I don't feel you have enough information from my post to call my daughter a bratty teen, and have stereotyped quite heavily. She is civil and polite, she does answer him when he talks to her. I have stated I have sat down with her and talked to her about it, in fact I also said we have all tried to mediate but it wasn't successful. He will settle for nothing less than a father/daughter relationship a relationship that she doesn't want. I cant make her like him? The problem is that both of them do not chat easily with one another, they are not friends and their relationship has deteriorated since my husband had a mini breakdown when our son was born. So to blame my daughter wholly for this is not fair.

He has some very deep issues that he has had all his life (I have known him all my life) and these issues affect everyone around him. I am trying to help him through all of this as he is facing up to them, which hasn't been easy for him to do. However, my daughter is a trigger for his anxiety to the point where she only has to walk into the room for him to get anxious. She did not make him this way, he is using her as an anchor for his anxiety that he has suffered from all his life.

Having said all that I DO recognise my daughter needs to adapt too. I have explained to her that regardless of her feelings towards my husband that he is my husband, I love him and he is here to stay. I love my kids too, they know that, and that I also have a life too. She knows all this, and this is why she is able to conduct herself in a civil manner around him. To be fair it works both ways as I stated.

I was a single parent to my older two for 10 years for the simple reason they come first, and when I met my husband things were good between him and my kids. Yes, he has anxiety issues-but they didn't effect the children at all and I don't think someone should be disregarded because they have an illness-mental or not.

The issues came about when we had our son, who is 10 months old now. My husbands confidence slipped and it resulted in him having a mini breakdown. During that time he became controlling in a bid to feel secure, nit picking about small things like shoes not being put away, or a coat not hung up. Walls of silence when his routine was broken, him feeling stress when something didn't come up to his expectations. When this was happening my daughter was the most apathetic towards him, and even though we have talked as a family about the issues their relationship has not improved.

My husband is not a bad man he just has anxiety issues, in fact he is one of the most caring and generous people I know. In a way its because he is trying to care too much that these problems have arisen. She does not want a father figure (yes she has her own issues surrounding her own father).

I dont want to fix my husband nor turn him into anything he is not as apart from this issue our marriage is good, what I do want to do is try to see things objectively, its really hard when two people you love are in discord and you are the centre point for their frustrations.

wow! There is no middle ground is there!

I have known him all my life in that we grew up as kids together, then in adult life from afar. My two older children did not meet him (apart from in passing through the years) until we got together 3 years ago. My daughter is 16 my middle son is 14 and my youngest is 10 months old.

My husband has a job, he also has two well adjusted children from a previous marriage who live with their mother.

My son gets on with my husband

My daughter doesnt.

I am not thinking of myself, I am thinking of my family as a whole-all three of my children and my husband

I am not favouring either of them, as I said in my first post they are as bad as each other and both have issues relating to their own life experience.

The problem is that they are not on each others wavelength-because of this and what arises from this there are issues on both sides.

My husband has anxiety that has been diagnosed, nothing more. please please research anxiety its not always what you think (its self destructive rather abusive)

My daughter has issues with her father that she is getting help with.

I am here because I CARE about my daughter-and yes my whole family looking for advice.

No, my posts have not changed. But i feel I have to defend him not against my daughter but against some of the surmising posts here-many have him hung drawn and quartered before even considering the whole story (its impossible to state every little thing here). Like I keep saying, my husband suffers with anxiety-it magnified when we had our 10 month old and yes it effected us all as any illness would whether mental or physical. It affected my daughter most who has issues of her own. She has been seen by the school counsellor with regards to her father, and of course both of us have worked through it together.

No, my posts have not changed. But i feel I have to defend him not against my daughter but against some of the surmising posts here-many have him hung drawn and quartered before even considering the whole story (its impossible to state every little thing here). Like I keep saying, my husband suffers with anxiety-it magnified when we had our 10 month old and yes it effected us all as any illness would whether mental or physical. It affected my daughter most who has issues of her own. She has been seen by the school counsellor with regards to her father, and of course both of us have worked through it together.

Yes he is still in therapy, for issues relating to his own childhood (no there was no abuse). He is receiving help to deal with panic attacks, anxiety and paranoia resulting from anxiety. They have touched on the subject of my daughter. This is ongoing. From where i'm sitting he is allowing my daughter's normal teenager behaviour to effect him personally, like he is responsible for being a father figure to her and failing. Like I said anxiety is very self destructive, and because of that of course it affects everyone because its TIRING watching someone struggle with confidence. If you have low confidence and are anxious you try harder to get things right and ultimately push away that which you are trying hard to conserve. He does not display anger or violence.

With regards to my daughter, she is improving her relationship with her father (which could be another reason she is rejecting my husband?), things are working slowly. We have a good relationship, we do things together when we can, she adores her little brother and has a good relationship with him. My middle son is unaffected by any of this and is content in his life.

Sorry I missed some of the questions here; he was nit picky with my son too (he never treated them any different), my son took it on the chin. My daughter didnt accept it-for which we have had chats about. My husband apologised to her when we did the mediation talk around the table. My son is no angel, in fact he is hard work as he is autistic but he has a good relationship with my husband as they have things in common. As for the baby, he is a great dad to him and looks after him for half the week while I am at university, then he works for the rest of the week.

Thank you for your advice DPW, its appreciated. I came here looking for a bit of advice from people who may have been able to resolve issues of a merged family similar to my situation, its not easy for anyone involved no matter what age the kids are, but I think in particular the teenage years are quite hard anyway!

From this thread I take that I need to concentrate more on my daughter, we are close and do talk about lot of things. I'm aware with a 10 month old its easy to spread myself too thinly. I will find a non school therapist and take it from there. And of course my husband is actively getting help for his anxiety, but I am only human-sometimes it falls heavily on my shoulders.

Thank you for all your replies.

I am absolutely dumbfounded at the amount of 'filling in the gaps' that has happened in this thread!

There is blame on all sides of course, because that is why I am here looking to find ways to resolve the issue. Please read all of my replies and don't judge just from my first post. My husband has admitted his issues are causing him to feel stress and anxiety around my daughter (and in other areas not just my daughter), and I am supporting him by confronting the issue with my daughter (as i have already said)-in fact I am listening to them both and trying to resolve things-again as i have said.

When two people don't want to be in the same room as each other, if you had read my replies you would have seen that I said also he wont come into the room if she is in there......

You all seem to want to dig up some drama that isn't there-like I said in an earlier post I have been accused of being a shit mum, my husband of being an abuser (in different ways) and that I should just leave him because he has a mental health illness my daughter of being a brat and that I put men before my children I have not reacted because you have all made assumptions based on god knows what.

I am here to ask advise, to try and mediate between my husband and my daughter-they are both at fault and yes me too for being so fucking tired with a 10 month old, university, an autistic son, a husband who suffers from anxiety and a teenage daughter. So yeah, I am a shit mum for asking for help.

Sometimes problems can be just that. Problems can be solved with a little insight from others, the world isn't full of abusers, violence and disrespectful kids......

So two people that dont get along means that one of them must be sexually abusing the other? What a terrible assumption to make......You know my story from a few words on a screen, like I said please dont fill in the gaps from your own story.

ok apologies 'don't fill in the gaps from stuff you have read on the internet'.

Wouldnt it be a wonderful world if every part of family life was perfect, well life isnt like that-people get ill, people die, babies get born, people come and go. I would think that everyone has issues within the family unit at some point in their lives. the important thing is that they try to resolve them (which is exactly what I am doing). I think this thread would have been very different if I had omitted the fact my husband suffers with anxiety...people are so quick to judge and condemn.

ok I am very grateful for some of the constructive replies and advise given here. Myself and my husband have always been open and honest with each other (and me with my kids). I operate on a level that if something can be worked through in an adult way then its worth the effort of trying-which is exactly why I posed my question here.

There have been alot of assumptions made, which has resulted in alot of drama.

Firstly my daughter is not an unhappy child, she has issues with her bio father which are being resolved at her pace. She is 16 now and as she has grown into the woman she is becoming she has become more assertive and some of these issues with her father are being confronted because she is instigating the confrontation with him. Asking him why questions etc. Thats an area that as a mother I have been able to support her in now because she is starting to ask those questions. All their childhood I made excuses up (wrongly or rightly) for their father not turning up, turning up drunk etc because I wanted to shield them from his alcoholism. These issues started way before my husband came on the scene. She has no anger towards me, we have a good relationship and she does talk to me about anything. Of course I have conversations with her about my husband, and her attitude is always indifferent. She doesnt hate him, she doesnt like him as a person, they have nothing in common at all. I get that, and I understand that-she is a 16 year old girl who is about to go to college, has tons of friends, socialises and her life focus is music and social media (as is normal for teenagers). She has no conversation with my husband beyond the normal polite etiquette.

My husband had a mini breakdown that was triggered by a number of things all happening at once. We moved house, he was dealing with alot of pressure at work, I had an awful pregnancy with my youngest and needed alot of care and our son nearly died at birth because the hospital didnt follow the care plan. Add all that to his anxiety, which he has suffered from on and off all his life its easy to see how he buckled under the pressure. Having a baby alone is hard enough on people that dont have any health problems.

His breakdown came from trying to keep everything together for us, the family. His anxiety caused him to react in an OCD way, his way of keeping things together. Of course this was not acceptable to any of us, and it was this point I asked him to leave and he spent the next few months living with a friend and examining his illness and seeking help.

Whilst this was going on with him, I was dealing with a newborn, I expect this also had an impact on my two older ones as mom was busy elswhere. At this time my two older kids changed schools (as i said we moved). There was alot of changes happening around that time, and no human could go through that and not have it affect them.

I have lived and brought my kids up on my own for the last ten years, always put them first (its one of the reasons I chose to hold off my career until they were older-hence me going to uni now), if I thought for one minute my kids were suffering by having my husband here i'd be gone like a shot.

When my husband got in from work last night, I skimmed through these posts (like I said we are open with each other), he was both shocked and saddened to read so much judgement. However, it opened his eyes to the fact he was mostly seeing things in a very self absorbed way-which if anyone knows anything about anxiety its all about fear and keeping fear from you. people with anxiety will try their hardest to not feel fear (ie OCD behaviour, complete evasion of the subject or worrying about outcomes that do not exist). When that fear hits, a person becomes very insular.

He agreed that his rationale was fear that he would lose me and our son because my daughter didnt like him, so in his way of trying to fix this he would try harder to get along with her. His conversations with her then became awkward and forced and she in turn then backed off, he hadnt realised he has done more harm than good by trying too hard. He also understood that coming to me with his worries, which sometimes caught me off guard was like waving a red flag at a bull. We argue about it because it always comes back to the same damn thing and I am exhausted by it.

My daughter is not the cause of his anxiety, just as much as he is not the cause of her apathy-there are many factors which I have tried to summerise above.

To move forward husband has agreed to work on his fear of losing me and our son and that these fears come from his childhood (his mum left him with relatives several times for different men and his dad was not around). Its only been this year that he has acknowledged that through counselling-which has been a huge step in the right direction.

For my part, I am continuing to be the role I am in a wife and a mother. I am a good mom, and proud of my kids-they are good kids with good manners. I can't make my daughter like my husband, but I can show her that in life there is give and take, we have to make compromises. There is no danger here despite the dramatics that have been said on this message board, mostly made up from lack of information.

But i am grateful for all that i have extracted from your replies. thank you.

Yes, his CBT was to enable him to gain coping strategies when he felt fearful ie he has to examine the feeling and work out if the fear is rational or not. His doctor is trying things through a process of elimination one stage at a time. The next step for him is to go back to the doctors and try the next step which I believe will be a referral to a psyche doc. I'm sure there will be meds along the way, this doctor has actually been fantastic and pretty thorough-the first one he went to offered him anti depressants straight away with no questions asked. My husband recognises this has to be a life long change, not a quick fix, so is conscious of the need to work through this systematically. The CBT has worked to a degree, but obviously he does have the occasional wobble, I have to remind him that our little boy picking up a toy from the floor and putting it in his mouth will not harm him but infact help his immune system-for example. Its little things like that, that freak husband out and he needs to constantly assess his worries, which actually is bloody exhausting for him-and people around him.

Its a slow process I know, and of course this thread is all about his problems not his attributes and positives for which there are many