My [27/f] partner's [38/m] daughter [8/f] demands attention from me nonstop all day. I'm feeling frustrated and burnt out.

My partner's 8 year old daughter is a smart, funny, and loving kid. But she sees me as a playmate and it's becoming a problem, or I guess it's been a problem but I'm beginning to lose my patience.

When I first moved in with them when she was 5, I put so much effort into making her like me, but also because my partner encouraged me to spend loads of 1-on-1 time with her. Looking back, he definitely played a big role in setting me up as her "personal entertainer." I'm talking hours and hours spent every day drawing with her, playing hide and go seek, watching movies, etc.

Eventually I realized that was absurd and not good for either of us, so I talked about it with my partner and carefully backed off. I set up boundaries with his daughter and began to really limit the time I spent directly entertaining her. She's become much more independent, so I think it was beneficial for everyone.

It's something we're still working on, though.

I no longer sit there and entertain her for hours. I've pretty much completely stopped doing that. But she still really does see me as a friend/entertainer/fun toy to play with. And this creates stress for me daily.

For some reason, she doesn't interact that much with her dad, except for necessary things like needing help with homework, not being able to reach something high, etc. I mean, she loves him of course and they go for walks on their own and whatnot, but it's a completely different type of relationship. He's definitely in the "boring dad" role, but someone she loves a lot and goes to for help. Meanwhile I get... well, read below.

With me, I have an over-excited 8 year old trying to talk to me and play with me nonstop all day every day (unless she's on her tablet). Her dad gets to relax while I'm the one being bombarded with silly questions, random stories, etc.

For example:

Mealtimes: during meals, the 8 year old completely leaves her dad alone. Doesn't ask him anything or really talk to him. But she spends the entire meal chatting my ear off, directly to just me. It's nonstop "so, Kate! What's your favorite color? Hey, Kate! Did you know that bananas are yellow? Hey, Kate! Tell me everything you remember about being a teenager!" literally nonstop the entire meal. I could probably count 30 "Hey, Kate"'s per meal. I realized that I've gradually begun to scarf down my food as quickly as I can out of pure stress and not being able to relax for a second. I look over to my partner during meals and he's calm and relaxed, able to silently enjoy his food without having to think or respond to 50 questions. It's not fair.

Going for walks together: same exact thing. Partner is relaxed and zoned out or thinking about whatever, meanwhile I have an 8 year old nonstop chatting to me and telling me things like "Kate! I'm going to tell you a nonsense story now! Corn Flakes are made of Corn Flakes and that is made from grapes! Haha! Corn Flakes are made of corn and corn is made of flakes of flakes!" literally non stop for the entire walk. Plus random questions, gibberish, and so on.

Going grocery shopping: same thing. Partner gets to concentrate and leisurely pick out food, while I have the 8 year old saying "Hey, Kate!" nonstop the whole time. Asking me to play rock paper scissors, telling me jokes, asking questions, etc.

Those are the big stressors but it's just, constant stuff like this all day. She comes in 30 times a day to "give Kate a quick hug," which lasts for 3 minutes while she squeezes her face onto my face way too hard, follows me around the house while I do chores, comes into the room as soon as I've woken up to tell me her barbie had a baby, etc etc for 14 hours a day. Meanwhile her dad is just... chillin. Relaxed. He gets to do the fun stuff when he good and feels like it, but otherwise I'm the one left to deal with all this.

I don't think I need more examples, you get the idea.

I've talked about this with my partner SO MANY TIMES. Literally I've brought this up over 15 times. Sat him down and seriously discussed it over and over. I've told him it's not fair that I can never relax, I've asked him to take on a more hands-on role when the three of us are together, I've asked him to be more aware when his daughter has cornered me in the bedroom to try and see what I'm doing/reading/watching and to please help me set up boundaries, etc.

Nothing has improved. Literally nothing.

He's still zoned out during every meal, he's still relaxed and daydreaming when we go for walks, he still does nothing when she corners me in the bedroom to chat my ear off.

There's only so much I can do myself, especially since she's not my daughter, you know? It's not my role to discipline her or take full responsibility for her social skills development. Her dad needs to step up and handle this. I also can't do much about meal times/walks/etc because she's not doing anything wrong. I can't exactly tell an 8 year old "can you please just talk to your dad for 30 seconds so I can enjoy two bites of food" you know? Her dad needs to handle this. Something like "Okay, daughter, let Kate rest for a second. So tell me about XYZ" but he NEVER DOES! He's just happily and silently chewing away.

It's getting to the point where I'm just so frustrated and fed up. I have a physical stress reaction to his daughter walking into the room, because I know that I'm about to face 20 minutes of loud chatterboxing about nonsense, and even if I tell her "that's a great story! But I'm doing some work now, can you wait a bit?" it doesn't even help because she just stays anyway!

Honestly, she IS a great kid. Obviously this post isn't highlighting her good qualities and is mostly begging for help to deal with unfair and unbalanced caretaker duties.

And don't worry, even though I'm frustrated, I'm always nice to the 8 year old. I realize she's just a kid.

tl;dr my partner's daughter demands lots of time and attention from me, but doesn't do the same with her dad. I'm burnt out.

Submitted July 06, 2019 at 10:49AM by catsinhats1492 https://ift.tt/30hNn72