[dazedconfused]

I have been w/my boyfriend for over 3 yrs now. We are great together. We share alot of the same interests & always have a good time together. We do have 1 huge problem. My 10 yr old daughter. She is very dramatic and craves alot of attention which is not always good. She has grown out of some of it over the last few years but he thinks she is undeservingly spoiled & it upsets him terribly. She really is a smart & beautiful girl. I try to make her walk the line but I don’t want to break her spirit. She is goig to be a great leader of something someday.
He has 2 kids of his own that come to visit every other weekend. His daughter is also 10 & not exagerating she is a perfect angel, daddy’s little girl. She is totaly spoiled & very deserving of it. His son is 9 & has his 9 yr old boy issues. Not so perfect but also spoiled. We have a hard time getting all the kids to agree on most anything but I think that is to be expected with kids of this age. He feels all the tension comes from my daughter because her moments of disagreeing are more frequent & his reaction is always more severe. When his kids do something it’s minor in his eyes no matter what. They are the perfect kids.
We were almost living together when he had reached his final limit & left o Christmas day of this last year. Neither one of us wants to be with out the other one which is obvious to both of us. My delima is now he says we can still be together just not on the weekends that he has his kids. I want to be a family. We both want to get married but how can we do that if I can’t be a part of the biggest part of his life. How can we get married if we both live in different houses. I don’t feel this is fair & he refuses to budge. Maybe later we can take a look at my daughters behavior & try again. Don’t we need to fix the problem together? He’s a pefectionist & I am more laid back. If he would LIten up up a bit she’s really not that bad. She’s 10 & like most 10 yr old girl I know. When I tell him I’m done he keeps calling. When I give in to what he wants he quits acting like he cares. I am so confused. I don’t want to wait around for somthing that isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to be 50 yrs old & single. What do I do? Do I stick it out in hopes of my happy ending or do I give up & move on?

[April Masini]

It would help to know how often you have custody of your daughter. Blending a family with children is hard work — but doable. The trick is compromise — HUGE compromise — and learning to let go of the way you think a family should look.

If your boyfriend wants to be with you and your daughter except for two weekends in the month, when he’s with his own children, why not consider that? It would mean giving up your dream of being The Brady Bunch or some other perfectly blended family, but it’s a way to be together with your boyfriend, and having him be part of your daughter’s life. You’d give up something, but you’d gain something.

Or maybe you could start out on that schedule and then all meet up for Sunday dinners on the two weekends he’s with his children. If those two Sunday dinners a month start to go well, you can add on a Saturday park date or a movie with all the kids. Sometimes having the kids bring some friends along dilutes the pressure of family dynamics, too. You may feel more like a circus master than the blended family parent you envisioned, but if the kids all get along — or even if there’s no blood shed (lower your bar!) — you can consider such an evening a success.

That said, if you’re not willing to entertain an “amorphously blended family” that’s a little bit out of the norm, then it’s fair for you to move on and look for what you want in a boyfriend who wants to marry you and step-parent your daughter.

I hope that helps — let me know how things go.

[Author]

Posts