ex affecting child (and me) emotions

[midgemagnet]

I suspect my ex is trying to manipulate how my daughter feels about me - in fact he has said "I will tell her exactly who you really are", and made similar threats.

He seems to be acting this out. For example, recently she started going on about my stress - and then I got a mail from him telling me I should not be rude to him, but he understood that I must be stressed about my forthcoming wedding (not the cause of our split!) Not sure where I was rude to him.

I think this is one of the reasons she isn't talking to me like she used to (I can imagine him saying "dont talk to mummy when she is stressed with the wedding" - sounding like he is kind and thoughtful, and really planting ideas in ger head)

I am not stressed about a simple wedding, mostly I am not much stressed (for a mummy) although I am sometimes stressed by her behaviour, which is always bad after a weekend with her dad - she is 8 and bit a friend last week because she wanted a toy the other had! When I discussed this with her dad (I thought lack of sleep might be the issue) he told me that he had discussed it with her, and the other girl bit first (which most certainly was not the case, but is a story she made up later!) So nasty mammy punished her for it, but kind daddy understood it was not her fault at all.

Then he asked how I had punished her, I told him that I had put her to bed, and not let her read in bed. He then said he would never stop her reading as it is a fundamental right.

Help!

[Baffy]

He's undermining everything you do and using your child as a weapon against you

People who do this to their own children are beyond me. How completely selfish. He obviously has no regard for his daughter at all. He is messing with her head just to get at you.

I really hope someone has some good advice on how you can deal with him.

What an awful situation

[aloha]

I'd be very tempted to stop talking to him at all, frankly. He sounds awful and I really feel for you. I would get the 'stress' thing out in the open with your dd. ie 'do you think I'm stressed? Because I don't feel stressed at all. I'm really happy to be getting married. how do you feel about it'.

[hurtwife]

Your D sounds normal - at 8 she must feel torn between you and not know who to trun too.

It is hard - is she normally closer to her dad? That is hard because as a mum you just cant do anything right.

My D is very close to her dad and even now will not have a bad word said against him and he is very good at telling what is what.

During our 'bad patch' she would always take his side and was horrible to me even though she knew it was him that had left, but she somehow blamed me and i think always will which is very very hard.