Hi. I would appreciate any advice or guidance if possible from anyone especially husbands/partners/fathers who have been in the same situation as me.
I have been married to my now wife since mid 2013. We have been together since mid 2011 and I live with her and my step son (10). I have a 7 year old daughter from my previous relationship who has been an active, regular part of my life since me and her mother split in early 2011.
I get very limited time with my daughter as I live 60 minutes away (sometimes 90 minutes due to traffic/motorways) so I get no midweek contact. Until recently ( I will go onto this later ) I was getting every other weekend Friday pm from school until Monday morning dropping back to school. Half school holidays too.
I love my daughter a [censored] of a lot and struggle unbelievably going 11 days with zero contact face to face. I have had to cope with this for 4.5 years now and it never seems to get any easier.
When I moved over to where I am now in late 2012, me and my now wife had a verbal discussion that we would move within 3 - 5 years to where I moved from as it is a much nicer area/village and only 15/20 minutes from my daughter, and I even kept my house going/rented out so we have somewhere to move to if we want to. However, over last few months she has made it clear that she will not commit to moving now, either in next couple of years or ever. This obviously means I will have to carry on with no mid week contact for the foreseeable and cope with the distance between me and my daughter. This is just one issue.
My wife also seems very un-supportive of me having a good relationship with my daughter. When she was here last weekend I made plans to do a couple of activities that I know my daughter enjoys ( swimming and going out on her bike ). Usually this involves my step-son as he also enjoys doing those activities, but this weekend just gone he had his best mate over (also 10) from Saturday 10am until early PM Sunday and all they wanted to do was play on their computers/tablets and not do anything. I therefore did what I had planned as I am not wanting to waste any time I have with my daughter. This seems to have made my wife angry and she has accused me of doing things to favour my daughter. This couldn't be further from the truth as I always try and plan things as a family together which is usually the case.
My daughter really wants to go ice skating too. But my wife and step son will not go. I therefore told my daughter that one weekend before Xmas I will take her if she has behaved well ( had some recent behaviour problems which are getting better ), and I would try and take her when my wife is at work and we could drop my step-son off at his nans for an hour or so while we went if he really does not want to come. My daughter told my wife that she is going ice skating and my wife then had a right go at me, accused me of doing things to favour her and that she gets preferential treatment and has not talked to me now for nearly 3 days. She thinks I show my daughter too much attention and neglect them. This is not true at all. I do shower her with cuddles if she wants them and do stuff normal Dads do, as I don't see her for 11 days at a time. I see my wife and step-son every single day and show them the attention they need during that time.
How do other fathers in the same situation as me deal with this or act ? ( IE - have a partner/wife and step-child living with them but only limited contact with their own child )
On top of this I am in process of waiting for my first hearing following submitting a C100 to court. The hearing is in December. This came about as my contact was severely restricted ( stopped for a few weeks initially ) in August following a family holiday which the 4 of us went on in Spain. There was a minor incident involving my daughter and my wife in which there was an argument and my wife tapped my daughter with a shoe/flip-flop making my daughter cry. At the time of the incident me and my wife argued as I thought it was over the top and shouldn't have done that, and a few hours after my wife said she felt bad about it ( no marks or anything like that it was really light tap ) My daughter told her mother when she got back and she called the police instead of talking to me. There was an investigation which took 4-5 weeks in total as my wife had to go and be interviewed and they also then (unofficially and not recorded) spoke to me and my step son as we were in the room when it happened on holiday. They made no charges and the file was closed. But since this incident, my daughters mother has been extremely reluctant to let things go back to normal and I have been making do with one day/over-night every couple of weeks. Also been told for the whole of December I will see my daughter 4 times only and she has no intention of relaxing this back to what were the previous arrangements. I've had a few issues over the years with her and had my contact threatened before for silly things like refusing to shower our daughter twice a day as I only shower her once... that sort of petty thing. So this court order has been at the back of my mind for a while and this recent incident has tipped the balance.
At the end of the day, I am a loving father who realises how important life is, and how short it can be and I take nothing for granted in life. I just want to be able to spend time with my daughter and not feel like my wife is feeling left out or threatened by our relationship in any way in the limited time I get with my daughter. My daughter is extremely close to me and she likes to feel that attention, which I guess is due to the limited contact we have.
Any thoughts or advice or similar stories from other Dads (or even Moms) would be nice to hear.
Thanks.
Hi There,
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I don't think what your experiencing is that un common, the way you are with your daughter is natural, you don't see her as much as you would like and when you do, you want to make the most of every second, if your partner and step son don't want to do something that you and your daughter do I can't see any reason why you shouldn't do it just the 2 of you, infact have some father daughter time is probably a good thing anyway.
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I would imagine that maybe your partner feels pushed out when your daughter is there and maybe without realising it you are different towards her and your stepson when she is, I think this again is natural you don't see your daughter so you want to make the most of it and have all the hugs ect you can.
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I think you will have to try and talk with your partner and try and resolve the issues, I wonder if this is the reason she now doesn't want to move as if you did you would have your daughter with you more often.
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GTTS