We’ve split up over our young girls

DEAR BEL,

I HAVE a problem I don’t know how to put right.

My fiance and I had been together for over two years and were very happy. We both have daughters of a similar age (12) and when we went away last year with my fiance’s family it became apparent there was a problem.

We all got on, but there was a little friction between the two girls. Nothing major — or so I thought.

I’ve been asking my boyfriend to bring his daughter round for a year, but of course this hasn’t happened. We were going away next month with his family, but last week it all blew up. He said we had to talk about the holiday instead of burying our heads in the sand. I was so mad. Us burying heads? Him more like! He did admit it was his fault he’d left it too long.

Then he asked what I’d be doing if my daughter and I didn’t go on holiday. I said I’d just relax, as I’d booked the time off work.

He then accused me of sleeping with my ex-boyfriend (nothing more than a friend) and said I was planning to go away with him and my daughter in August and that’s why I’m not bothered about going with him and his family.

He said he’d looked at my phone and seen holiday searches (I was looking for my daughter and me for next year). I told him this was so far from true it was unreal, but he has refused to believe me or have anything to do with me.

We’ve now split up and he won’t speak. I love him, but is this an excuse to make me look bad so he can choose his daughter over me? JADE

ANYBOdY who knows anything at all about children and young people will find this story bizarre — and somewhat unbelievable. On a family holiday, two 12year-old girls thrust together (whether they like it or not, but that’s how it can be when parents have new partners) have a few fallings-out. So what’s new? Kids squabble all the time, and girls on the cusp of teenage years can be intolerably huffy.

What’s more, going on holiday with ‘all his family’ must have put a lot of pressure on your daughter. She might have felt outnumbered and been more moody as a result.

A couple in love who want to blend their families would share ways of dealing with all this. But then the father of one girl fails to bring her to socialise with his fiancee and her daughter for a year.

And the woman (you) apparently does nothing to remedy this odd situation . . . like texting the man’s daughter (as people do) or getting her daughter to do so, or asking him directly to bring her for a sleepover . . . or anything else!

None of this happens, but they still plan exactly the same big family holiday, instead of choosing to go away with just the two girls to try again quietly. Then they have a major bust-up that culminates in serious accusations of infidelity

and deception and a calling-off of the fine romance. Odder and odder.

Now you’re asking me if the guy has done all this ‘to choose his daughter’ over you. Why would he do that?

And if you really love him, as you say, why would you get so ‘mad’? I’d have thought ‘sad’ was a better description.

It’s hard to believe the accusations about your ex came completely out of the blue, as you imply, and I suspect there’s something else beneath the surface.

According to your account, you were looking up holidays for next year, just with your daughter alone. Not with him? And that far ahead? I’m sorry, I don’t buy it.

It suggests your relationship must have been going wrong before this happened. And yet you insist you were ‘very happy’. As a couple you were still quite new, especially after broken relationships that produced two daughters.

The relationship needed nurturing, yet it sounds as if you are both poor communicators, with an under-developed ability to manage family dynamics, as well as your own love affair.

I think you have to think carefully about all this, what you think went wrong and whether you could have handled things differently.

If you really do still love him it will be worthwhile.