“When Benjamin told me he had a six-year-old daughter, I admit that I didn’t expect it, but I remember being very happy,” says Adèle. I told myself that she and I were going to weave a friendly relationship and share privileged moments. I could already see myself taking her to the park, picking up rocks and leaves with her, while listening to her tell me her little secrets. And I even imagined telling her one day that she was going to have a little brother or a little sister. The 30-year-old is all the more impatient to meet the little girl as her lover firmly believes that the two women in his life are going to get along well. “You’ll see, she’ll adore you,” he had been harping on for weeks. Big mistake. From the first meeting, Joséphine makes Adèle feel that she is clearly not welcome.
“She goes so far as to slip into our bed at night”
“Benjamin had reserved a table at the pizzeria downstairs from our house,” says the young woman. Despite my best efforts to establish a dialogue and be pleasant with her, Josephine ignored me throughout the meal. And when, to lighten the mood, I tried to talk to her father, she threw me dark looks, ready to pounce on me. After this lunch, Adèle wonders. She has known Benjamin for a short time, but she loves him. And she knows that if she wants to build something with him, she will have to deal with her daughter, as jealous and unbearable as she is, since, since her divorce, he has custody of her every other weekend and half of the School vacation. It’s been nearly a year since Adèle takes things on her own, because she guesses that’s what Benjamin expects of her. But the situation weighs on her so much that she is on the verge of breaking down. And throw it all away. “When she comes home, Josephine does not let go of her father one step, even slipping into our bed at night, in the middle of the two of us, and she throws tantrums every time he Come closer to me, she gets annoyed. For my part, no matter how much I rack my brains trying to please her, she systematically refuses the activities I offer her, doesn’t like anything I prepare for her to eat – not even chocolate cakes – and never speak to me, except to tell me that I am not his mother, or that the latter does everything better than me. It is unlivable! “.
Adèle does not hide it: she is terribly angry with Joséphine for breaking their cocoon together and making them live through it. Just as she increasingly resents Benjamin for not having the courage to intervene. The few times she asked him for a little support, he barely reacted. He hates conflict and doesn’t see his daughter often, so when she’s with them he wants everything to go well. “I can’t help but find him cowardly,” she slips. And I’m starting to seriously doubt the future of our couple. Because if he really loved me, he couldn’t stand Josephine behaving like this with me and he would do everything to make room for me in their lives”.