. But we dated for two years and saw each other very frequently for long periods of time even though we lives miles apart. Yes, there were some red flags but I just thought that he was insecure a bit because of his last divorce and if I could love him enough, he would calm down and not take things so personally. I couldn't do enough for the guy. The more I would do, the more he raised the stakes and nothing seemed enough to prove my love and devotion to him.
I am turning 50 on Saturday. Yes, 50. You would think I should know better at my age. But I have learned one thing, I am not going to stick around in a bad relationship. So yes, I am going home to process things. The way I feel now if he doesn't want to make some serious changes including counseling, I am done.
Thank you all again.

Echo...before we got married and when we first met and were dating, his little girl was 7. Once in awhile she would come into our bed after a bad dream and sleep with us. I didn't like it but she was smaller, we were a new couple and I gave in. Fast forward to now, she is older, a chunky little thing and it is more intolerable. Last visit, she came in once and he asked her to sleep at the foot of the bed. Again, I did not like it but it was a pretty bad dream. This visit, he tells her to sleep in the middle and I am not going to take it anymore. He is just doing that because he is too damn lazy to wake up and deal with her. Then he accuses me of not allowing him to cuddle his daughter! HUH? WHAT?
HIs flipping out and controlling style strangely enough manifested after the honeymoon was over. He kept saying it was the stress of us being apart. I knew that he was used to getting his way, a bit spoiled and was defensive but I figured that with time he would learn to really trust me with his feelings especially after we tied the knot. Now I am not perfect. We both are strong personality types but I choose my words carefully and have had therapy before so I come with a better "fighting style" if you will. I never put him down. I always try to get him to talk but he becomes hostile if I push him on it. He has a really hard time acknowledging my feelings and is quite selfish by nature but these qualities too really ramped up after the honeymoon.
His drinking also increased after the honeymoon to him drinking a few times a week to every night ( at least a whole bottle of wine) and sometimes drunk on the weekends.
He has a lot of demons from his past. He was severely sexually abused. He doesn't "believe" in therapy.
I am a rescuer. I have always fallen for these type of guys. I need to get myself some help on that.
Yes, I think the only thing that could possibly save us now is couples therapy but that is unlikely to happen. Plus, the way I am feeling now, all my alarm bells are ringing at full blast. At any rate, I am very ready to go back home. My departing will be very difficult under the circumstances so I want it to be as melodrama free as it possibly could be. Any suggestions for that?