My partner badmouthing me to his children - can I live with it and how to stop it?
I live with my partner and his 17-year-old son. He has two more daughters, one 19-20, and the other one (from another mother) age 15-16. The older one studies abroad and comes over for every university holiday - super often (approx 6 months a year), the younger sd lives temporarily on another continent with her mother and stays in total 1 month a year. The mother of two older children (17-year-old SS, and 20-year-old SD) is practically non-existing, living in another country since a few months ago, and the children do not communicate much with her and have started having our home as an official residence. Before I moved in with him I was told his children are becoming adults and live with their mothers, in the meantime everything has changed: one lives with us, and the other one is officially registered to live with us and spends her university breaks with us.
My partner always suffered from being an only child, he has no friends (literally zero), and I think he has an unhealthy relationship with his children that are to him a replacement for brother/sisters and friends. His last relationship of two years stopped, in his confession because their "children did not get along" and because his children did not want to come to his house anymore when his girlfriend and her daughters were around.
I started living with him when our daughter was born 2 years ago, my youngest sd was 13 at the time, she was in our house non-stop (her mother lived 100m from us), and behaved horribly to me and my just born baby, while my partner was not able to demand not even basic respect towards me and his just born baby from a 13-year-old. He just kept pampering her and shared conversations with her totally not appropriate for her age. She was the only one spending approx. 80% of the time with us.
I can give tons of examples, but fast fwd to the current situation: after lots of fights about his children rudeness towards me and our child, and his constant refusal to show at least a bit of disappointment to them, if not to be strict to them, and after one particularly nasty fight a year ago, he started sharing (over-exaggerated) details of our relationship with them: namely, how I attack him verbally and physically because I do not let him see them, financial details of our cohabitation, etc. Please keep in mind that the fights were nasty (that is true), I used horrible language that I am ashamed of, but the fights are not about me forbidding him to see them, but about him changing his attitude to them to a parenting attitude and demanding basic respect towards me: meaning telling them that their behaviour is inappropriate and that he will not tolerate it, and not excusing me for demanding respect with my "postnatal hormonal disbalance"
He also goes to 3 weeks vacations yearly with them and without me and our daughter, simply because they do not want to be around me and would behave to me as if I do not exist if I join them. They keep asking how it is going with us because they can not wait for me to move out of the house. My partner keeps a distance towards me only in front of his children because as he said to me, he "feels like a fool staying with me after everything they know". Nevertheless, he still keeps informing them about our relationship, i.e. vents to them instead to a friend that he does not have nor he ever will have.
I completely disengaged from them after my Christmas presents to them were returned to me or left unopened, and after more then a year of me being super sweet to them, and them (including the one that lives with us) behaving (literally) as if I am a piece of furniture: zero communication with me, and zero eye-contact with me or our child. I am being completely disengaged from them for a year, not asking about them, he does not talk to me about them, when they come to visit/long-stay I am either in my room, or he takes them out for a dinner, and with the ss that lives with us I behave as he does to me and my 2-year-old child: no eye-contact and ask him nothing. Everyday 1 hour-long dinners are practically the only times we meet, and it is very unpleasant, so I usually spend dinner time in my room. My partner even told me that I should stay away from dinners because the atmosphere is worse when I am present, while another day he asks me to stay at dinners since we are a "family". He is clearly confused himself.
Whenever I make a move to move out, my partner begs me to stay. Honestly, lately he begs less and less, but it is clear that he still does not want me to leave. Till recently he kept saying that I am his "last chance" to have a family. I am trying to have some kind of a separate life, be busy with my job, and also to live how he wants me to live (he is very dominant), just for the sake of my daughter. The fact that I am not a boss in my own home, and that (filtered) details of our relationship are shared with 3 people that wish more than anything in the world that we are not together, make me feel very bad. In all honesty, I do not dare to leave because I am afraid my daughter will blame me one day. We will be separated, and he will be merging his three children with our daughter and they will be telling my daughter all those horrible (half-true) stories he was sharing with them in anger and will continue to share. Ultimately, I do not dare to have another man before my daughter grows up (I am >40 years old, therefore before I am 60), and I simply feel very bad when thinking of sharing my daughter with her father, and still never be able to completely get rid of him. At the same time my daughter will live in this mess of a situation: step sister and brother from one ex-wife, step-sister from another one, them badmouthing her mother, and her parents separated.
Does anyone have a similar experience and actually having their child not blaming them for leaving? Or does anyone have advice on how to make my partner stop oversharing with his children? I should add that he has many moments when he is very sweet to me, probably from fear of being alone, but he is more and more angry with me as the pressure from his children increases.
Sorry for my English, it is not my native language.
I think your child is much
I think your child is much more likely to blame you for having her live in a situation where she is treated so badly. She is going to see you being treated like a sub-human as she grows up and will think that this is normal treatment for a woman in a couple.
I think you should stop worrying about what she may or may not think in the future and start taking care of your and her well-being and emotional health. Do not let this boor of a husband that you have badmouth you any longer. He doesn't deserve you. Nobody should be treated this way.
Welcome to the site!
Your post made me feel very sad - I would suggest that you get yourself into therapy and try and understand why you put up with someone treating you worse than a dog in your own home. You "don't dare leave because your daughter will blame you one day?" I think if you stay she will almost certainly blame you one day, for subjecting you both to this most awful abuse, you almost remind me of someone with Stockholm Syndrome - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
I would suggest that you take legal advice immediately about getting divorced from your abuser and limiting his access to your daughter if possible. You say his other children treated her badly when she was a newborn - tell that to a lawyer and if necessary social services.
Your partner is treating you
Your partner is treating you like crap. It is unacceptable and you need to find your self-love and self respect long enough to leave and be done with him and his abuse. You should get counseling, too, so you can figure out why you were willing to stay in such a situation for as long as you have.
As for your daughter, you are modeling for her what adult relationships look like. Is this what you want her to think is normal? Do you want her to think it's ok for a man to treat her the way you are treated? Do you want HER treated the way she is now? Stop worrying about what she might or might not think of you in the future and get her away from the dysfunctional situation.
I am fairly certain your
I am fairly certain your child will not blame you for leaving. People leave all the time. Children still love their parents. Do not keep her in this situation, she will be happier in a healthy environment where you and her are not ignored, and she is taught how she deserves to be treated. You are actually doing her more harm by keeping her here.
Step outside of your
Step outside of your situation for a moment. If your sister or a close friend told you what you've just told us, what would your advice be?
In staying, you are teaching your child that the type of relationship you're in is an acceptable one. Do you want that for her in the future?
Gosh I really feel for you.
Gosh I really feel for you. So sorry you're going through this hell.
The first thing I want to comment on is the toxic dynamic of you and your partner. You mention it's verbally and physically abusive on your end, and don't mention about him. Since you express guilt and take ownership of these actions, it sounds like this environment is the main cause of your reaction. (Google "Reactive Abuse.") The most important thing to know is if you don't do something to curb your reactions to him, you could get into major trouble with the law, which could result in damaging ramifications. You could lose the right to have access to your daughter, you could have a phelony on your record which could prevent you from working certain jobs. Counseling/therapy is a MUST in this siutation, for your sake and your daughter's.
What I picked up on about your partner is: he's controlling, isolates you, manipulative, gaslights you, disrespects your boundaries, has constant smear campaigns against you, and does not treat your opinion as equal in your relationship. Even him not listening to you when you say you want out of the relationship is him saying "my wants are more important than your happiness." These are characteristics of an abuser. When someone is removing your autonomy, it is human to lash out verbally, and even physically. This does not make it okay, because you could still get in big, irreversable trouble. However, it does make it understandable. And it is a clear sign you need to exit.
If your main worry is your partner could spread his smear campaign to your daughter if you leave, my thinking is he's going to do that whether you're with him or not! There's no way to control him and prevent that if he already has no boundaries with his other kids. So you may as well pick a path that frees you of the hell you're in. Your daughter will be better off with a happy mother. She will eventually see how toxic her father and his side of the family is compared to you, her happy mother with health boundaries and respect.
Again, therapy/counseling will really help you lift your self-worth and support you on getting out of this horrible situation. I wish you so much luck. You deserve the best.
It is sad that your SO allows
It is sad that your SO allows his children to treat you the way that they do!!! It seems he does not give you your place as his wife....... You are the one that needs to make a decision. He is not going to change.
It is sad that your SO allows
It is sad that your SO allows his children to treat you the way that they do!!! It seems he does not give you your place as his wife....... You are the one that needs to make a decision. He is not going to change.
Why would you do anything
Why would you do anything about a partner who badmouths you to anyone other than purge them from your life while you take everything?
Let him beg as you take your child and nail him for a shit ton of CS.
Also, please explain how one suffers from being an only child?
For some reason you seam to want to lable your toxic POS SO as some kind of victim. You are his victim and so is the daughter you share.
Do the right thing. Move on and protect yourself and your daughter.
IMHO of course.
Why is this Familiar
I can relate in several ways,...
1. My wifes kids Bio Dad in the beginning of our story used to tell his kids I was a pedophile, I was a drug user and on crack, I had an arrest record and was just a bad person. (Meanwhile HE is the drug dealer, has the arrest record and has attempted LITERALLY to pimp young girls, I saw the ad in Craigslist")
2. We had our first major dissappointment when her eldest son (then 14-15) caused a blow up that ended in my wife miscarrying our baby.
3. Her youngest daughter taking me to court to claim I abused her when in actuality, she pushed me and I shoved back.
4. Her youngest son, being belligerent and disrespectful, caused me one Christmas to actually lay hands on him.
My wife would tell you they are not bad kids, but I know what disrespect looks like. I'm from a time when that kind of behavior got your a** beat by the neighbors AND your parents. And being an adult in a home where people come into the room and not speak or say Hello. They never apologize, haven't EVER apologized for anything that THEY have caused and have literally NEVER acknowledged me or my birthday. Christmas, Maybe ONE year I got a gift or two, but it was not something I would have enjoyed or even went out and bought myself. Kids today cannot, and WILL NOT understand what Holidays meant to us back then. And for me, its a wash. I have less spirit than Scrooge and could easily play the role of Death in the story.