My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Relationships

not mine, but ex dh's non relationship with our dd 12.

17 replies

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 29/08/2014 22:57

name changed.

I have had the shittiest year. This post if for me. I have spent ten years coaxing, paving the way, helping the ex improve things with dd.

He left us, no explanation when she was two.

Then began our life, of fitting in with him. Usual, he changed beyond recognition, met someone with kids, got married again. My dd's life with him has been inconsistent.
A let down.
All along i did all i could to facilitate him, what he wanted from her etc.

Then one day after all the pressure, when dd was 6 she decided no more.

From then on, he has done little to be involved, make ammends. Nothing.

Roll to now. She is 12. Has had illness, health scares, has a slight disability. She has let him back into her life, twice. Now he's gone again.

She has spent the last 2 yrs of her life trusting him, and then he ruined it again.
I then got all the blame.

I have fought hard for their relationship. The ideal ex if you like. Or a mug. BUt always for my dd. With me desperate for her to have her dad in her life.

It's all complicated, but boils down to her lack of trust in him.

Now it's all my fault according to him, everything. This was the man i loved so much, who loved me. This is the child we tried so long for.
Now it's all been wrong, he actually said the worst decision he ever made was having a child with me.
I am trying so hard to help her thought this abandonment, and have been for three months, but what about me.

There is so much pain in this home, we have been so strong. I am not feeling very strong.

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 29/08/2014 23:08

Are you saying that your DD blames you for his failure to maintain contact?

I think this is a reality check moment for both of you and time for some honesty. You've been operating - as a lot of people do - in the hope that, if you give him the opportunity, he will love DD as much as you do... and he simply doesn't. So deal with the reality rather than the fantasy, stop fighting for him to be the father he's never going to be and explain to your DD in plan English that he's a waste of space. If being the perfect ex means you normally avoid saying anything negative about him, now's the time to correct that. Good luck

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 29/08/2014 23:16

hiya Cognito,

No dd knows it's nothing i have said or done, and i am being honest there.

I have supported all of it, based on his promises. Her decisons not to see him, also when she wanted to write to him. All of it.In the early years because i wanted it to turn out ok so much that I thought it was my duty to be the strong one. You know, patch it up when the excuses came. Explain people operate differently to mum.

Yet, now, after his last sob story about 18 months ago, his sorrys it seems so huge that he has let her down again.

I feel so so sad for this girl. She has been so depressed. I am so fucking angry with him for doing this to her. BUt oh no i am not allowed am i, by him to have had one coherrent thought pattern or good influence on her.

I can feel the depression coming in for me, and i bloody hate it.

OP posts:
minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 29/08/2014 23:19

sorry, Cogito.

yes, i have probably hoped for too much. had to change from supporting her not seeing him to being happy and ok with her seeing him,. and i really was.

till he fucked up. now his fuck up is all my fault.

she knows he has said that i have schemed, manipulated and broken their relationship all these yrs.

I know it's not true, dd knows it isn't. I am just tired of being this man's ex, who he still beats mentally and emotionally by what he does to his child.

just venting. x thanks

OP posts:
Twinklestein · 29/08/2014 23:21

It feels very much like you're still chasing him, his good opinion, his validation after all these years. You're not free of him.

He's an arsehole. He doesn't care about you or your daughter. He wants to torture you both. Of course he's going to tell you everything is your fault. It's all bollocks.

You really need to cut the ties with him, forget about his opinion of your parenting, of your daughter and stop trying to make up for the fact that he's so awful. Your daughter can see just how awful he is, so it's all for nothing.

Twinklestein · 29/08/2014 23:22

Have you tried the Freedom Programme?

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 29/08/2014 23:26

i haven't but i have heard of it thankyou.

just had to be so strong. i feel abused tbh. worn down so much by him.
bully.

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 29/08/2014 23:27

I think you and DD need something to look forward to and to take your mind off this man. It sounds as though you have a good relationship and his infrequent appearances just mess everything up for a while. Will she be back at school next week? Could you have a busy/fun last weekend of the holidays?

Twinklestein · 29/08/2014 23:57

I've not tried the Freedom Programme myself, but it's always very highly recommended on here.

I think you need to steer your way into a future with your daughter that is free of this man, his whims & cruelties.

I can't help feeling that although your daughter has a good idea of what he's like - you're teaching her that what this man thinks or does is important, because you believe that yourself. I think you need to teach her that you're both fine without him.

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 30/08/2014 00:16

think it's taken this final blow to steer me/us more in that direction.
there was alot of expectation for this last supposed new start.

i have taken her abroad but it didn't go well. she was very down for much of it. i have had to steer her through it and i think the bouts of sadness are less frequent now.
we have done lots of stuff and had friends over for sleep overs in the past few weeks.

maybe eventually this will feel more like freedom than despair.

OP posts:
minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 30/08/2014 10:40

bump

OP posts:
minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 30/08/2014 10:42

not important should be my mantra today

OP posts:
minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 30/08/2014 10:48

him not us .
i shouldn't care what he thinks. that is where i am stuck. like most women say i am actually a strong capable woman.
i think that when someone is out of your life but still associated with you via a child it is difficult.
when he wasn't in dd life for two years it was much easier in so many ways.
i have told dd that i promise it will feel better over time.
there will be highs and lows.

i think this week has also been a low for me with her going back to school next week.
x

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 30/08/2014 10:48

Any child is going to be crushed when they discover a parent can be so callous.. and that's putting it mildly. You can't change him and you can't change her reaction. I think all you can do is acknowledge the hurt and treat it as an example of how sometimes life deals you a bad hand. Whether it's a crap parent, a disability or some other aspect of rotten luck, if you don't want to be dragged down by it, you have to make the best of it.

F0ssil · 30/08/2014 10:56

Only that your daughter is 12 I would have thought you were my friend. Her child's father has just faded away. Slowly at first and now he's gone in a puff of smoke.

My friend used to pride herself on being reasonable all the time no matter what. Being reasonable for two people doesn't work because it gets to the point where your back is about to break ,then he'll tell you you're selfish for not bending over backwards further. Actually, my own x did do that too really but at least the doormat feelings weren't as hard for me.

I think now as cogito says, you have to accept that he isn't able for fatherhood if it's not easy, not right under his roof, not supported by the woman in his own house. He only managed it in those circumstances. That is side order of fatherhood that a lot of men manage because it's easy.

You can't protect your daughter from the truth. Her father isn't a great man. He has his flaws.

I think mothers work too hard to have reluctant fathers in their children's lives sometimes. Most of the issues that affect single parent families are issues relating to poverty. WHere the mother is capable, loving and there is no poverty, then the chilldren of single parents do as well as children from from two parent families.

My children don't see their father very often. He's a face to the name Daddy though. I think he can manage three times a year and I just don't push for more. He probably blames me too, but those are his own delusions.

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 30/08/2014 11:26

i do know your name Fossil, from way way back, i have name changed and will prob stick with it this time, so i can start over.

thankyou both for commenting.

Intertesting that you say about being able to father, outside of his own home. That was one of the points he made in his awful email to me. That it he can't cope with the separateness, and driving here for an hour.

He wants it all on his terms without putting in any work at all. I am sure he used to be emotionally intelligent, and my expectations of him are based on the man i thought i knew.

I guess i am thinking about what he wants too much, making it important when he hasn't made one iota importance to what dd has needed.

The balance has been all wrong hasn't it. Coming to terms with this. thanks

OP posts:
gamerchick · 30/08/2014 11:32

My youngest sees his dad sporadically, I never push contact nor do I deny it. My other 2 are old enough to see him off their own steam if they want and they learned as they got up that he was crap at being a dad and my youngest will as well.

All you can do is try and make sure that you make them feel secure as possible at home and their dad is just a now and then extra in their lives. Stop investing in it he isn't going to change.

Don't mention him or arrange anything.. just be there for her when she needs you and let him fuck it up all on his own. You are the constant in her life no matter how tough it gets at time.

Just stop.

minkymuskyslyoldstoaty · 31/08/2014 12:19

thanks for replying gamerchick. I will always be there for her. Which is proving itself right now as luck would have it we passed him in the street yesterday (gotta love fate) and he walked past without even a nod.

It was somewhere we don't normally go, miles away. She is now in bits, i had to support her physically up the road. We were having a lovely lets get out and do something day till that point.

Making him not important was my manta to her before and will continue, but rotten bloody pissing luck, she hasn't seen him for 4 months so it's been a slap in the face. Yet, maybe her resilliance to him dropping her will get stronger as time goes on.

OP posts:
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.