How can I understand my husband when it comes to his daughter and his feelings

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Hello,

So I have had the fortune of being part of my stepdaughter's life whom I met when she was 8 years old and now she is 12. Life in short with her from beginning to right now it has been a roller coaster. I love her dearly and I know she cares for me but still struggles with me since she loves her mother and she's not to blame it's her mommy. Where I'm having difficulties of understanding my husband is that we have our 2 year old son whom he adores his sister to death!! To the point is that most of the times that my partner and I have had a discussion which he never agrees with me he always has this remark well what about my daughter and I don't understand why he only sees it that way. Last night we had a discussion since there's too much drama between our both families and I told him he was disrespectful to my father whom he has never disrespected him. I told him in short I respect my father right or wrong because I grew up with showing respect no matter what. He blatantly looks at me and tells me well what about my daughter and I. Which I kindly replied that my point is show that respect i love my father and I've always looked up to him and I don't disrespect his parents. And I left it there and tried to move the conversation to something positive which he just ignored and I walked away since I didn't want to argue with him. My feelings towards this is that he has always told me he feels guilty for not being with her, and every time an arguement arises he only looks after his daughters well-being and forgets that he has a son too whom has had the misfortune of listening to him yell at me. I feel like he at times protects them differently and has more empathy towards his daughter than our son. Now because I didn't know how to handle that i signed us up for a parenting class which they have addressed how to parent with love and logic and it's helping but those comments that he tells me am I wrong for feeling like that since he has done things that made me believe otherwise one that up to this point has bothered me is his then 11 year old daughter doesn't like to brush her hair and he asked her many times until he had to do it and found gum in her hair and he ended up taking it on our son who was 11/2 he just placed him in the cold water which he yelled it was cold I maintained my calm and told him I would shower him so he could relax because he didn't tell his daughter anything how wrong am I in this I know he loves his kids dearly but situations like this make me feel he protects his daughter more than our son. Please no bad comments

If I understand correctly,

If I understand correctly, your husband walks on eggshells around his daughter then takes his frustration out by less than tender care toward your mutual baby. A second issue is that he can interject his daughter into adult discussions that don't involve her. And third, you feel he generally favors his daughter over his son.

You can correct me wherever I've got that wrong.

Sounds a difficult set of things to work through. I want to praise you for taking the parenting class. That's an excellent step.

The middle issue I would suggest every time he brings her up when you're talking about your dad or the price of tea in China, just shake it off (internally) and then say, "hey, I think I can only handle one topic at a time" and offer to talk about any issue he has with his daughter "tomorrow" (or pick a time) because you want to have some happy time with him today so you can remember how much you love each other and could we just address one big topic on any given day?

Or, you know, some version of that that works for you. Basically, 1)stick to the topic 2) reassure him you'll listen to his concerns at the appointed hour 3) reassure him the whole idea is to be happy together and let's not get pulled into the undertow of non-stop arguing.

Yes that's exactly correct !!

Yes that's exactly correct !! Thank you so much for that advise. It's interesting that those techniques not only work for children but for adults also!!

I can't read the post, I need

I can't read the post, I need paragraphs please.

THANK YOU!!

Could you give a little more

Could you give a little more info about how he was disrespectful to your father? And did he place his son in a cold bath as a punishment or was it just a bath that hadn't warmed up yet?

Np, as I mentioned there has

Np, as I mentioned there has been so much drama between our families which if I stay here to explain I feel I would never finish!! But any ways my parents took my son out and it was night time so we had to pick him up at a location and my h didn't get off the car to say hi to my parents or help me with my son. So my father got off his car to say hi to my h and he didn't even look at him and ignored what my father was telling him.

And to clarify my husband was about to shower our son but he asked his daughter to brush her hair bc it literally looked like a birds nest probably 3 days without brushing her hair it seemed (she had been dropped off the previous night by her mother so I wouldn't know) and she wouldn't listen in which he had to grab the brush and comb it and came across the piece of gum in her hair he was mad at her but he didn't tell her anything he went back to the restroom and he didn't wait for the water to warm up and threw our son in the shower

The was one of the points that I was trying to make that I feel he treats them differently and protects his daughter more or if I'm just over reacting to what I'm seeing this has been just one of the many things we've encountered