So this is going to be a long one folks

So almost 5 years ago, my now fiancé and I started dating after 14/15 years of friendship. He had recently separated from his now ex-wife, so she already did not like me from the get go since she was very insecure about our friendship while they were married (literally made him stop talking to me for almost 3 years otherwise she threatened to leave and take their newborn baby with her.)

Now, we have not seen his daughter a lot due to living in a completely different state, not having a vehicle for quite some time, money being so tight for so long, and her making it unbelievably difficult and making ridiculous requests on our part to be able to see her. Now granted, we have not always been able to make an effort because we had problems within our own family happening that needed to be focused on but never was it our intention for his daughter to feel like we don’t care about her or that she isn’t welcome with us.

Now we’ve had her here at this apartment (our only place that it has just been us and now our 2, soon to be 3 children) a handful of times, and then work schedules got crazy and our vehicle cannot safely seat 5 people with both of our boys car/booster seats in the back seat (we have a Jeep Renegade, not really known for the amount of room they have) on top of the only place for her to sleep is on our couch in the living room. We have two small bedrooms, one of which is occupied by our two sons, and the other occupied by us obviously. His daughter is 7, not really keen on trying to be squeezed in a room with her 2 and 3 year old step brothers. We are working on getting into a bigger place so she’ll have her own space to retreat to when she feels uncomfortable or she doesn’t want to be around the smaller kids for the rest of the night along with trying to figure out how to get into a bigger vehicle when we just bought ours last summer, we’re paying it off still, and we have another baby due in less than 4 months so we are juggling all of this on top of summer hours at the plant (we both work for the same company and we haven’t been there long enough for PTO) which is 10 hour days Mon-Sat and I occasionally work Sundays part time. His daughter and her mother live 5 hours away in a different state. My fiancé doesn’t have his license nor a vehicle of his own. That’s the basics of our back story.

Here’s my problem. From day one this woman has had it in her head that I hate her daughter, I don’t want my fiancé and his daughter to have a relationship, that I just want him to sign over his rights and be done with it. Wrong, wrong and wrong. I grew up with an absentee father so why would I want that for this little girl who I have driven hours and hours and hours for us to go see her, to bring her back home with us to spend time with her dad. I have left my children for over 12 hours at a time to make the trip all the way to and from his daughters mother town just so we could spend a few hours with her. We don’t have a full time baby sitter. Our kids are 2 and 3. We can’t take them with us to go get my fiancé’s daughter because there’s no where for her to buckle or to even fit her booster seat. We don’t have a space for her to go when she’s feeling overwhelmed or like she’s had enough for the night and that makes for some tense situations. Point being, fiancé’s daughters mother is constantly hounding him on why it can’t just be him that comes to see her, all the while knowing he has no license, no vehicle, and the only way for him to get there is for me to drive him. She doesn’t get that I can’t safely transport all the kids together and we are working on getting a bigger vehicle so that way it won’t be a problem. She doesn’t understand that since she works from him, not everyone can get off of work at 5pm on a Friday after being up since 4AM, drive all the way out there, pick up fiancé’s daughter, and drive back just to have her have to sit with my mother and our boys (at least that’s how it was before my mother got sick, now my boys are in daycare Monday-Saturday and we CANNOT afford to pay for her to go to the daycare as well) all day Saturday until we get off of work and we are exhausted and still have to take care of our own small children just to turn around and have to drive her all the way back on Sunday having basically spent no time whatsoever with her and we can see how much that bothers her. It there’s literally nothing we can do. But her mother keeps hounding us like we should be able to drop everything and come and get her. And to be honest, the last time we came and got her, she said it was an “emergency” (which was fine but it is no easy feat to find someone to watch our boys short notice for 11/12 hours to make that round trip drive) but we found out she just went and partied that entirely weekend.

We have two of our own children with one on the way, she has one, she has a lot more freedom to go and do than we do and she just does not get it as much as we try to explain it all to her and she says we are making excuses because her and her SO can just up and drive to NC to get his daughter and bring her back (mind you they both have vehicles and completely opposite work schedules so they can do that plus they always have someone home to watch their girls.)

What i’m trying to say is they have a system that works, with both myself and my fiancé having the same exact schedule and more kids and no baby sitter to speak of and lack of room for transportation, we have a lot harder time making these kinds of plans especially when she wants us to take her on a Friday and she gets ahold of us on a Tuesday night. I’m not making excuses for us not seeing her and having her around, the whole point of us going bigger house-wise and vehicle wise is so that she can be with us more. Problem is her mom just doesn’t get it. I understand she’s upset we haven’t seen her but she thinks everyone has an ideal setup like her and her SO. She doesn’t understand what it takes to juggle everything on our end to make a trip possible, and she refuses to drive halfway anymore saying it’s unfair because she drives her daughter everywhere else.

So my question to you ladies, has anyone found themselves in an extremely demanding situation like this with someone’s ex? I am at my wits end, I literally break down in tears because I know how that little girl feels and that’s the last thing I want for her because I grew up in her position except my dad wanted nothing to do with me where as my fiancé and I just have our hands tied right now. I want her to be so much a part of our family and our home and our lives and I feel like her mother is making things more stressful by not trying to understand the why of why we can’t just rush down and swoop her up like we would want to. Any kind of input would be helpful. I just want everyone to be happy and I want his little girl to feel welcome with us 😞