Dear Coleen. I moved in with my partner a few months ago. We both have 13-year-old daughters – we met through their swimming club – and we’re both divorced. He shares custody 50/50 with his ex, which means his daughter is here a lot, while my daughter lives with me and sees her dad every second weekend.
Our girls get on OK and sometimes enjoy each other’s company, but they also wind each other up and fly into insane hormonal arguments. My problem is, although we have rules that apply to both, whenever my daughter acts up, my partner is much stricter with her than his own. If his daughter misbehaves, he lets her off lightly and is always making excuses for her.
I don’t know what to do. I feel his daughter resents the fact that my daughter lives with her dad full-time and it causes a lot of anger, but there’s nothing we can do about that. I’m arguing a lot with my partner over it. He thinks I’m making too much of it and says his daughter is still struggling with the divorce, so he has to be careful not to rock the boat.
The other day she took something belonging to my daughter and when she was asked to give it back, she called my daughter a f***ing bitch! All my partner said was, “Don’t swear”, not why did you take her stuff and cause a problem?. Coleen says. Blended families take a lot of work at the start. Of course, you’re each biased towards your own daughters and it’s natural to get defensive when someone criticises your kids.
