DD wants to contact her father when she’s back in the UK

[MaitlandGirl]

The children haven’t seen / had contact with their father since December 2005 and DD2 is flying back to the UK at the end of the year to see my family (we moved to Australia in 2009).

She wants to try and contact her dad and thinks the only way he’ll agree to see her is if she knocks on his door (she’s right in thinking if he knows she’s coming he’ll be busy) but he’s got a new wife and other children now.

I know that his wife knows about my children as shes met them but I doubt very much their 3 children know they have 3 older half siblings.

DD2 is a very headstrong 18 year old and wants to see her father again but I’m worried this is a massive bomb to drop on her half siblings. The eldest will be 13, judging by the timings he dropped our children when he found out his new wife (as she is now) was pregnant.

I’m trying to convince her to arrange a meeting at her paternal grandparents house instead (she’s going to be visiting them) but she doesn’t think he’ll make the 90min drive to see them.

I don’t want to stand in her way of seeing her dad again but I’m don’t think turning up on his doorstep saying “Hi dad, remember me?” is the right way of going about it.

I’m just after general opinions really.

Imagine there is plenty of potential for heartbreak, which might be worth explaining to your dd? How robust is she?

Would he be less likely to attempt to avoid an agreed and planned meet-up if he knew a possible alternative was Miss 18 turning up unannounced and knocking on the door, potentially setting the cat right amongst the pigeons with his now wife and their children together?

She’s a fairly robust young lady, but she’s very angry at her father and I think she’s using her anger to convince herself this is a good idea.

Knowing him if she arranged a meetup with him he’s be conveniently called away with work (he regularly travels overseas) and would be very apologetic and make all the right noises about missing her but ultimately wouldn’t turn up.

Sounds like it would be the only way she'll see him. It is tough though.

My suggestion would be that he is presented with the two choices - with the clear implication being that if he bails, then she'll be turning up at some stage, whether he's there or not - and meeting the half sibs and new wife. Which could be unpleasant.

Okay, smacks of blackmail. Or alternatively - choose the action, choose the consequence.

I think you need to let her go ahead and do what she wants, whilst being here for support should it go wrong. It’s her father and she is a young adult.
Sadly she has to work out what her father is like for herself, and I have experience of a similar situation where I had to be in the background when all I wanted to do was step in to prevent any further hurt.

It probably won’t turn out well but it’s her choice to make. She has every right to doorstep him.

Why do you want her to arrange a meeting elsewhere when you think he wouldn’t turn up?

My main concern would be your DD’s feelings and wellbeing should he (coincidentally) not be at home or refuse to see her, or he or his family are unkind to her.

Your ex and his wife’s younger DCs’ interests are not your or your DD’s responsibility: any negative impact on them of DD turning up, or revealing her and her other siblings’ existence to them in another way, would be solely due to their parents’ years of lies.

Your DC have been very restrained not to contact their younger siblings via social media before now.

I’d rather DD2 arranges to meet her dad at her grandparents as at least that way she’ll have someone else with her when he doesn’t turn up. She doesn’t know anyone else in the town that he lives in and she hasn’t been in the UK for almost 10 years. I don’t want her to be left alone in a strange town, in what’s essentially a strange country waiting for him to turn up. At least at her grandparents house she won’t be left stranded.

Their half siblings don’t have social media that they can find, DD2 has looked.

I think you need to let her do it the way she's asking to do it or you will get the blame for it going wrong and her not seeing her dad. And it's important that she gets some resolution into the relationship.
We live in the USA and my dc's have a piece of s dad in the UK who has basically disowned dd and doesn't speak to any of his other dc's from previous relationships. Dd tried very hard to have a relationship with him for the last 6 years (since he left) pretty much knowing that it wouldn't go well, but I still supported her trying as now that she's 16 and has gotten full confirmation that the issues are his, she is happier and stronger and moving on. The silver lining was that through his nastiness while she was visiting, she established a really wonderful relationship with her half siblings and talks to them frequently and sees them whenever she visits the UK. I understand that it's a slightly different situation than yours, but I do think resolution (even if it's just to confirm as an adult that dad is a piece of s) is helpful.
If the half-siblings don't yet have social media....they will any day now.