I think my DD is wasting her life away and Ex is enabling it

I had no career direction in my 20s and needed help from my parents, not very dissimilar to this dd. The reasons for this were personal and complicated, but a near-absent parent hovering around (and looking to find fault) might not have seen the whole picture. I'm nearly 40 now, married with a decent career and comfortable income.

If you'd described the younger me as "utterly failed to launch", I'd have had some serious problems with you. How nasty. I launched just fine, maybe better than most as I had the benefit of making career/study decisions as a more experienced adult.

OP, there are plenty of women on this site, older than your dd, who chose a life of quitting work and being "bankrolled" by their husbands. Nobody accuses them of wasting their lives, failing to launch, squandering their career opportunities, or dossing about. (and rightly so).

You’re both rubbish parents to her - her dad hasn’t let her be independent and you rarely saw her from the age of 12, moved further away and had more children. She’s 19 so it’s 7 years too late.

Personally I think he's a shit dad. As a PP said, he's spoiled her & she's failed to launch.

If I were you, I'd keep the lines of communication open but let her get on with it.
She'll either mature in time & get a job etc, or she won't & will always be a bit feckless...

Not understanding why you had to move away for son to attend secondary school?

You were in London, rammed with secondary schools.... it's hardly a hamlet in the middle of nowhere and the kids are getting bussed to the nearest town 40 minutes away.

He sounds like a lovely dad and it seems like they have a wonderful bond. She’s young and having fun, I don’t think your DS ‘her life is a mess’ is anything but jealousy. Smoking and dropping out of uni is not the end of the world.

It sounds like she’s having the time of her life, be happy for her. I agree with PP that it seems like you begrudge the childhood she had and the life she has now.

If this is the case, then her ex is also 'the bad parent' as he hasnt done anything for his son that he did for his daughter?

OP, I think you need to build some bridges. This won't be done by telling off, or trying to control. Why not ask to come see the band play on a visit? Try to meet your daughter where she is at.

I don't think her life sounds good actually, she does sound like a waster. But right now, you're in no position to influence her. You need to repair your relationship first and foremost. Worry about how to best influence her once shes at a point she would listen to you!

Maybe the clues as to how she was feeling were there in how she behaved with you. Did you talk to her about how she felt and that she may have felt with the living arrangements? And how far out did you move? At that time you had 2 more children said as a bit of an afterthought but having two babies and small
children takes up a huge amount of time. And your daughter was left with not seeing her mum. The issues you had with her ‘bad behaviour’ was her telling you how she felt.
It sounds like you wanted a perfect child to visit for the weekend and resented her father for simply looking after her and giving her things that are actually quite normal.

She’ll never have to grow up with a father who pays for everything. He has spoilt her and that is not good parenting.

Actually what I would do is develop a very strong interest in her band and be as supportive as possible. It's what she's interested in and it's not your choice but she isn't you. She's has forever to grow up.

There is nothing you can do. Your ex will continue to finance her no matter what you say, and as a result of this, she can just bum around. This is on him, not you, and if you start commenting on her life in a negative way she will pull away even more. She’s a grown adult now and can make her own decisions. Just stay in touch and hope she will eventually realise she wants more out of life.

She didn’t have a good childhood though, did she?

Her father has completely spoiled her, and now she has utterly failed to launch- that’s actually a disaster!

Also the snide “telling tales” comment about the brother is quite obviously projection. If you get angry when others aren’t prepared to run with your narrative then maybe you need to start behaving like an adult.

First post nails it.

You left the parenting up to him, and now seem to want to blame hm for the consequences - You should do a bit more self-reflection before blaming her and her father.

I get that this isn't the life you'd imagined for her. She won't be the first young adult to doss about a bit in her 20s. She may get bored of it at some stage when she grows up a bit. At least she has her dad as a safety net, so she's not going to run out of money to pay bills, her basic needs are taken care of. She's not going to end up doing sex work or moving in with dodgy men like some of the teenage runaways I used to meet when I worked with kids in care. It's not ideal, but try not to panic too much. It sounds like she's had a good education as a foundation and she can go to uni later if she decides the life of the romantic starving artist in the garret living on Gauloises and red wine isn't for her.

From your DD's perspective, she wasn't your priority when she was growing up. You honestly sound resentful of the opportunities she got. It's quite normal for 11/12 year olds to have hobbies they do on weekends, and not be spending all their time with a parent and younger siblings. It was also quite nasty of your eldest to come and "report back" about his sister in that way. She may well be a daddy's girl and be a bit spoilt, but he's evidently mummy's boy, so both you and your ex have a favourite child and both of you seem to have compensated for the favouritism of the other parent. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and all.

You made the decision to let her live with her dad and then move to France. It's hard now, but at the time it felt right. So don't dwell on it.
Also, from your post, she has support, she has direction and is just being a young woman living her llife, exploring and having fun. It might not be what you envisaged for her, but you said yourself she might have done similar if stayed in the UK. Would you have been able to support her?

Sounds a brilliant way to spend her twenties! Hopefully, she'll find some ambition and settle on a career later on.

She’s 22. She needs to find her way in the world. At her age, I’d dropped out of a prestigious uni and was living with my heroin addict boyfriend in a shitty flat above a drug dealer driving a delivery truck as a job. I ended up going back to uni, getting my degree, then a master’s and a PhD. I have had a very good 20 years career, lovely (non-heroin addict) Dh, big beautiful home, very nice lifestyle.

She needs to find her way. Keep the communication channels open, but do less forcing of yourself on her. She needs to want the relationship, not have it be imposed. What I would do is insist your ex also keeps open communication with you so you can work together to support her.

Dud we read the same post? What a nasty and unfairly harsh post.

Sadly, in her eyes at least, you did sort of abandoned her for your new family when you moved. She wasn't really a part of that then and she isn't now. Lots of people do make a career out of being in a band and it could lead to other music related roles in future. Have you had the chance to see her band play?

Agree with PPs and would just add how TF have you not “managed” to see her more regularly? Leave your new kids at home and just physically show up more often. Even if it’s just lunch with you being encouraging about her band it will prove to her you care, you’re interested, you’re sorry for neglecting her and you want to put the effort in to repair your relationship. It’s never too late to start healing but you have to accept your role in this. Having new kids with new husband obviously sucked up your time when DD was growing up and then moving to a new country (maybe like a second home but different matter to move there) and you just let her cope without you.
She must’ve really missed you all that time and must be so hurt and angry, not to mention the initial hurt from you and her dad splitting up, but you need to fix this now so she can heal and you can both enjoy your relationship again.

Wow OP. Imagine if this was written by a dad who had left his daughter with the mum and moved away and remarried. The dad hasn’t done anything wrong in this situation, he raised your daughter how he saw fit while the mum was pretty much out of the picture.

Also, she’s in her early 20s in a band and not working - this was most of my friends when I was 22 and living in a city in the UK. They all turned out to be normal hardworking adults down the line. It’s not a bad thing.

I’m not sure what you think you could do OP? I agree her father just bankrolling her isn’t really helping- she needs to learn to be independent. But you haven’t been that big a presence in her life during her most formative years, so I don’t think you can expect to have any influence over her now she’s a young adult.

I agree with the poster that said you moved on, moved away, restarted your life, had more kids and now want control. It’s too late. Parenting isn’t being detached for years then suddenly rocking up. If she sat in front of a counsellor and talked it through I bet it wouldn’t be long before the words ‘abandoned’ and ‘replaced’ cropped up.

Why did you have to move away for your son to go to school?

She is living her best life- French people are more forgiving of young people not finding their direction etc than UK folk. French school, lives in France, has French friends and father - she will eventually find her path. She is also an adult so it’s time to let her adult if she isn’t harming herself/other people. Your life is in England now.

Maybe you and your son should mind your own business and stop being so judgemental @Bigorangeballoons.