Hi all.
Encyclopaedia Britannica warning, my apologies but it is what it is.
I've got a problem and actually, in all honesty, I think the upshot is that there is no solution (certainly not the solution DD - and I - would want), but let me set out the history right up to the current day, and if anyone out there can think of a solution that will work, that would effect some positive change, please let me know because nothing positive is happening here.
DD (now 14) and DS (now 17) have been having EOW contact with their dad since we divorced in 2007. I moved away for several reasons and so offered that we meet half way. So, for the last 9 years I've been doing a 70 mile round trip on a Friday and a 70 mile round trip on a Sunday EOW to facilitate contact. As you can imagine as the full time working RP it has been bloody hard work over the years but obviously I've stuck it out as them seeing their dad was the most important thing no matter how knackered I might have been.
Throughout these years DD has been shown that she is not the favourite grandchild. Her brother's one of them but even he is pipped at the post by the other female grandchild. DD has often felt (rightly) sidelined, left out, she's always criticised way more heavily than anyone else, she's 'clumsy'. More recently on hols with GPs she got all nicely dressed to go to dinner (as a young girl interested in fashion would - she looked lovely) and was told to go and get changed which obviously made her feel crushed and a right twat. Then, at a sleepover in March she was shouted at by her grandfather to such an extent that she was in hysterical tears as he also threatened her with police (for waking him and GM up as she was on a sleepover with her cousin). I raised this as being excessive but no one apologised or batted an eyelid - this was 'treating her with respect'. This treatment has gone on for years but I've kept her adherence to the contact order even at times (fine balance this) having to really strongly encourage her to go. Partly I was waiting until she was old enough that if it went back to court, her voice would be heard.
About a year ago (before all her friends and BFF fucked her off and cast her out into isolation) she had a great little social life and was always going here and there. Not just because of this but also because she felt too distanced (geographically and emotionally) from where she lives now, her dad said she didn't have go to the EOW contacts if she had something else on. She often did have things on so didn't go very often to that, but still went in the holidays. It was a struggle to get her to go even to that and I would say for a year or more she was going to the holiday contacts but not looking forward to them at all.
On top of this XH has own new child with his new wife and that child now takes precedence over everyone else (incl. DS - he once said to me "If there was a fire, SM would save herself, daddy and their child" (leaving him (DS) and his sister (DD) to burn). There are NO pictures in the stepmom and dad's house of DS and DD, just of the new child, which speaks volumes.
Then at Easter DD was in the car all set for a week with her dad and we'd pulled up at the rendezvous location, I went into the back to help her get her bags, and she just completely broke down. She just couldn't face going down there, she'd had enough, absolutely enough.
Obviously in the following days and weeks we talked a lot and the upshot was that she DOES want contact with her dad but she just doesn't want to go down to his house/grandparents house because of all of the issues mentioned (of which the above are but a small, small selection). She asked could he (or shared among the other members of that side of the family) see her here once a month maybe. This is so important to her to not lose contact with that side of her family - I found her creating a scrapbook/photo album of pictures of that side of her family one evening of all these people who she will likely not see more than once or twice a year from now on. So sad.
XH was duly told this. Since then there's been repeated pleas for me/DD to 'just tell him/them what the issues are' - well, we did! In 2012 I raised ALL of these issues and how they were soul destroying, gutting incidents for DD. I even predicted when I read the emails back, that she would at some point not want to go any more. How sad that's come true. Then, as now, they are in total denial that there are any problems - you can't make changes when everyone thinks 'there's nothing wrong'.
So since Easter, XH has only seen DD in the flesh once for no more than 2 hours when he took her and DS for a burger up here. He texts her, face times her and calls her (even though she doesn't want this form of contact, it stresses her out and she's never liked it and has repeatedly advised him of this). He's got the hump because she doesn't engage with him through these forms of communication. Basically, she's been waiting for months for him to respond and emphatically say "Don't worry DD, it's only 12 times a year, I'm sure that we can sort something out because I'm not losing contact with you no matter what!".
Of course, that's not happened. It won't happen.
He even had the insulting audacity to suggest that DD needed counselling - staggering, absolutely STAGGERING. She is in full control of her faculties, it's him and his family living in complete denial unaware of the trauma they have caused with such casual lack of concern for her feelings.
Unless I'm missing some approach that hasn't yet come into my mind because I'm so close to the situation that you lovely folk can think of. Sadly, you can't make someone have contact if they don't really want it...
The problem is (and having been married to this man of course) he won't change. He won't put himself out to get this contact back on track. He's very selfish, very weak.
Thoughts? How best to help DD through the inevitable that she's lost contact with her dad (which is the reality). She's had to withdraw in order to protect herself and I have to continue to support that, even if this is the outcome.
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Ongoing no contact - DD and XH
9 replies
Pollyanna9 · 29/09/2016 19:03
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