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boyfriend's ex-wife and daughter
I have been dating a man for the past 5 months and have fallen in love with him. He has told me he loves me and wants to marry me some day. We practically live together. I've never been happier. The problem is his 10 year old daughter. He is supposed to see her every other weekend but she refuses to see him because of me. She won't go to his house as long as he's dating me. I promised that for now on his weekends with her I would stay out of the picture but she still won't see him. I don't want to come between him and his daughter but I don't want to lose him either. He feels like he has to choose. What should I do?
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God, my heart goes out to you. It's really hard on children of divorce when they have close relationships with both parents. Wonderfully enough, is the tiews between the father/daughter. I know this child loves her father incredibly, as does my own daughter. Sometimes I feel like noone should be loved as much as she loves me. I think the problem here could be one of two things. One, the mother could still find herself in love with the father and could be using his daughter to remove what she sees as the impeding factor in their reconciliation. If that's the case, then the most you can do is wait it....and HER ( the mother ) out. Chances are that after a while, the daughter will stop the actions and demanding. She will see it as not fair and quite frankly....boring, and move on.
Number two, which is probably more to the point, is that she may feel that the new woman in Dad's life may be in the postion to take her place and her Dad's love. She sees you as a threat and the best way for her to eliminate that threat is to simply not have it around. Children are great manipluators. That's the only viable option she sees at this point. If at all possible, have your boyfriend sit down with her, and explain to her that although you happen to be in his life right now, that in no way will he EVER feel less for her than he always has. Remove some of the threat in her eyes and then if you're able. get to spend some alone time with her ( when SHE allows it ) and you reassure of her of the same. It may help if YOU tell her just how much her father loves her ( in an aside kind of way ), " You know, your father loves you to death. You're all he talks about.etc., etc., ) She then has the impression that even when he's with you, he talks about her and that gives her an extra sense of value and importance in her mind. Bottom line, stroke her ego. Either way, it's going to take a while. But I assure you, it will be well worth it. Whatever you do, don't relinquish your own happiness. If it's not supposed to be, it won't. but give it everything YOU'VE got. You deserve it.
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