🎶Dun dun dun... Another one hits the wall 🎶 (In the tune of "Another one bites the Dust" by Queen)

Here’s the situation, we’re not legally married, I met her about 3 years ago and I was crazy about her, she’s nice, beautiful, and caring. She was a single mom and I decided to move us in together. We got a nice apartment in the middle of the city!

We brought her kid (1 year old at the time) back to America from her mom’s in Asia, and now the kid is 3 and a half years old. The girl thinks I’m her dad and it’s awesome, she’s a great and wonderful kid, and I completely forget she’s not my biological daughter sometimes.

The problem now is that I did the mistake of not talking about parenting styles before the relationship got too serious. Our relationship has changed a lot in the last year and a half, since she is very loose with her parenting and I’m more strict, some examples are that I don’t let her use the phone at all, I play with her with toys and teach her how to draw and play with play dough, things that will benefit her when she starts going to school next year. Mom, however, is letting her use the phone most of the time, we’ve talked about it and argued plenty of times about it, and it changes, but 3-4 days later the parenting habits creep back to her.

Another example is sugar, I don’t really let my daughter eat too much candy, even if she cries, it’s to the point where if mom is not home, she’ll eat great! All her vegetables, she’ll behave very well, talks when she wants something instead of whining, it’s wonderful, but when mom is home, she cries, a lot, unless mom does what she wants.

She wants candy? Cry and repeat that I want candy until mom gives it to me. She wants the phone? Cry and repeat it until mom gives it to me. Worst part is I’m right there as it’s happening, and if I try to take the phone and play with her instead, or take 5 out of the 6 candies away from her, then mom argues with me how I’m the bad guy, then my daughter catches on to this and all the good manners fly out the window, since she knows mom will take her side everytime.

Even though she’s 3, she’s still sleeping with us, even though she has her own room that I set up, with a nice bed and all the toys she could want, but I haven’t been able to get her comfortable to sleep alone since mom doesn’t like when she cries, like at all, for anything, so she’s still here in our bed, and same applies to day care. I tried to get her to go to a day care/school twice a week so she can socialize with kids her age, but since she always cried when mom left her there, 2 days later she withdrew the girl from day care, even though I had already paid a good amount for the month.

There’s plenty of other examples but I think you get it, we’re not compatible parents. The worst part is I’m always wrong because I’m “younger than her so I don’t know what I’m talking about or how to raise a kid” so I can’t even have a conversation regarding this problem at all, since it always leads to that point and I just end up getting frustrated and getting no where.

She’s also very religious, she’s Muslim but doesn’t really practice it. Except for some minor things, for example I can’t watch a dinosaur cartoon with my daughter because dinosaurs are not real, and they’re all a lie because the Quran said so. I’m a Mexican American and really grew up without a religious background, so when this things come up, it’s really heartbreaking for me since the baby seems to enjoy it, but then she can’t because of a religious doctrine. Same with food, I can NEVER feed her pork because she will die. Now, when it’s just me, the baby, and my family, at a bbq for example, pork tacos, meat, and all these wonderful foods come in, and of course I share them with the kid, but keep it under wraps from the wife, and I feel guilty about it, but at the same time not really, since there’s nothing wrong with eating food, it’s the same food I grew up eating!

The big kicker was when we talked about the babies future, in my eyes, she will turn 18, move out with a friend to experience the real world, and maybe move back in with us after a few months when she realizes how hard it can be before moving out some time later we’ll and prepared for her independence. But with my wife, she wants her to stay with us pretty much forever, until she gets married, if she goes to college in another state? We move in next door to her. If she wants to move into an apartment with some friends at 18? Not gonna happen, ever, until she gets married.

Now I don’t know what to do, she really wants to have more kids but I don’t think I do, at least with her, parenting has become a walk in a garden of eggshells when she’s home, but it’s wonderful when it’s just the baby and me. I keep thinking, I’m not legally married or legally responsible for the kid, so I could simply leave, but I don’t want to do that since I consider that kid my own now, what should I do? Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is almost breaking up with “joint custody”, where I still support the baby and see her plenty of times a week, maybe even get her to stay with me, or perhaps break up the relationship but live together as parents, at least until the kid is grown up enough to understand the situation better.

I just don’t feel attracted to my wife anymore, I don’t like her parenting style, her constant trying of pushing religious beliefs in our household, and just simply sexually, all attraction is gone from me.

The worst part is I really like her family, and they really like me, they’re awesome, and my family likes her aswell, everything seems perfect except when it is just between her and I. I feel terrible about having thoughts of breaking it up, specially for whatever impact it would have on my stepdaughter.

TL;DR: not attracted to wife (not legally married) anymore, I don’t like her parenting styles with my stepdaughter (her daughter, me not legally responsible), and I don’t like her religious beliefs constantly being pushed into our household.