Hello everyone. This is the first time I've posted on any forum so I hope I'm doing it right - also apologies up front - this is a long post!
I have 2 daughters (11 and 14) from a previous relationship. Now divorced, I met my partner over 3 years ago and was loving life again since as long as I could remember. She also has a daughter who is aged right in the middle of my 2 girls. After a few months we started spending days together and over time I moved in and they would come and stay with us at the weekends.
It was not long after this that the problems started. I was still very friendly with my ex and we spoke often. Us remaining close means so much to the kids. I was upfront and honest about this to my partner right from the start and she said she was ok with it and loved how much I was involved in the children’s lives.
To cut a long story short, it turns out that she did start to feel threatened by my ex and had a big falling out with her.
This upset me greatly since all I wanted was for the 2 of them to be friends, or at least friendly with each other. Now I felt very much in the middle and as time passed things just got worse with the kids eventually realising that the 2 of them were not friends making them feel awkward with the whole situation. When we had them I was constantly on edge knowing that any arguments or issues would get reported back. My ex would accuse my partner of having a problem with her and by extension the children while my partner would accuse her of interfering and see my continued contact with her as allowing her to manipulate me and our relationship. Meanwhile I felt trapped. I didn’t want to distance myself from my ex as doing so would certainly damage my relationship with my children.
Every time I tried to talk to my partner about it we always ended up arguing and I really hated the confrontation. So I ended up just trying to make sure the times we had them everything was perfect so no one would have anything to complain about. As you might expect this did not always work, in fact it put me so on edge it probably made things worse. Don’t get me wrong, we still had some great weekends, but it only took a little thing to ruin it.
Fast forward to this March. There’s been no real improvement of the situation and all parties just kind of resigned that this was how things were. I still talk to my ex, though to a lesser extent and keeping the conversations mainly focussed on the children. At home I’d gotten used avoiding mentioning my ex at all where possible. Unfortunately there remains a bit of a rift between my partner and my youngest daughter, who can admittedly be a bit of a handful. My partner thinks I let her get away with murder and don’t discipline her. I don’t agree and will step in if I feel like she goes too far. Trouble is ‘too far’ means 2 different things for both of us. Regardless, my partner struggles to bond with her and feels that she causes a lot of problems with us as a family.
This also started to cause conflict between the 2 of us and, again, I’d hate the confrontation so begun avoiding the kids as a topic of conversation too. This of course made things worse – the times that we didn’t have the kids we’d get along great, sharing many of the same interests and enjoying our time together. I never wanted to spoil the mood by talking about something that so often led to an argument. But that just meant I was ignoring the problem.
One evening we were at home there was an incident that caused my partner to lose it with my kids. It was bad enough that I took them and left the next morning, staying at my parents house. It was kind of the straw that broke the camels back and I decided at that point I didn’t want the girls coming round for a while. Later we spoke at length about what happened and how I'd been feeling about everything. The details are complicated and I'm conscious that this is too long already! Suffice to say that I felt the situation could be salvaged. I decided I didn’t want to walk away from everything we had and wanted to rebuild things.
Naturally my ex was furious about the whole thing and said at the time she didn’t want the children seeing her any more. I committed to doing everything I could to reassure the kids, seeing them as often as possible and always spending the weekends with them. I’d take them out, go to hotels every few weeks with them or just spend time with them at their house.
Back at home I try to do the same with my partner, supporting her as she tries to sort out her own demons. She seems much happier now, though I still struggle talking to her about the kids as its clearly still a big wound between us. It’s been a couple of months now and she’s started asking when I’m going to start bringing the kids back round again. Up to now I’ve told her that I need more time. Yes I want them to come round again but not if things are going to be like they were before. If this happens again I fear it will be the end of our relationship and that scares the [censored] out of me.
The kids are also starting to ask about it too. I know they’re quite mixed up about it but they want to come over again – despite everything we still had a lot of good times together and they our place as their second home. I think they’ve spoken to my ex about it also who I think will have serious reservations but will probably not block them coming back over.
We have a holiday booked for the 5 of us next summer. It was supposed to be this year but given everything that has happened we pushed it back to next year. For one thing I really struggle looking that far ahead at the moment and try to focus on 1 day at a time. I also really don’t know how my ex will respond to me wanting them to come away with us for a week right now.
As a result of us moving this holiday, my partner feels like her daughter is missing out on a holiday this year as a result of our issues. She approached me a few days ago saying she wants to book 10 days away somewhere sunny for the 2 of them next April but if I’d like to come too it’d mean a lot to her. I knew if I said no she’d be devastated and I also know my 2 are going away with their mum that May anyway so I agreed.
She has now booked the holiday and I have a horrible feeling in my gut that I’m going on holiday without my children. I don’t want them to feel like they’re missing out, even though I know they’ll be going away themselves in May and we also have a trip abroad booked for the 5 of us in August. I also worry because they know I see a lot more of my ex’s daughter in general then I do them, and now me going on a family holiday without them will seem like a betrayal.
Do I just go along with it and explain to them what’s happening? The other option is to see if I can add them to the holiday. I have no idea if my ex will even want them to come and I’m also worried about my partners reaction – what if all 5 of us together that long causes problems like we’ve had before, potentially ruining the holiday?
My head is such a mess and I don’t know what to do for the best ☹
I think the best thing you can do is to speak to Relate (relate.org.uk) - I would suspect that eventually you, your partner and your ex will all need to be involved with the process, but I think someone independant (and qualified) could actually get through this to a resolution that suits all of you.
Thanks for the reply! Yes I have considered that, I do agree that I could do with someone to help make sense of everything. Feels like I just can't get my head around it all.
Hi there
At the moment you can't please everyone and it's no good beating yourself up about it. I think you need to take things slowly, for everyone's sake.
I would suggest that your partner joins you on some days out with your 2 girls to start off with. I would leave your partners child out of it to begin with... your girls are old enough to talk with you and your partner about what happened and what you can all do to avoid it happening again. Talking is good as long as it's age appropriate.
I think if you take it slowly and keep your girls central to the healing process, you should be able to get things back on track. If it's not working, Relate do offer family counselling, which might be helpful.
As far as the holiday is concerned, I would talk to your girls about it and explain how it has come about, perhaps if you tell them that you and your partner also need to make things work again and a week away is part of that. I think they'll understand to be honest, they are going away too which will help. Offer to extra spend time with them during the summer holidays, just you and them, to counter the time you spend with your partners daughter... I think giving them exclusive time with you is a good idea to work into your contact.routine.
Here's a link to the Relate website
www.relate.org.uk
All the best