Normally I would ask what you think you should have done different. Or what you think you did right. But this issue has come up before and I think it really needs to be addressed.
You need to stop dismissing your wife on this issue.
No matter how you feel about OM1—he is your daughter’s biological father. It borders on child abuse to fight a stronger relationship between your daughter and OM1--if he is genuinely attempting a stronger relationship with her. Adults make terrible decisions and children pay for those terrible decisions all the time.
To be completely blunt--Your wife should have married OM1 and built a life with him before their daughter was born. You encroached on their family. Not the other way around. So stop believing you are entitled to anything regarding his child. Just because you were given the privilege to raise this child did not eliminate OM1 from this child’s life.
I know it makes you angry when he gets the privilege of being a father without responsibility. I know it makes you jealous when you see your wife accommodating him and ignoring you. But she isn’t accommodating him as his wife—she is accommodating him as the child’s mother. And this is the right thing to do.
I don’t know what your wife said but if she wants OM1 to spend more time with your daughter and OM1 wants to spend more time with your daughter—then, doggone it, you should embrace this—not hinder it. Unless OM1 is a danger to his daughter--Any arrangement allowing for more intimacy should be embraced.
And let me be clear by “danger to his daughter.”
I do not mean you have different parenting styles. This can be negotiated.
By “danger to his daughter” I mean he has an addiction, engages in criminal activity, is (or lives with) a sex offender.
If none of these exist…then I think you need to revisit the discussion with your wife.
