DD's welfare when staying with her dad - at my wits' end

[Vinosaurus]

Firstly, I’ve been on here for millennia (pouffe of poo, penguin date, Mexican house thief etc.) but had to set up a new account after updating my email address to something I for the life of me can’t remember after all the data breech palaver, and can thus no longer log on to my old account.

Secondly, I am so SO sorry about the length of this post – I think it may break some sort of MN record. And if you read this in full, I really appreciate it.

I’ve posted about individual incidents in the past, but I’m now at a stage when I am really looking at the whole picture and need some perspective with regards to DD’s visitation with her dad, as suspect I may have lost some over the years. I am fully expecting responses ranging from you terrible/negligent mum for sending her there through to I can’t believe you’re even considering reducing contact, but I am honestly interested in people’s opinions, whatever they may be.

XH and I split in 2011. He was always a pretty crap dad – adored DD but incapable of looking after her, not surprising considering his main hobbies were sleeping and smoking weed. I had on occasion found that he had left her alone when he went to the shops for cigarettes (I returned home from work at least twice to find toddler DD in her cot and home nowhere to be found), which I was beyond livid about. He spent pretty much all of our (read: my) money on weed, fags and bankrolling his family, to the point I was buying nappies with Boots points, taking out loans and maxing credit cards to pay the bills/rent as we had no cash in the bank (all in my bloody name as he had a terrible credit rating – which I then had to pay off when we split). Yeah, I know, he sounds like a right catch doesn’t he. Anyway, I threw him out and got the police involved when he began being extremely verbally abusive and was beginning to get physically violent; punching holes in the wall when he was angry, grabbing and pushing me – the day he went he even barricaded v young DD and I in her bedroom. He received a caution as I didn’t want to go ahead with charges.

I ended up with crippling anxiety, panic disorder and depression (there was more to his behaviour than just the above but not relevant to this post), which I have worked hard with various therapists to recover from (it is under control these days). I moved out of London back in 2013 (which was contributing to my declining health), although not too far outside so as to maintain contact between DD and XH, I also met someone else and remarried in 2015. XH and I have kept an amicable relationship – I’ve continued to support him and his family in various ways, including letting him go long periods of time when he hasn’t paid a penny in maintenance (although I certainly have not written off this debt and still owes me thousands) due to his own financial mess (now has payday loans, CCJs etc). So, it has been more like me tolerating him and him (still) relying on me. Obviously, I’ve done this for the sake of DD, and I have always maintained that her having a positive relationship with her dad, including regular visits, was the best thing for her, and that it was also beneficial for her to have a father that was not a complete mess (hence my continuing support).

As I mentioned above, he adores her in his own way, and she loves him very much too – although the relationship is not particularly healthy in my opinion; his love for her is demonstrated by repeatedly saying “I love you my princess, do you love me?” when he sees her and on the occasional phone call that I am party to, impossible to keep promises, and smothering and infantilising her; she is almost 11, he continues to treat her like a 5 year old, which she has really begun to notice, recently asking me to please speak to him. But when it comes to making responsible decisions or sacrifices for her (as you will see when you read below) that’s where the love stops. DD on the other hand is incredibly defensive of him (don’t misconstrue this, I do not badmouth him in front of her at ALL) and feels a large amount of responsibility, and therefore I suspect, associated guilt, for his happiness and wellbeing. On occasion I have seen her playing the role of mother to him rather than him father to her.

Over the years XH has lurched from one crisis to another – financial, housing, employment, the law (!) – and made some awful decisions which have on occasion affected his ability to accommodate DD in a safe and healthy environment when she visits. The agreement has always been that she stays Friday-Sunday EOW and ½ the holidays, with him collecting her on Friday and me/DH collecting her on Sunday. We also swap Xmas/NY/Easter every year. I have always played this balancing act between maintaining her relationship/contact with him whilst trying to keep her safe. But I’ve recently begun to think that this is no longer achievable. The historical and current issues being:

• Running a puppy farm from his house, resulting in an absolutely disgusting environment (the smell was, no exaggeration, gag inducing when you walked into the house). I gave him many warnings about this, not only for the sake of DD but obviously the poor dogs as well and did take action after he ignored my concerns and lied to me repeatedly, although he was forced to stop (lost the house – quelle surprise) before they took formal action.

• There is obviously the concern that he may still have a prolific weed habit, but I do not know this for sure, although am pretty certain he wouldn’t/couldn’t have given this up. He smokes normal cigarettes but believe he does this outside (cigarettes not being ideal of course, but not a deal breaker).

• Renting a large house and subletting rooms to strangers (men) off the internet – I put a stop to her staying when I found out about this (and even spoke to a family law charity and the NSPCC to get some advice) and offered to drive her to him and collect her so she could still visit during the day – he did this once and then decided he didn’t like it, so we compromised and she started staying at his sister-in-law’s flat when she visited him instead (this is unfortunately no longer being an option).

• Since XH and I split, DD has regularly come home with bedbug bites (confirmed by actually catching one of them in her clothes when undressing after returning from his once – we put it into DD’s insect viewer!). We have been in this constant cycle of her returning home with bites – him getting his house/flat/wherever he is currently living treated – no bites for many months – the bites returning – him getting the place treated – no bites for months, and on and on. It is incredibly hard to know what to do, as the only indication I have that the problem is solved is to send her back and wait to see if she gets new bites (XH doesn’t react to them). Poor DD has to strip in the kitchen when she gets home so I can wash all her clothes (including any clean ones she still has in her bag) on a boil wash and wrap her bag (and anything else that can’t be washed) up in plastic and put it in the chest freezer to stop them infesting our house (not that she’s ever gotten bites at home but I’ve had exterminators out to ours in the past just to do a check, fortunately my obsessive washing and freezing has worked to date). Of course, they are very uncomfortable/itchy (with the possibility of them becoming infected) and unsightly, the latter becoming more of an issue the older she is getting and resulting in situations such as her refusing to remove her cardigan at school even when it’s extremely hot. I have offered to pay for reputable exterminators to come out and also help him buy new furniture – he has always declined. I also recently found out that he was not paying for follow up visits from the exterminators he was using (which are needed to fully eradicate them from a property), which explains the cycle of them going for a few months, only to return.

XH moved into a new flat a few weeks ago, which finally has one bedroom for DD and one for him (she mainly slept with him in his bed – another issue I had but not bad enough to stop her staying) – there’s no living room and it’s somewhat rough around the edges, but from what I could see (I asked to have a look) it was hygienic, secure and safe. I was happy that it looked like XH had managed to finally sort a suitable place out for him and her and that we could return to the old agreement of Fri-Sun EOW staying with him. The weekend before last was her first overnight in the new flat, picked her up on Sunday to find bedbug bites on her arms and shoulders. He told me that he was getting an exterminator out, I asked for evidence this time, he is saying he can’t provide this (something to do with the person he’s using not wanting any paperwork as he’s not charging him VAT – doesn’t sound very reputable to me!). I am at the stage now when I no longer want to send her to stay overnight anymore, but how permanent do I make this? I mean, I could say no overnights for 3 months and then let her go back to stay, but it is only a matter of time (as evidenced many times over the past years) until she returns with them once again, in other words I have to yet again send DD there with the very real possibility of being bitten to prove whether or not the problem has been solved, and I am pretty much at the stage of no longer being willing to do this. Poor DD is so incredibly torn as well, she is upset when she can’t stay overnight but is also upset and suffers from the bites. Obviously, the decision lies with me, not her, as to what to do, but I do try to take her feelings into consideration as much as possible.

When I look at it all written down it looks pretty clear that I need to stop her staying overnight, but I feel like I am the bad guy (yet again) for “splitting up” a father and daughter. I don’t mind being the bad guy - well, I do, but something I just have to put up with to keep DD safe. Nor do I mind continuing to facilitate visitation as much as practically possible but without the overnights.

Again, thankyou so much for reading – think you would have had an easier time reading War and Peace.

I'm going to defend you to yourself (although my defence is no doubt coloured by the fact that I too facilitate my dd's contact with a problematic father).

Sometimes none of the options are great. Sometimes you've got to give the parent/child relationship a go and see if the parent can step up to the mark. If you'd stopped contact, he might have ridden up like a white knight in the teenage years and been so wonderful and charming that your dd can't understand why she wasn't allowed contact. She might have felt abandoned, and build up a fantasy in her head about what her father would be like. She might have spent a lifetime pining after unobtainable men.

I think you're doing the right thing by cutting back on contact now, but it doesn't mean that you were doing the wrong thing all along. You haven't made a terrible mistake that has messed her up forever. His chaotic life is not her "normal" because she has an actual, normal life with you. I think that making the decision to reduce the contact now will be a powerful signal to her, at an impressionable age, that you do reach a point where you protect yourself against a chaotic man - a message that might not have come across so strongly if you'd done it before she could understand.

Thank you Bibliomania, you've helped me feel a bit better about myself.

DD took it a lot better than I expected, she was a bit upset with me but it didn't last long at all.

Vino, despite everything you've still tried to protect your ex from the worst of himself. Your DD may well have picked up on that, hence the defensiveness/protective approach, and the don't be mean to him, it's not his fault, he can't help it.

She's coming up to 11, she neds to start seeing her own personality and decide some of her relationships for herself. This could be a good opportunity, not to turn her against him, but to recognise that people are responsible for their own choices and that she doesn't, in future relationships of her own, always have to be the rescuer.

Is her travelling down by train for the day an option? At 11 many kids travel to school and to contact visits by train alone as long as she me at the other end. She is of an age she can make decisions, the court would listen to her if it came to it.

Stuck I'll happily drop her off and pick her up to visit for the day, I did that a couple of times when I stopped overnights recently due to him moving in random blokes after advertising on the internet (he needed the money to pay the rent), but he then refused to do it anymore - saying he didn't like it (i.e. "my way or the highway"). I will facilitate visits as much as possible, the aim is not to deny her a relationship with him, but to ensure her safety.

honestly can you say knowing you would face that didn't influence any of your decision making over the last 8 years?

Well, no - I can't. I've always felt a responsibility for others' happiness, although this stemming from childhood experiences, and I am working through this in therapy, but I guess I haven't recognised it in this situation until now.

My DM worked very hard not to badmouth our DF, despite his selfishness, manipulation, and later alcoholism. Through a well-intentioned sense of "fairness" she nearly bankrupted herself buying him out of the mortgage, coped on zero maintenance (more than ten years' owed) and drove hundreds of miles to facilitate contact after he moved to the arse end of nowhere then simultaneously bemoaned his lack of visits, and refused to travel back to see us. I remember those visits as hell. His place was filthy, there was little food, he just smoked, drank, and said things similar to your OP emotionally blackmailing us into saying we loved him. Sometimes I travelled back by train and I was horribly conscious I smelled of where I'd been. We often threw out everything we'd worn there. My poor DM was in knots trying to do the right thing.

I was so relieved when DM stopped the visits (I was off to college and it wasn't safe for my younger sibling to visit alone). It was a massive relief as I'd been too emotionally controlled by him to stop the visits myself. For years he'd said he would kill himself if we stopped going. Spoiler alert: he didn't. And he never once made the visit back towards us.

It has been tough going for me and my sibling to forge balanced healthy adult relationships that are not about enabling. Some might say we now go the other way and are too fiercely independent Do the very best thing for your daughter and show her she deserves better than being used as an emotional sop for a man who gives nothing back and will always put himself first.

Sorry but what makes you think she won't get bites from day visits? If they live in furniture carpets curtains she is just as likely to get bitten in the day as the night. Also if he has moved several times and had fumigation experts in and still they come back how can u be so sure its bedbugs?maybe has scabies or body lice? Whatever it is until that issue is sorted once and for all she should not be allowed in his home no matter what as its a health hazard have you taken her to doctors? To check? If he has the same crap fumigater every time he obvs does nothing and needs to try someone else. You should insist on this its your child's health and wellbeing and that's apart from any other issues he may have. I hope u get this sorted your daughter is of an age where she understands and will be embarassed so that issue must be the priority

@Sugarplumfairyfartface I totally agree with you and that's why I would only allow supervised visits, and in a neutral location as well. OP's DD's health and wellbeing is paramount here, and coming home with bites, of any kind, is completely unacceptable in my view. If it was me I would refuse to allow her to set foot in his house under any circumstances. It's truly disgusting and if he can't see that, and can't be bothered to do something effective to prevent his DD being bitten, then he has no business having her there. Appalling.

Bed bugs = no visits to property, period.

Let him take that one to court and see how it pans out for him.. 🤔