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

OP I’m sorry to say but both of you seem to have prioritised everything else except for building relationships with the children who didn’t live with you. Language preferences, music lessons, after school activities, schools, sport…everything came before a relationship with the other parent and the other sibling. It’s no wonder she ignores you now. And I’m sure your son will feel the same way about his father butting in his life and giving him his opinions, Not sure what you can do at this stage to be honest, other than let her live the life she has chosen for herself. She’s an adult now.

One of the reasons I am not good at delegating, op, is because it annoys me when a job is not done the way I want it.

Whatever the complications around French schools/English schools/divorce arrangements were, by letting the relationship with DD drift apart from you, you effectively delegated her upbringing to your ex.

You now aren't really in a position to complain, but you can try to build up the relationship to what it might have been had you not let it drift, and perhaps from there you can start to involve your own ideas in mutual discussions about where she is at and her next steps. But that will be a process.

Interesting. What sort of jobs are available in that field?

Right.

Marylebone as well. But those are all up to 18; there are others that are primary or go up to 15 like the one in Kentish Town and DD was only 8 at the time.

The point is to accommodate both DS and DD schooling and the need for a cheaper area you could have, for example, moved to Wembley with both of them.

@Bigorangeballoons - you keep explaining the school decision but you allowed it to have massive consequences for your relationship with your DD.

You said upthread that you couldn’t see her on week day evenings because you had other commitments including in particular other children. You must have known what message that was sending to her.

Even if it wasn’t obvious then, it’s surely obvious now. You allowed a situation to arise and be perpetuated where you repeatedly communicated to her by your actions that your other DCs were much more important to you than she was. Even if that’s not how you felt, that’s the message you sent. It’s going to take a lot of honest reflection and humility, i think, to be able to put your relationship on to a better footing. But what you’re actually doing is bitching about your own daughter with her brother. Honestly, that is so disrespectful and toxic and it’s bad for her brother to be encouraged to do that.

Look, there are ways in which i have massively fucked up as a parent. There is much i would do differently if i could do it again. I really think you would do better to start seeing things from your DD’s side instead of being so entrenched in your own position.

Exactly. Can we stop pretending that the only option here was to completely split two siblings up?

What has DS ended up doing after his very important sporty education?

You and your ex made a decision, when your children were 8 and 11, to split siblings into two separate households and parent them separately. You had two further children which your ds lived with. I would imagine your dd felt she just didn't fit in to that family dynamic and was probably always on the outside whether that was intentional or not. I would wonder whether she has any meaningful relationship with her step siblings or brother? I find it pretty shitty of her brother to be blabbing to you about how "dysfunctional" her life is. It is none of his dam business. I also find it pretty shitty of you to be comparing her to him as if you did such a better job at parenting then your ex, your post implies "look at the one I parented and how well they turned out". Tbh you and your ex's decision back when she was 8 has probably had the biggest impact on her and who she is now so you don't get to lay the blame all at your exes door.

Why? Well because if you don’t keep your children together it will mess up your whole family dynamic permanently and DD’s relationship with you and DS’s relationship with his father may never recover.

You could have moved to a cheaper area and still sent her to a French school.

OP has not posted because she is worried about her relationship with her DD and because she wants to rebuild it. She has posted to complain about her DD, saying she is wasting her life at only 19 years old, and criticise her exh and his parenting (which sounds pretty good actually). That is a bit rich when she chose to move away from her child when she was only 8 years old. Regardless of if they are a pretty much absent dad or mum you can't rock up at 19 when the relationship is already damaged and try to rule the roost. She barely knows her DD and her DD doesn't want to spend time with her. There is nothing at all she can do at this point. And most importantly, her DD is doing what makes her happy, but not what makes OP happy.

You did what was best for her (and you) at the time and I can understand why you’re so worried for her now - she is an adult but her father is at fault for spoiling and enabling her! I don’t think there’s anything you can do except be there for her if she reaches out to you for help

“Mangelwurzelfortea · Today 10:39
FrippEnos · Yesterday 23:33
Just as a counter point.
You left her with her Dad, moved, got remarried, had 2 more children and generally got on with your life.
From the sound of it she had a good childhood with her dad that you somewhat begrude.
And now want a controlling part of her life.
Where as the best thing that you could do is watch and support her.
Also your elder child son needs to keep his nose out of it, and stop telling tales and you should stop encouraging him in doing so.”

“Yeah, agree with this.
You didn't have much of a hand in raising her so can't complain now that she's grown into the adult you don't want her to be. And yes maybe you made the choices that you really felt were right at the time but hell would freeze over before I'd let one of my kids live with my ex. You haven't really been a 'mum' to her so she probably doesn't value your opinions and you need to stay out of it and let her make her own decisions now.”

This with bells on. You prioritised your other DCs more or less to the exclusion of your daughter. That shows an incredible lack of love and care. I find your lack of insight into what you did and your lack of insight into her teenage unhappiness, acting out and anger quite chilling. You just keep making excuses for why your level of detachment was okay but her behaviour was telling you how wounded she was. If there is one person’s love a child should always be able to count on, it’s their mother’s love. As parents, we all fuck up - i certainly have. But this is big. You weren’t really a mother to her during crucial formative years. You were off with another man making another family whom you prioritised. Then you wonder why she wasn’t that interested in you when you visited her in France. You don’t get to lay down judgement on her now. Have you admitted to her how wrong you got this? You need to rebuild your relationship with her from scratch.

You’re lecturing about languages to someone who’s half Italian whose husband is not English but always worked here? Ok.

Bottom line is that there are no language issues so pressing that necessitates the splitting up of 2 siblings to 2 different parents.

The SK Lycee is not the only French school in London.

Thank you 💐

No probs! I do get what you mean!

I apologise fully if read it the wrong way!

It’s hard to tell on here sometimes.

I'm sure they are, but there's no getting away from the fact that having additional children decreases the amount of time, money and energy you have available to spend on your existing ones.

You can't neglect the relationship with your daughter for years and then complain when you don't like the outcome of that.

Can I just say I’m not trying to have a go at the op.

im saying that in order to get a relationship with her dd going forward, the starting point is for the op to apologise to her dd for her lack of input in her former years. Yes, there was reasons for them all, explain them all but perhaps with a ‘I maybe coukd have done that better’ tone.

read again with less belligerence please. It was a positive post to op?

I'm genuinely surprised at the comments here saying it's none of op's business and that her son should keep his nose out also. From the OP, her daughter wasn't abandoned. Both parents came to an agreement about moving in order to support both children - the son wanting to go to a "normal" secondary, and the daughter wanting to stay. None of what the OP has said suggested she in any way favoured her son and to be honest, her life does sound like a mess. I think it's great in a way that her dad can support her living arrangements if she is focusing on music and wants to be in a band but if it's smoking and drinking and messing around all day, that's just a complete waste of time.

OP, I don't think you're being unreasonable wanting to help your daughter. Parenthood and that sense of responsibility don't stop just because you're child is an adult, despite what Mumsnet likes to churn out on these type of posts 🙄 you just have to be there to support her though if she needs help and be ready to guide her should she ask for/need guidance.