Is DH obsessed with his daughter?
I have been with DH for 6 years. I have a SD16, SS14 and "our" baby 10 months. My DH's relationship with my SD has seemed strange to me for several years. SD has likely been "parentified" (by both her parents). But in addition, it feels like my DH is obsessed with his daughter. She is very much like her HCBM and I wonder if that is the basis of his obsession? Or that he feels very sorry for her because she was rejected by her mother and he has always had to look after her? I ask (as I ask below), is it obvious by these examples that he is unduly obsessed with her or am I off? What should I do?
Some examples below:
We had an emergency with our car and I needed to get the baby to the doctor's appointment. He was not very well. It was about 20 min before his appointment. DH's first thought was about fetching his daughter about 7 hours later and how he would do it. He repeated it multiple times. But it turns out she was back in time for the school bus and didn't need a lift anyway. I had to make my own plan for the baby to get to the doctor with me.
He has just bought his daughter multiple expensive gifts for Christmas. While he has bought my SS14 a few small inexpensive gifts for Christmas. And so far he refuses to buy our baby anything for Christmas expecting me to buy him everything.
He is constantly running around his daughter to offer lifts often at inconvenient times for me to look after the baby. He doesn't do the same for the SS often making him take public transport. In addition my SD16's friends all take public transport on the same routes that she would take (if she wasn't getting a lift).
On Sunday, we had made plans to go out about a month ago and SD16 changed her plans and needed a lift. My DH changed our plans to end earlier and then when we were running "later" than my SD wanted us to be back, he said he was feeling naseuous and so we ended things early, to get back for him to lift her.
He used to pay his SD to give him foot massages or she would offer it to get out of chores. This never happened with the SS. This only stopped in the last year when SD was 15.
When I was recently postpartum, she got in the habit of crying all the time and throwing tantrums to get his attention. That has stopped now. He often would run around her to make sure she had a snack plate and healthy eats when she didn't like what was in the fridge. The same was not not offered to me (2 months pp) or my SS14.
And often he criticizes me in front of my SD even when she has done something wrong and I have just reacted to it. Instead of focusing on her blatant act (which I am doing), he jumps to "protect" her from me, and therefore is often rude and dismissive to me.
I understand the premis that DH should love his kids more than me. But I feel like SD16 is put on a pedestal far ahead of SS14 and our baby(10 months). As a result it seems that DH has eroded his relationship with his son. My SS14 is very rude and angry with my DH. Caused friction between my SD and SS who constantly fight with each other. And obviously eroded his relationship with me. Is it very obvious by his actions that he is obsessed with her or am I off on this? Also as stated above, what should I do?
Posted Dec 1, 2025, 8:11 PM UTC