Desperately needing advice. I have two daughter's 13 and 10 to my ex husband, we split 10 years ago and to say it's been a rollercoaster is an understatement.
We are now at a stage where my 13 year old no longer wants a relationship with her Dad and refuses any contact with him but my 10 year old wants to see him.
Dad does also not want a relationship with the 13 year old, his exact words are ' I don't give a shit about her, if she doesn't want to see me then f**K her at least Ive got the other child'
The reason my eldest does not want a relationship with him is because in her words 'he's not a good dad', and she's right he isn't, he's never been there for them. He's been in and out of their lives for the past 10 years, they've witnessed his violent, verbally abusive relationships with woman and those relationships always come before the kids, he doesn't know any of their friends, never involved in school or sporting activities, can go months and even up to 18 months of not seeing and speaking to them, sometimes that was on his own accord other times it was because I wouldn't allow visits because of said violence.
She's been fearful of him because of the abuse he's directed at me (multiple AVOs) and what she's witnessed with other woman when they have had contact with him.
I did my best to protect them from the abuse they saw when with him so on advice from a lawyer, a magistrate and a phscologist Id pull back from letting him see the kids but that's when I'd cop the abuse and he'd do it front of them, I was damned either way.
My youngest witnessed it all too and it has affected her but she loves her dad and accepts it (that concerns me)
This year there was an incident where he was going to spend the day with the kids, but when my 13 year old wanted to take her phone with her (she was slightly scared and wanted it incase she needed to call me and frankly i wanted her to take it just in case) but he flipped and assaulted me in front of the kids and threatened to kill me (police were called) To say the kids were terrified was an understatement but that was the final straw for my eldest.
He's in a new relationship now and it seems to be a healthy one and he wants the kids to come over and sleep. Eldest doesn't want to go and youngest does.
I've encouraged him to fix the relationship with his eldest and to get to know her cause he really doesn't her but he just expects her to come over and everything be fine, he thinks the things that happened in the past are in the past and she just needs to get over it. So now because she won't go or speak to him he has wiped his hands of her. But the things that have happened in the past are the reason they have no relationship and he doesn't acknowledge that?
I don't believe he's a good dad and I'm disgusted at the things he's said about my eldest, I really don't know if there will ever be a relationship between them, if it can ever be repaired but I also understand why she wants nothing to do with him.
But what do I do with my youngest? She'll take what she can get from him and accept his past behaviours because thats her dad.
What do I do? I don't want to split the kids up, I'm concerned the affect that would have on their relationship as sisters and frankly I see it as picking one child over the other. Do I let the youngest go for sleep overs as he no longer wants to do just day visits, he said he either gets overnights when he can or he'll walk away completely. At this stage she (youngest) is doing day visits and it's not consistent, she's been 4 maybe 5 times this year because that's all the time he can spare her so if there is to be any sleep overs it wouldn't be regular. I feel she'll be safe with him as this new relationship seems to be healthy (for now) and he's seems calmer in his demeanor but things he says makes me think he hasn't really changed. I just don't know what is the right thing to do for the kids!
Father doesn't want a relationship with one child but does the other.
Father doesn't want a relationship with one child but does the other.
Posted in:
Parenthood Guilt
6 Replies
I wouldn't let her go. He sounds exactly like my ex and he did the same with our kids, he hasn't seen our 2 younger kids who are in their teens for 6 years but has been in our older 2 lives and it's the most confusing, heartbreaking thing to have them treated so differently by their own parent. The only kind of parent that can do this is an emotional abusive one and you need to save your kids from that mess. If he really wants to see his kid let him go through mediation/court and have him look like a dead beat when he explains why he only wants to see one of them and with the history of DV in front of and at the kids hopefully nobody is stupid enough to recommend unsupervised access anyway.
HE IS NOT A GOOD DAD! His daughter is terrified of him, and has the brains to stay as far away as she can.
Stop trying to encourage a relationship. If he is done with her, that’s a good thing. Get her some therapy so she can recover and make sure she isn’t internalising this. You need to respect her very mature reasoning to stay away from a very dangerous man.
It’s not splitting the kids up. Siblings don’t do everything together all the time. I’d be more worried and terrified for the daughter that wants to go. I would not be encouraging her to spend time with her dad at all and hoping to hell, the visit are as far apart as possible. If she does want to spend time, I’d be hoping to hell it was a day time visit or a outing in a public place.
Every time he has abused you or his partners he has damaged, terrified and abused his children.
Abusers don’t suddenly change. They go through a honeymoon period. Where they are on the best behaviour and love bomb there victims until they are lulled into a false sense of security. That’s what you are seeing now. The Love bomb behaviour!
At this stage I wouldn't be allowing a sleep over for just the youngest. But you did say his new relationship seems fairly healthy, could you maybe speak to her alone and explain your concerns (without coming off sounding like the psycho ex) and just check she'll be around for your daughter if she needs it?
As for your older daughter, she's made her decision and it sounds like the right one for her.
You've encouraged both of them to have a relationship, they've both declined, now leave it.
I cut my mother off when I was 13 because she was a terrible uninvolved mother. She just walked out on us when I was 6, let my dad with 3 kids and never made any effort after that. Kids get to an age where they can see what’s really happening no matter how hard you try to sugar coat it. They piece everything together and see it for what it really is. The way her father has spoken about her just proves what a jerk he is. Respect her decision even if you do not agree with it. She may swap and change for a bit but, at the end of the day from someone that’s been there, she will respect you if you allow her to make this very grown up decision. For me it was 100% the best thing I ever did. Going on 28-yrs since I’ve spoken to my mother and I do not care one little bit. It’s made me a better mum to my own kids. She showed me how not to be. Good luck and trust your daughter she knows what she’s doing.
I was that child with a violent father. Mum tried to do the right thing by letting me continue seeing him but all that did was cause me to witness so much additional violence and I was put in a lot of awful situations I’ll never be able to forget. I was too young to realise that as a child I shouldn’t have witnessed that behaviour and too young to put my foot down and say no more. All I knew was that’s my dad and longed for it to be a normal loving father/daughter relationship, but it never was and never would be. I didn’t fully realise that til I was an adult. I wouldn’t ever put my child in that situation ever after what I went though.
For my kids I try to support them to have a positive relationship with their dad as much as I possibly can. I would allow the youngest to go, and if the oldest decided she didn't want to go I'd support that as well.