It depends.

Taken at face value, he's right.

However, I once had a husband who was extraordinarily gifted at playing passive-aggressive games.

One of my complaints was that he was attentive until the wedding & then stopped cold, absolutely ignoring me unless he wanted something.

It was like turning a faucet from hot to cold.

When I finally cornered him & placed my complaint squarely before him, he looked down his nose (a favorite pose) & sneered, "I see. & just how long do you expect this "courtship" to go on?"

Assuming that your hubs isn't a passive-aggressive narcissist who enjoys pulling the wings off things including you...

You are a grown person, she is a child.

You are his partner, she is his child.

You enjoy every day with him, she gets to see him when she visits.

He enjoys every day with you, he gets to see her when she visits.

I always found, in my own experience & from talking to married friends, that people who have their own interests that they enjoy apart from each other are generally happier when they are together.

I've always liked antique/flea market/craft fair kinds of things, & I've always liked to go alone.

Guys (in my experience) typically go to those things only if lassoed & sedated & dragged, & they remember forever that you made them go.

A friend once put it to me this way:

Even if you're passionately fond of kissing, sometimes you gotta come up for air.

I can understand you wanting your husband's attention and time, and it is certainly legitimate for you to want to work this issue out with him.

I think you will make a terrible, dangerous, destructive, and self-defeating mistake if you frame it as a competition or comparison between yourself and his daughter, comparing the way he behaves toward her and the way he behaves toward you.

Let him know what you want and what you need. PERIOD. Do NOT make your point by saying things like "if he is willing to give up some of his activities for his daugther that he should do the same with me." It is one thing to be a wife wanting more attention; quite another thing to be a wife competing with a child.

"I do resent that he treats us differently," you write. Of COURSE he does! She is a child, you are his wife. I don't think you want him to treat you as a 6-year-old daughter, do you? Ask yourself what you DO want.

Is the problem really that you are not getting as much attention and consideration as you need, whether or not that child even existed? Or are you actually getting as much attention as you need, but "I'm damned if he's going to say no to me when he says yes to her" -- as if you need to prove to yourself that you are more important to him than his daughter?

One is a very legitimate issue; the other is a dangerous, unhealthy, no-win battle. Your post sounds a bit like the only issue is the comparison to the stepdaughter, but really you didn't write all that much, so I'm not saying that's what it's all about.

But give it some thought, and if you see that that's really what it's about, please don't start down that road -- it won't ever come out the way you want, but it can make all three of you miserable. Do ask him nicely if he would give up activity A or B so you can do X or Y together -- but leave the stepdaughter, and whether he would do it for her, out of it. Not only will everyone be happier for it, I bet you will get much better results.

Good luck!

I can kind of understand where you are coming from. My fiance has twins and at one time they were not in his life very much....I guess for about the first year and a half of our relationship. He leaned on me all the time and was so attentive and caring. Once the kids came in the picture again...he is always planning on what he is going to do with them or for them. I kind of feel like I have been put on a back burner and left there. I feel like an outsider because they are not my children. He tells me that I am reading into it too much and he just loves his kids. I understand that and respect that but why can't he balance having his children and my relationship with him too? Why does my relationship with him have to change?

Just tell him you'll remember that next time he wants sex.

Seriously though,I agree with the others.It isnt a competition between you and his daughter. However,this is not to say that he should be ignoring you either.

So,I guess the real question is,IS HE IGNORING YOU?
What did you ask him to give up in order to spend time with you or do something for you that he said no to?

I treat my daughter differently than I treat any man. Nobody has to treat his/her SO the same as his/her children. Unless he completely ignores you, accept the fact that his daughter is important for him. And she is only 6!

The love you feel for your children is different than the love you feel for your partner. Its not a bad thing by any means, its just different emotion.

"However, when I ask the same of him (when SD is NOT there) he responds that I am an adult and I should not need as much attention"

Can you be more specific on what you're asking of him that he's giving his daughter and not you?