Can anybody shed some light?

headoverheels

I've been in a relationship with my partner for 10 years we just recently had a baby.
My partner has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship who lives with her mother but both share the responsibility 50/50 and for the best part we all get along and make our family work.

However, recently the teenager has been creating huge problems doing the usual teenage antics smoking, drinking and testing the water.
Her dad is the one that lays down the law and punishes her accordingly but her mother is soft and does not stick to this therefore it happens again and again and we're going around in circles. My partner is as his wits end and is under enormous pressure from her mother to "sort her out" but unfortunately the teenager has very little remorse.

Over the last couple of weeks things have turned relatively worse and myself and my partner are arguing alot due to the constant tension over the teenager, and the fact we have a newborn who I'm looking after 90% of the time alone so naturally I am tired and frustrated.

We sleep in separate rooms i have had the baby every night since she was born I do all the night feeds as I only think it's fair as he works however, I'm due to return to work soon and I was hoping to have some sort of a routine established but he is so consumed with what's going on that he does not see I'm struggling.

If I bring it up to him about sharing the duties it usually ends in a row over who has the more responsibility.

I just want to add that I've had an awful 2 years with a siblings death and my mother almost dying also so I have my low days.
I was so looking forward to having a baby and thought things would turn for the better but I think the teenager resents the baby coming along and therfore has made things difficult everything was fine up until our daughter was born I try involve her in every way possible but I understand it must be hard for her too.

Myself and my partner are worlds apart from each other now because of the fighting.m and I don't know how to come back from it.
As it stands all I care about at the moment is my daughter and bringing her up in a happy home. I probably sound selfish in my post but I think I deserve some happiness. I don't want to give up on my relationship but it's getting extremely difficult to live like this.

Anybody in a similar situation or can give some advice is appreciate it.

ElizaBennett

That's a really rotten situation op and I feel for you. Young babies are harder work than almost anything else and you really do need help or resentment will grow and grow. I think your partner should at least do weekend night duty or two days minimum during week. You're not a robot. You need rest.

Re his dsughter: what age is she? The res a big difference between a 13 year old smoking and drinking and a 17 year old. Ie are parents over reacting?
If you really believe she's acting up because of the baby then she must be quite an insecure and unhappy girl and needs to talk that out. Either with her parents or a councillor or both. A mix of patience understanding but also firmness might be needed.

headoverheels

ElizaBennett wrote: »

That's a really rotten situation op and I feel for you. Young babies are harder work than almost anything else and you really do need help or resentment will grow and grow. I think your partner should at least do weekend night duty or two days minimum during week. You're not a robot. You need rest.

Re his dsughter: what age is she? The res a big difference between a 13 year old smoking and drinking and a 17 year old. Ie are parents over reacting?
If you really believe she's acting up because of the baby then she must be quite an insecure and unhappy girl and needs to talk that out. Either with her parents or a councillor or both. A mix of patience understanding but also firmness might be needed.

Thank you for the reply, to answer some of your questions she just turned 13 so I believe this is far too young to be trying things out.

I think I am partially to blame re the baby when she was born I took over as alot of new mothers do, but now I'm really drained so I will mention about the weekend thank you for that.

She wasn't always like this she was always really pleasant and a happy child and giving the circumstances she has a very good life between both parents re: holidays, sports, pocket money new phone clothes ect... She never wants for anything. Sometimes I think her parents over compensate for that fact thay they are no longer together so this too may be an issue but what can I say.

A Councillor is a great idea I will say this to my partner thanks for the reply

Mr. Incognito

Children dont care about material things.

They are not grateful for them and dont understand the concept of money.

They understand the concept of attention and time. If you have a new baby its possible that this acting out might be her feeling marginalised now that your "real" child has come along.

I think you might need to sit her down and introduce her to her sister. Not her "half sister". He sister and make it clear that everyone will always still love her.

That is not coming across from your posts.

ted1

If the child lives the mother then she had to be the punisher. It’ll never work unless the person she lives with lays down the law.

To me sleeping in separate rooms screams out as another problem

headoverheels

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Children dont care about material things.

They are not grateful for them and dont understand the concept of money.

They understand the concept of attention and time. If you have a new baby its possible that this acting out might be her feeling marginalised now that your "real" child has come along.



I think you might need to sit her down and introduce her to her sister. Not her "half sister". He sister and make it clear that everyone will always still love her.



That is not coming across from your posts.

She has all the time and attention and love in the world from all of us belive me.
The reason I mentioned materialistic things is to point out the fact that she has little reason to be acting out the way she is.

I'm not sure where your picking up "half sister" from i didn't mention this in the above post and I never refer to her as "half anything. They are sisters and I've never made her feel anything less.

I came on here for advice nor to be made feel worse.

headoverheels

ted1 wrote: »

If the child lives the mother then she had to be the punisher. It’ll never work unless the person she lives with lays down the law.

To me sleeping in separate rooms screams out as another problem

I said she lives with her mother but they share the responsibility meaning she stays here with us at weekends ect. I think that both need to be reading off the same page in my opinion one parent does one thing and one does another so their daughter thinks she can play one off the other.

I agree it's her mother that has to stick to her guns though.

Not that it matters as it's not the question I was posing in the first place but I stay in a separate room with the baby due to my partner doing nights/ days shift work as it's less disruptive for both hon and the baby.
Our initial room was also not suitable for a cot as we are currently in the phase of rebuilding.
It has nothing to do with our sex life.
It probably hasn't helped but its not the cause of why I'm on here asking for advice. In asking how we can reduce the arguments and share the duties and save our relationship.

woodchuck

OP I can't give you any advice about the teenager, but the fact that your husband doesn't seem to be helping with the baby is awful. He might be working "full time", but that's nothing compared to look after a baby on your own all day and night. Does he come home from work and just put his feet up? Your day doesn't end there, so why should his.

It's completely unfair. Even if you weren't going back to work, I'd insist that he pull his weight more. The two of you need to sit down and come up with a plan together for how you're going to cope, even if that means doing a rota for night shifts etc.

Shelli2

Pointing out that he's not sharing the burden, if he is stressed due to other factors, may not be right way to go about it.

Could you just subtley start making time for yourself and gradually increase his help with the baby? Like make an appointment in a salon and say to him 'I'm going to the salon, does that time suit you or would another day/time suit better?'.....and start introducing longer breaks away from the baby that way.

Ideally you should be able to sit down and have a frank conversations, but from my experience sometimes if other factors are at play it's best left until the other issues have settled down.

rainbowtrout

headoverheels wrote: »

She has all the time and attention and love in the world from all of us belive me.
The reason I mentioned materialistic things is to point out the fact that she has little reason to be acting out the way she is.

I'm not sure where your picking up "half sister" from i didn't mention this in the above post and I never refer to her as "half anything. They are sisters and I've never made her feel anything less.

I came on here for advice nor to be made feel worse.

Nobody is trying to make you feel worse. How you treat your partner's daughter and how she feels about this new situation are two completely different things. Both you and your partner might feel that you are doing everything you can to include her, and maybe you are, but she might not see it that way. And it could be stuff that just has to be done like feeding and changing nappies that she sees as her getting no attention and she's just being an unreasonable teenager.

Even acknowledging that to her in a casual comment might ease things or break the ice a bit. If she is staying with you for the weekend, presumably a significant amount of your time is spent changing nappies, feeding the baby, changing them, winding them. All of this stuff is necessary, but from this girl's point of view that is all attention for the baby and none for her. Acknowledging that might go a long way.

It may be coincidental that this baby has arrived at the same time she has started smoking and drinking, but it could also be based on making new friends in secondary school, trying to fit in with them. Or it could be looking for attention. To be honest, cigarettes are so expensive these days and advertising is non existent that it is rare enough that I see students smoking these days (I'm a secondary school teacher). Your partner needs to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later, despite what his ex may say.


As for parental duties, that will have to change if you are going back to work. Having the baby in the room with both of you, or in a cot in a separate room, something decision will have to be taken. If you are going back to work, you can't be up every night and your husband sleep through with no night duties. Rather than start a row about you doing all the work and him doing none (as it seems by your own admission that you took over most of the duties at the start), it might be more prudent to introduce a discussion about starting a routine now where you take it in turns to get up and tend to the baby no matter what room they are sleeping in, so the routine is established when you are both working full time.

LegacyUser

As another user has sad, she needs attention.
If your partner is really stressed out about whats happening then he seems to have bad parenting skills.
13 is not too young to start trying things given the era we live in these days by the way.
I will advise you yo do the following.

1. Relax and stop arguing with your partner.
2. Get help with the baby if you can.
3. Does the girl have someone to talk to? A trusted person needs to hear her out.
These kids dont have anyone to talk to these days but their friends. if her friends are doing it and she doesn't then she may loose them.
At this point of her life, her family is only there for her as a form of security. Her heart lies in her friends and social life. Most kids go through that phase especially when they dont feel like they get love from their family but will they realise later in life that family is more important. This has nothing to do with family providing money or material things.
She may need counselling.

This situation is not something you can resolve easily so the best thing is for everyone to be patient and see how things turn out.

headoverheels

Thank you all for taking the time to reply I will definitely take all the above advice on board going forward.

Last night myself and my partner had a long talk and we agreed that he wasn't pulling his weight with the new addition and we agreed that I take a step back from doing all the nights and once we are in the new bedroom in February we agreed that the baby will stay in her own room and we will take the monitor so it's only fair that we both tend to her during the night ect.

Re his daughter I think there's a long road ahead for all of us. I mentioned to my partner about her speaking to a Councillor and he agrees to this also as I think it's best that she's confides in someone outside the family as op mentioned above she does have people to confide in however at the moment she just has a "I hate the world attitude".

Whether her behaviour is stemming from the new addition a mixture of peer pressure from her social circle or just teenage hormones in general is anybodys guess however, we can't condone it going forward or who knows where it will end.

We all know growing up we feel the need to experiment but we also know actions have consequences which is what we are trying to teach her.
It's not about making her suffer or not letting her do what she wants but getting her to realise 13 is far too young even in today's age, maybe we are naive in thinking that way but I honestly don't think anybody would be happy about their 13 year doing these things.
She genuinely sees no wrong doing and can't understand why we are on her case about it.
So yes its a stressful situation as an above posted maybe it's bad parenting but I'm not her parent and can only listen and advise.

We are all sitting down tomorrow to have a talk so we'll see how that goes

Many thanks again for the replies I appreciate it.

Big Bag of Chips

Just be careful not to talk at her. She's at the age now where she is testing everything. She's struggling between being a child but thinking she knows best. So if you all gang up on her, she will just dig her heels in more. It's tricky, especially when she has 2 parents that she can play off each other.

Good luck.