Letting DSD2 see friends/ boyfriend in DH's time

[matana]

Hi, all. We're having a few deliberations over this at the moment, so any words of wisdom would be much appreciated.

Briefly, DSD1 (nearly 15yo) is estranged from DH (since last September). Without dwelling on the details, he has tried numerous times, and numerous ways, to resolve the situation but ultimately she doesn't want to see him again. In the good times we acknowledged her growing needs, compromised, allowed her time, space and understanding to see her friends and boyfriend, even during DH's contact time as it became in the end (every Sunday and one weekend overnight per month). What i'm saying is, we treated her fairly and like an emerging adult but i feel our lenience may have ultimately been our downfall because she may have felt that time with DH was 'optional' and she could run rings around us. But I'm not one for laying down the law (i see that as DH's job in the main anyway) and thought we were doing the right thing. The way she ended up behaving came as a huge shock to us both.

Anyway, DSD2 is 12 and has recently acquired a boyfriend and naturally wants to spend time with him/ her friends. However, it feels like DSD1 happening all over again ("Sorry dad, i've made plans," or "sorry dad, i can't see you until after lunch on Sunday", "i've been asked to go to/ se x, y or z".) DH feels he doesn't want to compromise and fears he'll lose a second daughter if he begins to give her too much space. Equally he feels he may lose her by being too strong with her. She's a totally different character to her sister and has a closer relationship with DH, but it is concerning us both at the moment and i wondered what others thought about how to deal with it?

Incidentally, she has just 'de-friended' all her adult 'friends' on Facebook so i'm assuming she's hit this teenage stage earlier than her sister did. She's loving, affectionate and pretty open with us both still - the only difference in her really is that she's become much more independent which i know is called 'growing up'. I just know that if we don't establish some ground rules with her, her mum is likely to use her new found independence to undermine DH's access ("DSD2 - you can decide whether you see dad or your friends, but you have to sort it out with him").

[Petal02]

I can see your point, and whilst I think the ex should certainly encourage DSD to see her Dad, it shouldn't be at the expense of a normal teenage social life. Surely a teenager should be allowed a certain amount of time with friends etc ( but not at the expense of school work) regardless of whose weekend it is? Otherwise you create an unnatural situation, which could easily lead to resentment. If you try and 'ring fence' the time with her father, you create a weird dynamic. I don't want to see you ending up in a situation like mine, and that of many others on this site, where the access rota has to be strictly adhered to, to a ridiculous level, often at the expense of other things in life that are far more important.

[missduff]

It is a tricky one, as you have said if she is told that she has to see her father over her friends then it could push her further away.

My parents were separated but once I reached about 12 and started wanting that independence n more time with friends I often took a friend to stay at my dad's, is this maybe something you could suggest? So then she's not having to chose between seeing her friends or her dad, she can have both.

Maybe just have a little chat with her and say that you miss her when she doesn't come and ask if there's anything you can do to make it more fun for her? The chances are she might just get a bit bored if she's on her own with 2 grown ups, sister isn't there and she's missing out on sleepovers etc with friends.

[AThingInYourLife]

There is no "DH's time", there is a 12 year old girl and how she chooses to spend her time.

Whatever way you approach this, attempting to force her to spend her time with her Dad is going to backfire.

[dtsmum]

its such a shame when this happens. My D(niece) is 15 now. When her parents (my DB and DSIL) split her Mum moved round the corner with D(niece) and D(nephew). When DN's go to see their Dad now obviously they have friends there! DN wants to catch up with them but my DB has decided that if she wants to spend her weekends with her friends rather than him then there is no point in her staying at his house anymore and he's quite rude about it! DN has now decided her Dad can bog off and she doesn't care

I hope it all works out ok for you all x

[eslteacher]

matana - out of interest, how far apart do you and your DH live from his children? Would it be possible for her to bring her friends to hang out at your place sometimes? I can see that it probably isn't the ideal way your DH would want his contact time with her to go, but it would be better than nothing...

I can see how if the geographical distance between you is significant, this could potentially be quite difficult though...

How is the relationship between DH and his ex? What attitude does she take towards this problem?

[matana]

Thanks all for your comments. We have nothing against DSD bringing her friends over and think it's nice when she asks because it shows she's not embarrassed by us and sees us as her family as well. Logistically though it's not always possible.

Riverboat - the distance is not huge. We live in a city and DSD lives in a village about 15 minutes from the city on a motorway. DSD's friends, however, are dotted around (not necessarily in her village or our city) and DH's ex doesn't take turns over drop offs/ pick ups - DH has always done the picking up and dropping off. Which is why i mean that logistically it's not always possible without adding significantly to the mileage. DH's ex will not allow DSD to use public transport so effectively all the travelling is down to DH - including picking up/ dropping off friends. We do it when we can though and i do think we need to say to DSD that her friends are always welcome, but she needs to make arrangements with them if she wants them to come.

DH and his ex have a 'challenging' relationship. They try to be civil, but the reason it has largely stayed civil is due to DH not wanting arguments and so giving in to her for the sake of the children. She doesn't really care what happens unless it impacts on her arrangements and she is not proactive in dealing with issues, preferring to palm them off onto my DH.

[purpleroses]

Your set up sounds very like ours geographically, matana - similar distance between homes, friends dotted around. My DP's eldest is just turned 15 and has had a busy social life for the past couple of years now. We see a lot less of her than the others (aged 9-13) but overall things are still working out well. I think the thing that makes it work (so far at least) is that they have a very settled and fixed pattern of when they come to us. They come very weekend. So if the eldest wants to see her boyfriend or friends at the weekend, she knows that it is DP she needs to mention it to. She goes out with friends, but is always back with us overnight.

Personally I can't for the life of me see why a 12 year old can't travel by public transport (especially one who's old enough to have a boyfriend!) but realise that this can be difficult to influence when you are the step parent, unless your DP is on your side with it. Can she cycle or walk to where she wants to see her friends? My DP's younger kids rely entirely on lifts everywhere. I've been encouraging him to make some contacts with their friends' parents lately so that lifts can be shared. He finds this a bit hard because he doesn't do the school run so doesn't know many of the people, but has managed to sort out lift shares this weekend to two separate parties (both over 30 minutes drive away!) that his DC2 and DC3 were attending. At 12 your DSD ought to be old enough to either sort out her own transport around, or at least pass on contact details of her friend's families that your DP can sort it out with.

But somehow your DP needs to make coming to his house something that happens anyway, and where she lives for part of the time, rather than somewhere she is expected to give up time to go and visit. Would it help if he adjusted the times he has her at all to fit in better with her social life? Eg more midweek nights and less weekend?

[matana]

Ok, so the latest is that we've told DSD she's welcome to invite her friends around whenever she's over at ours, as long as she arranges it properly with them and it's someone either local to her or local to us.

Regarding going to parties and doing things in her contact time with DH, he spoke to her mum about whether she would consider allowing DSD to stop at ours during the week for a night if she can't see DH at the weekend for whatever reason. Her response: "I don't want DD stopping at yours during the week. She has school the next day." When DH challenged this, telling her we'd pick her up on our way home from work and drop her back the next morning in time for shcool, ensuring she does any homework at ours, she said: "Well, I'll speak to her, but i don't think she'll want to." I'm guessing she knows this because she knows that she'll put the suggestion to her in a really negative way, as per usual.

[matana]

Purple as you can see from the above, it's the exW who dictates the times we see her, and it's always been the same. Any variation on the 'arrangements' is not warmly welcomed.