My partner’s teen daughter has soured our relationship
Solve your sex, love & life troubles
TV’s Steph and Dom Parker, 51 and 54, draw on their 20 years of marriage to solve your relationship problems . . .
QI’M A 51-year-old single, self-employed man with a teenage son. I met my new partner, then 53 and married, two years ago on a flight. We chatted, laughed, enjoyed each other’s company and exchanged contact details. We kept in touch every day and met for lunch occasionally. There was nothing physical between us.
After six months she told me she was prepared to divorce her husband of 25 years for me. I asked her to reconsider, but to no avail.
A few months later I offered to buy us a house to live in together — currently she lives quite far away. The problem is her teenage daughter, who blames her mother and me for the break-up of her parents’ marriage. She is always badmouthing me, and my partner doesn’t do anything about it.
Our relationship is at breaking point as I have not seen my partner for more than eight months now. We hardly speak on the phone any more and when we do, we argue. I hope you can help. A STEPH SAYS: I wonder, have you ever been married? In your longer letter you say you also have a teenage child, so I know you’ve had relationships before, but you don’t say you’re divorced.
The woman you’ve fallen in love with seems a bit cavalier about her own marriage. It’s quite unusual, after all, to say she is going to leave her husband after six months, with no physical contact.
What that tells me is that she wasn’t happy in her marriage and was probably going to leave anyway at some point. But I would imagine that she is still dealing with huge guilt. And that means she is, quite naturally, struggling to handle her daughter’s distress.
The thing to remember here is that her daughter will always come first. I know you’re a dad, but there is something quite primal about the relationship between a mother and her child.
I believe that, even if it means she’ll be on her own for the rest of her life, the bond this woman has with her daughter is such that she will put her needs before those of any man — no matter how much she might have fallen for him.
I think you have to accept that and not be so offended that her daughter is rude about you. It is, I think, rather to be expected in the circumstances.
My feeling is that this relationship is not meant to move forward. If it were, it would have happened by now.
Don’t buy a property for you to live in together. I hope you haven’t already done so. I think you need to let her go. She is dealing with an emotional tsunami and your presence is muddying the waters. Everything is just too sensitive and too raw right now.
I know you’re not physically in the same space, but emotionally you need to create space, too. Falling in love messes with the mind. Take the feelings out of it and give her time to make the right decision.
You say things are at breaking point. I say, let them break. If it’s meant to be, it will work itself out in the future. DOM SAYS: I think I’ve read this letter 12 times. Your tale is worthy of Shakespeare — a tragic, short love story. It is very romantic. I can visualise the sparks when your hands touched over lunch. You strike me as a decent and honest man who has simply had the misfortune to fall in love with someone who is unavailable. In your decency, you tried to dissuade her from breaking up her marriage. However, it appears she has done so anyway. Did she perhaps leave her husband rashly? Is she regretting her actions? Either way, the blame doesn’t lie with you. That said, you are complicit. You did know she was married and taking up with another man’s wife is never a good thing. Her daughter clearly believes you have stolen her mother from her father. She is not defending you to her daughter because to an extent she knows the daughter is right — and to do so would be cruel in an already fraught situation. Perhaps it’s best to see this as a romantic interlude, but not one that is supposed to last. Phone her and explain how you feel. Call off the relationship and send her back to her husband. You haven’t seen each other for eight months. She hasn’t come to live with you. The situation is causing untold pain and grief on both sides. The idea of your relationship was wonderful, the reality less so. It’s a romantic story but, sadly, I feel that the decent thing is to let her go. I suspect she has no idea what she wants. Twenty-five years is a long time to be married; it’s not unreasonable to think she might be a bit shocked by what’s happened. And if she comes back to you, then do it properly, not from a distance. She should move to live with you — or you should move to live with her. You’re selfemployed, there’s no reason why not! It’s very sad but I suspect that this one, like many grand love stories, just wasn’t meant to be.