QUESTION: I am 31 and live with my fiancé. He has a five-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Now that we are getting married I really need some advice regarding step-parent stuff.
His daughter and I get on very well and we love each other. I just need to know about discipline and boundaries because it causes arguments with my fiancé. He thinks I am too strict with her.
I really don’t feel I am. I just want her to have good manners and respect me and if I say “no” that she respects my answer and won’t run to her dad to ask him.
I am afraid that as she gets older she will come between us or make life difficult for us, playing us off each other.
Also, I am finding it hard to cope with his ex – I find myself checking my fiancé’s phone to see what she is saying to him. I trust him, but I don’t trust her. They have been broken up four years now, but she can make life difficult at times.
She relies on my boyfriend and his family too much and not her own. She doesn’t drive, so expects everyone to run around for her. I also feel she is not the best mother, as her daughter has often arrived to us with dirty hair and DVDs that are far too old for her to watch.
I love and care for his daughter and always make sure she has nice things and is clean. I just get very upset when I know my boyfriend has to be around the mother, even though I know he loves me and can’t stand her.
ANSWER: You seem to have two separate issues going on, but in some ways they may be linked. On the one hand, you want to build a positive relationship with this little girl who will become your stepdaughter. On the other, you are concerned about the mother’s relationship with your husband-to-be.
You seem jealous of the fact that this woman still has an emotional connection with your fiancé since she shares their daughter with him. This does mean that in the long term he will continue to have to have some regard for her and her well-being, because this will affect his daughter.
As much as you might like him to be able to cut her off, he can’t. Despite your misgivings about her motivation for continuing to rely on your fiancé and his family, you have to take your lead from him.
He may be responding to her from guilt or from genuine goodwill. Either way, you have to accept, for now, that this is how he chooses to respond.
Things may well change in the future and he may feel more able and more inclined to encourage her to be more independent.
However, if you keep getting upset about their contact, you run the risk of alienating yourself from him. You may even sound needy and jealous and that will be less attractive to your fiancé.
If you truly trust your husband-to-be, you have to trust that he won’t let himself be placed in any untenable or emotionally compromised situation.
You also have to leave it up to him to address any issues of inappropriate care, clothing or DVDs that you seem to have identified.
Regarding his daughter, I wonder whether you might be projecting some of your negative feelings about her mother on to her. It could be, in fact, that some of your strictness towards the daughter is a reaction to the way you feel that her mother gets away with stuff and nobody seems to say “no” to her.
You may actually be saying “no” to your stepdaughter as a reaction to her mother rather than because you really need to.
The key to finding balance is to keep talking to your fiancé about parenting. Talk about the typical situations that you find yourself in with his daughter and agree how you will both respond.
This might mean that you compromise in some areas and end up acting less strict, and in other areas he may end up being firmer than he would otherwise have been.
Perhaps you might both read a parenting book to help you find that common ground or common approach without one parent feeling as if they end up compromising too much.
It will be much easier for the little girl if the two adults in the house are in agreement and treat her in the same consistent way.
It would be only natural for a five-year-old to go complaining to the “easier” or “softer” parent if they feel that they are being harshly treated by the other.
You may also find that you garner much more respect and a more positive, acquiescent, response from his daughter when you treat her with respect and fairness.
If she perceives that you are overly strict (in comparison with her mom and dad), then she may feel that you are being unfair to her and this might set up conflict that doesn’t need to be there.
Tread softly and gently. Remember that you are the person who is coming later into the family relationships that were already (for better or worse) established. Your views should be included, but they cannot override the views of everyone else involved. – Irish Independent