Daughter’s partner offers her no help and I can’t stand it

Dear Coleen

My daughter, who’s 38, has been with her partner and father of her kids for 17 years, but I hate him with a vengeance.

He’s selfish, does nothing around the house or to help look after the kids. In fact, he acts like he’s single, treats my daughter like his mum, and as far as I’m concerned, she may as well be a one-parent family. However, she tells me I’m being nasty and unreasonable.

I refuse to acknowledge him, I never see him and, if I do on occasion, we ignore each other. He just isn’t the loving, caring, respectful and considerate partner he should be, but my daughter is still besotted with him and covers for him, protects him and lies for him.

She won’t hear a bad word said against him. I feel for her and my grandkids, but she seems to just accept his behaviour – why?

I won’t even call him by his name – I call him her “partner” – and she hates it. I’ve stopped going over to her place altogether because I can’t stand him, but I would never call him names in front of the kids.

Please help! Do I have like him?

Coleen says

to

I can feel the frustration and anger in your letter, and it must be very difficult to dislike him this much. However, he is your daughter’s choice and she’s been with him a long time and had children with him, so you have to respect her decision.

You might not like it, but I think you have to fake how you feel to a degree or you risk falling out with her and possibly not seeing your grandkids (they’re his children, too).

If you push her too much, she’ll stop wanting to see you and the important thing is to stay close to her.

Maybe at some point she’ll think, “What am I doing?”, but she must reach that decision by herself. Or, she could spend the rest of her life with him. All you can do is be her mum and be there for her.

This situation is also putting you under tremendous stress, so maybe if you start showing (and feeling) less anger, it’ll help you and your daughter.

At the moment, she probably feels like she has to constantly defend him. Give her some space and maybe she’ll start to see for herself where he’s letting her down.

You don’t have to like him but, on the odd occasion when you have to see him, be civil – for your daughter’s sake.

She already knows how you feel about him, so maybe if you react less and even use his name now and again, she will be more willing to confide in you, get stronger and say to him, “I’m not your mother, do it yourself ”.

But, ultimately, it’s down to her to make these choices.

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I won’t even call him by his name and she hates it