Your ex’s boyfriend will never replace you
As ridiculous as it sounds, the ex-wife of one of the dads in our circle asked their daughter to call her live-in boyfriend ‘dad.’ The real dad’s initial reaction was one of anger. It’s incredulous the amount of pettiness some ex-wives will go to in order to make themselves feel better. After some chats, beers, more chats and definitely more beers, the real dad clanked pints and felt he had nothing to worry about.
The first perspective is one from the mother. No one will know the real reason why the mother needs to re-label one of two most important people in her daughter’s life. The dad only offered glimpses of the failed marriage and the amount of animosity between the former husband and wife. It’s all irrelevant and has nothing to do with the child. It also changes nothing. The mother assumed (either for real or not) her boyfriend can take on the dad-label, must less the dad-role, is pure infantile lunacy. Such an act broadcasts nothing but anger and resentment that cannot be resolved by asking her daughter to disown her father.
The second perspective is one from the mom’s significant other. Even if he needs to appease the mom, a grown man should know better than to mess with another man’s daughter. I get the fact that the new boyfriend should do a little bit of work to win some goodwill to make the transition easier, but it should stop short of ingratiating himself to the little lady. The daughter also needs to do nothing since it was he who entered into her life, not the other way around. But unless the natural father has died or rendered himself incapable or unavailable to fulfil the role, it should be common sense for a man to decline the dad title when he moved in. He’s an addition, not a replacement.
Our pint-clanking father pounded a few back with us with the satisfaction that he knows the ex-wife was still angry and the boyfriend needed validation. Neither were his problem.
Finally, the most important perspective of all is that from the child. If the natural father has always been in the child’s life and has a positive relationship, there is no reason for the daughter to claim another father. The choice of whom kids call dad is theirs—nobody else’s.
This dad’s tale reminds me of my own daughter’s encounter with her mom’s boyfriend. She complains that when the boyfriend is around, she doesn’t get the same attention or focus from her mom. While they are together physically, there’s noticeably less emotional engagement. My daughter has always been a forthright little lady and when she told her mom her feelings, the terse reply from the mother was to stop playing head games. Although my daughter has never been asked to call the boyfriend dad, I am told that he tries too hard to win favors from her. The more he tries, the more I feel badly for him.
Our pint-clanking father pounded a few back with us with the satisfaction that he knows the ex-wife was still angry and the boyfriend needed validation. Neither were his problem. As for his daughter, she loves him dearly and is old enough to thwart any recasting drama from the mom. Clink!
