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

Why did you move away in the first place? Regular schools everywhere you could have enrolledyour ds in. You hardly saw her growing up. Those crucial pre teen /early teen years that she would have needed a full time mum . Not 4 days a month . And those 4 days she had to cope with 2 other children and a stepdad. She knows she was pushed aside and it shows she is not very interested in a relationship with you.
Yes she is spoilt and its doing her no good. But you cant help her or do anything about it. She wont listen to you.

Tbf you did kind of abandon her. Ds could have gone to a normal school near where the French school was.

There were bound to be some abandonment issues there as she might see you as favouring ds. Who knows whether exdh’s parenting style helped with this or made it worse.

It is what it is. Maybe she sees you as judgemental. You just need to concentrate on being a positive aspect to her life and bite your tongue if you want a relationship going forward. She is an adult and at the end of the day, her life is her business now.

You sound disturbingly critical and sneery about your own Dd. Guess it’s tied up in your disapproval of the ex and you now link the two. It sounds horribly messed up. You really can’t come in at this late stage and criticise you are really in no position to do so.

Agree, clothes hobbies, computer. Phone and holidays - all a normal part of childhood.

She might have the last laugh in the AI world anyway

I'd just focus on building an adult relationship with her.
Have you ever apologized for moving away from her? That must have hurt her deeply even if she pretended she was fine.
And then you went and had more children. So I can see why as a teen she didn't want to go to yours. I split with my childrens dad and it was clear to me that it would be unfair to my current children to have any more. I needed to put them first

So- apologise, stay in touch, show support, and wait till she asks you for advice before giving any

Exactly.

And why the snootiness about being a creative? She’s only 19. Friend of a friends Dd similar age trying to make it as a singer everyone’s impressed and rooting for her.

My own same age Dd is at uni studying a serious degree but doing a hell of a lot of partying too. This 19 year old is doing the partying bit then the music instead of the study.

You realise that 'struggling artists' generally...struggle? They're working as well as creating and often that struggle is what drives their success. They're not on a free ride from a parent where, whether they make it as an artist or not is largely irrelevant because they know the rent is paid regardless.

Ex bought DD the newest iPhone at 11, upgraded it often, she had a MacBook at 12, let her spend stupid amounts of money on clothes, took her to loads of gigs, took her on trips alone (snowboarding mostly as DS never enjoyed snow sports), paid for all her hobbies
This list doesn't sound so terrible? Why wouldn't a parent pay for their dc's hobbies? Or gigs, if they both enjoy them and live in London? A MacBook would be useful for schoolwork. It doesn't sound like money is an issue for the dad, is that part of the complaint?

I think you need to meet her where she is now. stop
rehashing the past, stop encouraging your son to tell tales on her and show some interest in her relationships and music ambition. The best thing you can do is to be present in her life so she can come to you if it does all fall apart. Maybe it won’t! Maybe she’ll make a career out of the music or it will show her another creative option. Maybe she and her boyfriend will be together for decades and you’ll regret not getting to know him now. Either way if you approach it with judgement and endless history lessons about iPhones a decade ago you won’t get any closer and another decade of having a strained relationship will go past.

You can’t abandon a child and then moan that they weren’t parented the way you want them to be parented.

If you want YOUR child to be raised a certain way, then it’s on YOU to be in their life enough to do that.

You had all the signs during the teen years that she wasn’t turning out the way you wanted, that was the time to step up and spend more time with her, not less, if you wanted any influence.

You prioritised your new partner and your new children over your existing child and now she’s taken a different path to the one you would have chosen; you weren’t around to guide her to the path you wanted, so that’s on you.

And that’s not to say that your path is any better or worse than the one her active parent has laid down for her; when you stopped participating in her life in a meaningful way, you stopped having any influence.

The easiest thing for you to do was to step back, let the other parent do the lion’s share of raising your DD and then moan about the result. Surely you must see how ridiculous that is.

If you want a job doing a particular way, do it yourself. Or alternatively, be around enough in a positive way that the person actually doing the job is influenced by your presence and preferences.

What the hell! So the dad who has raised her pretty much single handedly since she was 8 should get a bollocking from his ex wife who left her DD and the brother because his 19 year old dropped out of uni a few months ago and is now trying to pursue her dream. She's hardly Sid Viscious shooting up heroin and sleeping on park benches. She's in a band, doing gigs, practising their craft. Yes, she might drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes but a lot of teens and young adults do, heck even old adults. She's young enough and with a supportive enough dad that she can afford to take a bit of time out and see how it goes. It's basically like being on a gap year but rather than travelling she is doing what she loves, music.

Sounds like mistakes were made all round from both parents in various ways from what I'm reading.
Your ex did her no favours with excessive spoiling and throwing money at her, no wonder shr prefers him.
She's an adult now and needs to make her own way in life but comes across as a bit immature still.
You can leave the door open for her and let her know you are there for her if she needs you in the future.

this.

Doesn't sound like a good childhood to me. Dad had totally ruined her and now let's her drink, smoke and doss around all day while he pays for it. He sounds like a bell end who doesn't want his DD to grow up.
I'm really shocked by the amount of people who think her lifestyle is acceptable. I bet they wouldn't be saying the same if it was their child living like this.
I don't think the older son was telling tales. More likely he's shocked and worried about his sister. Sharing concerns about a close family member isn't telling tales. They're not 5!

Seriously? Ops golden child whom she fractured the family for, should start pontificating to his father and sibling how concerned he and ‘d’m are for her?!
why now? Why not when she was 8 and they buggered off for his demands? Happy to leave her then weren’t they?
although as pp say, wonder how he found this school as the only one he could attend soo far away? Did op then just happen across new partner in same area?…
9 years is a speedy… separation, divorce, meet new guy, marry have 2 kids!🤨

Interested to know what you got out of that comment? Do you think people, who work in the service industry, are below you?

She is 19 by the sounds of it you have had very little involvement in her upbringing so I think getting involved now is too late. I know you are getting a hard time on here but I have no idea why you and your ex thought splitting the siblings up and rearing them separately would be a good thing? I doubt they have much of a relationship either? What is the real reason you moved from London? because there are plenty of secondary schools in London so I find it highly unlikely it was just for that. Your ex over indulged and spoilt her daughter that is obvious but really he is the only one who has stuck with her and been a constant in her life and you are the only one who has done that for your son. It is quite a messed up family dynamic tbh and will have had a negative impact on both children. You and your son are both judging her and her choices and she will know that. I feel sorry for her

She's not going to make money with the band and ultimately will need to find an actual job somewhere. Maybe she'll be serving me my coffee soon?

Ask your son to have a serious chat with his father to tell him of his fears and observations of his sister.. You also write your ex a letter. Suggest that DD should only be supported if she is studying at least half time and working one day per week.
Tell him that he has enabled her to become a heavy drinker and a non educated lay about.. Her music should be fun but realistically, it is a hobby and the kids need to learn skills and a work ethic too.

I don’t think you can conclude that she’s “failed to launch” until she’s at least 30. The girl is 22! And in France!

I think this is a cultural difference as well as guilt about not being around as a daily presence for her teens.

You cant do that when you have two kids and you chose to send them to a specialist school.

OP was in London. Some areas in London have really crap secondary schools. DC is at an excellent primary, but the local secondaries are pretty rough. The nearest good state school to us is Catholic, and we're not. A lot of the parents are discussing either moving out of London, or paying for a tutor to get their kids through the 11 plus.

I think your aibu should be about how to have a better relationship with her going forward, not about criticising her life choices.

You gave up on her and moved on. You don't get to wag your finger now.

I'd love to hear her side of things.