Jealous Adult Child
I met my current partner online around a year ago. About two months in he told me of his intention to take a job abroad and around the same time he introduced me to his three kids. He has a 20 year old daughter from a young relationship and then two boys (aged 16 & 13) with his ex wife of 18 years. His first relationship ended amicably when his daughter was very young and she went to live with her mother. He’s had regular access. He and his wife seperated around 2.5 years ago and divorced at the beginning of this year. She does not allow him to see his boys, regardless of his efforts before and after miving away.
So, he now lives and works abroad and we have entered into a long distance relationship. Things are going really well and, as much as we hate being apart, the distance only serves to proling the hineymoon period. He’s been home once and I’ve visited him out there twice. All three visits have been amazing!
From the moment we met, his daughter and I hit it off. She would constantly reassure would thought I was amazing and good for him and that she was happy to see him in a relationship with me and couldn’t wait to visit him with me. However since he left, she appears to have become quite jealous of me.
She has avoided maintaining a friendship with me and will only contact me or reply to my messages if she wants something frim me.
After dropping him at the airport when he initially left, she apparently told him that she would prefer I not to visit him with me, as she felt I stole all the hugs when we dropped him at the airport. I should mention at this piint that I went out of my way to ensure they had plenty of time alone while at the airport, but she insisted on us all sticking together. When it came to saying goodbye he tried to hug her (numerous times) and tell her that he loved her, but she stood with her hands by her side and didn’t reciprocate, telling him to hurry up and go, as she needed to get back and collect her boyfriend from work. She huffed and puffed the whole time we were saying goodbye and kept tapping her watch and urging him to leave asap.
When she heard that I was planning to visit him in his birthday mid year, she told him that she wanted to visit him then and that I was not welcome. We discussed alternative dates for me and although i was gutted, I didn’t let on. As soon as he told her that he had cancelled my trip, she said she didn’t want to go out there for his birthday. While visiting him last month he mentioned that we needed to get my flights booked for his birthday weekend. He messaged her asking when she would like to make her first visit, so that he could book all of the various flights at the same time. She asked when I was going and he told her I was going for his birthday. She then said she’d changed her mind and wanted to go out there for his birthday. Again, as soon as she realised he had cancelled my trip, she changed her mind on her dates.
She decided she wanted to go out there before me and so is there right now, but has made it clear that she wants me to have no contact with him while she’s there, as she says she wants him all to herself. Despite suggesting previous to this that she’d wanted to take her boyfriend with her. She didn’t do this because my partner refused to pay for his flights. Something else she wasn’t happy about.
I would again like to mention that before he left, the only time she agreed to spend time with her father is when he’s wallet was out. She’d decline almost every invite from him for weeks at a time.
I have told him that I have no desire to get into an emotiinal war with her for his effectiins and so when she is around I will back off. He says that he knows what she’s like and that I am his priority (after his biys), as she is an adult, but agrees that I should back off when she’s around him.
I feel that she knows exactly what she’s doing and that my relationship is being controlled by her to an extent.
my own teenage children have been nothing like this. They have accepted him fully and live him to bits. They have both vouced their concerns about her behaviour too, and they can’t understand why she wouldn’t want to see her dad happy.
Are my feelings unjustified? I want him to have a good relationship with his daughter and I want to be her friend and have tried so hard to be in many ways. But now I feel I can’t conduct myself in ways that come naturally to me when she’s around for fewr of feeding this jealously and causing a problem or mire bad feeling.
any advice/words of wisdom would be gratefully received please.
Unless your SO can tell his
Unless your SO can tell his daughter that he is allowed to have a relationship with an adult woman, this is what your life will be like. He might be uncertain about what to do right now, but he needs to come to his senses soon because why would you want to be sacrificed to make an adult woman happy? Imagine dealing with that feeling for years....a lot of people here have and you should nip it in the bud now or move on.
Don't think it will automatically get better as she gets older. Several of us are dealing with jealous SDs in their 40's and 50's. They have their own families but still expect daddy to have them on a pedestal. They were raised on that pedestal and are not happy to share it with someone else.
He says you are his first
He says you are his first priority but he cancelled your trip just to appease his daughter - not once but TWICE. His actions do not match his words.
You want them to have a good
You want them to have a good relationship but the fact is, they do not have a healthy relationship and they are both responsible for that. He is the one who lets her get away with this, changing his and your plans on her whims. Telling you to back off when she is around? She is an adult, has her own boyfriend and her own life, she should be able to deal with Daddy having a girlfriend.
You are seeing what kind of person he really is and who comes first, and it's not you. And this is just a tidbit, you haven't known him all that long, and are in a long distance relationship, which means you don't know him all that well. Being apart may prolong the honeymoon period but it also prolongs getting to know the real him, in real life.
If you decide to stay on this ride, buckle up.
"this is just a tidbit, you haven't known him all that long"
Ain't THAT the truth! And the skid problems get worse as time goes by!!! OP, if you do not have the support of SO now, you never will - unless he has a 'miracle moment' and reprioitizes his relationships with you and SD. From what I've read on this site (over 7 years) the odds are slim.
It would be interesting to see what SO's reaction would be if you confronted his daughter about her inappropriate possessiveness and confronted him for his lack of support for you.
You wrote that you met him on the Internet, and you haven't had much exposure to each other. It just doesn't seem to be the right environment for a healthy long-term relationship. Your commitment to him doesn't match his commitment to you. Perhaps you could back off a tad until you know him better.
...and so it begins
...and so it begins
His actions don't match his
His actions don't match his words. At 20, she should be ready and capable of hearing that Dad has a girlfriend . SD has a boyfriend, how would she react if Daddy acted like she is acting??? He needs to make life clear to her about what adulting looks like. Can he do that? Help her grow up? Put limits on her and put her behvior back on her? Doesn't sound like it now. He hasn't accepted that parenting a 20yo is way different than parenting a younger kid.
Don't make it easy, don't change your schedule because she's throwing a tantrum. You both are adults and he should be able to say to daughter that it doesn't work for him, and toss out another option.
This situation no longer
This situation no longer passes the smell test. It reeks. So move on. That this guy caters to his adult daughter over his partner makes him a write off IMHO.
It does not get better as
It does not get better as they age (in fact I think it intensifies), the longer you are together the more insanely jealous people like this become. You need no reason for the jealousy either. Just you being alive and being around daddeee, is all it takes; all the rest is just icing on the cake. Husbands who take control of this insanity have happier endings; but it seems most are enslaved to their children all of their lives for reasons nobody will ever be able to completely define; because it is all beyond comprehension of normal behavioral understanding by any parent. Sounds like your situation may be leaning in this direction; and, if so, read on this site--you are not alone.
I don't know how old you are
I don't know how old you are but I'm in that "middle age" range now and realize that some circumstances are just too complicated and should be left alone. This daddee, big girl love fest sounds ridiculous, exhausting and not worth the trouble. If she's this much of a turd to you and he allows and accomodates it just imagine how awful it must have been for his ex wife and no wonder he's divorced if widdle baby girl ran the show.
You said:
I want him to have a good relationship with his daughter and I want to be her friend and have tried so hard to be in many ways."
Well hun, you're the only one trying "so hard." Those two, they don't care about you and what you want. You're just there to fly in for a booty call and fly out without ruffling SD's feathers. She's acting like the wife while you're the mistress flying in for secret visits.
Advice: Stop trying, stop flying in to see him, quit making things so easy for him. Stop canceling plans for SD, make him come to you. Schedule HIS visit to you around your life and needs. Get a grip girl, quit acting so desperate.
Oh, yea, I get this dynamic.
Oh, yea, I get this dynamic.
I had a similar situation with adult SD. We could never visit my husband's extended family on the other coast without SD insisting on coming along. I never could develop a decent rapport with any of his family because SD was always there causing tension and having meltdowns. She'd call our hotel room at 7 a.m. to ask him to go for a walk on the beach with her, alone of course. She'd ask him to go for coffee WITHOUT ME and they'd be gone for hours while I'd be sitting at the hotel. She once said she'd never go see them without him and that's when I realized his extended family would always be strangers to me.
Finally, I just stopped going. No one ever put her in her place when she'd act out and if I had done it, I would have looked like the bad guy in front of all his family. I felt like I was there as the outsider and my husband should not have dumped me for dates with his daughter -- something he could have done on our coast with her. Interestingly, as soon as I stopped going with him, so did SD.
This is how dogs act -- one pee's on something and the next one comes along and pees on it to make it his own. It's now a decade into our marriage and I've seen his extended family a handful of times.
I don't know that backing off will work. That just sets up the fantasy world for her in which you don't exist at all, which is a lie. Unless he shows her that he expects both of you to be present and both of you to treat the other with respect, you will always be shoved to the side when she appears.
On the other hand, if you go when she's around, you will endure her slights, snotty attitude, and maybe even her tantrums. And who wants to be around that? It's a Catch 22.
You are fairly early on in this relationship. Figure out which you can deal with more -- being shoved aside when she wants him or enduring her crap to hold your place with him. The third option is to move on and find someone who isn't already married to his daughter.
If you can't leave him, I agree the best thing to do is avoid him and let him know what he's missing. When he comes crawling, that's the time to negotiate for your demands. He will "yes" you forever to get you back and immediately chuck the agreement when she appears anyway, but at least you won't be starting from nothing.