I have been married for about 1.5 years to a man with a daugther from a previous marriage. She lives with her mother and visits us on designated breaks. Her mother is a very "hands off" parent who would rather ignore her daughter than raise her. When I married this man, I informed him that I, by choice, did not date men with children because I detest...no..HATE drama created from the dynamics of the parental bermuda triangle. He told me that he was civil with the mother and promised no drama. What a crock. That is all it has been. I care about this man and feel badly for his daughter, but am growing weary of the drama. She is 8 and her latest stunt was manipulating her father to call the police on her stepfather for alleged domestic abuse. Her father tried to ensure that she was telling the truth, and kept with her story,...she did...so he called the local police near where she lives. The sent 2 police cars, a fire responder and an ambulance. When the police arrived...and nearly crashed through her stepfather's front door, the step father and mother had no idea what was going on. Upon examination from the paramedics and an interview of the little girl by the police, we found out..and she later admitted..she made the whole thing up. Her step father nearly went to jail. She has not exibited any remorse or understanding of the magnitude of the lie she told. Her mother and step-father didn't punish her...in fact, they didn't even think about a punishment until we asked what they were going to do so that we could be consistent with her punishment when she came out for her visitation. Single-handedly, the little brat has shattered her father's belief in her, put her step-father's reputation into question, caused problems in her mother's new marriage, and once again interjected more drama into what was an even keel harmony. His daughter is very intelligent and generally a sweet girl, but has many emotional issues. She is adamant in having control and neither of her parents do well to control her. My husband thinks he can control his daughter, but I see her manipulating him. He feels sorry for her too...so much so that he makes allowances for her and often spoils her and is overly permissive. The sun rises and falls in her eyes to him. He gives her lots of latitude and freedom to make choices...like whether she wants to finish a discussion where she is being reprimanded,....or not. At 8, I think a child's decisions should be ones like..mac & cheese or hotdog?

NOW...my husband and I have recently bought a house in preparation of starting our own family. I want the larger of the extra bedrooms to be a guest room until the birth of our child. The smaller bedroom would be his daughter's room when she visits. He is arguing this point with me stating that because she's bigger, she should get the larger room. I disagree. For one...there will be 2 adults staying in the guest room when they come and the bigger room would accommodate them better. I also feel that our child will be living in the house 100% of the time while his daughter only visits and will be with us maybe 40% (AT BEST) of the time so that our child should be given the larger room. He is angry with me, and is under the belief that I treat his daughter like a second class citizen and that I am giving her the small room to make her feel like she doesn't matter. I refuse to move from my position. I know this is trivial, but not to me. The facts are that his daughter does not live with us and is with us for VISITS. Our child will be living with us all the time and I think it is unfair to make our child take a smaller room when she/he will be there all the time. What do you think? Am I that far off of center? He is constantly fighting me to make sure his daughters "rights" aren't violated and I just don't know what to do. I don't think that what I am saying is unreasonable, and I have a feeling this is goinb to come to a header and a HUGE fight ending the marriage. He will get angry and walk..not me. Any words of wisdom? He has stormed off to our bedroom and right before he walked off stated that he is having second thoughts of having a child with me now. I simply told him that I can't help the way I feel and I doubt it will change. I can't win for losing with this man. And I"ll be damned if I will allow him to continually give in to his daughter's "princess" ways.