DEAR BEL,

MY HUSBAND died in 2005, leaving me two young sons to bring up; my lovely parents died a few years later; my business failed and my partner of three years left.

My boys struggled with all of this loss and my unhappiness, both turning to drugs — all of which pushed me into chronic fatigue syndrome. I have been pretty poorly for many years.

Then I met Will on a dating website. He met my lovely mum once before she died (days later) and I know she really liked him.

I love him very much and we have mostly been very happy together, but I took him on with a lot of baggage.

He has three children from two marriages and the youngest girl was only eight when we met. His wife had moved out of their home to live near a boyfriend 20 miles away and dragged their two children out of their schools to live with her.

Will was devastated to lose his family and has fought to see his children as much as he could, understandably, and we have his daughter to stay every other weekend and half of the holidays without fail.

His ex is quite happy with this as long as he does all the running about, giving her a substantial monthly amount of money and buying his daughter clothes, trips etc.

Apart from spending a lot of our money on the daughter, the problem has been that when she is around, she and Will are like lovebirds.

I struggle with this and feel very shut out. I’ve asked him repeatedly not to spoil her so much, as she has no manners, never saying thank you to me or goodbye when she leaves.

Now 16, she still wants to be with her dad all the time and I am so worried about her wanting to live with us when she turns 18.

I have said I don’t want to live with anyone else but him, but as he’s so easy-going I don’t think he could say no to her.

I am a good communicator and always feel it’s good to talk, but we fall out when I try to discuss his daughter.

He says we shouldn’t be so jealous of each other — so I try to stay away when she is here. But this is my home.

Have you any suggestions for how I can cope with what feels like a ‘three’s a crowd’ situation?