to ask advice. i stalked on twitter, wish i hadn't. found out horrible things, do i tell DH?

[MoodyDidIt]

there is a long back story to this, i don't want to drip feed so here it is in a nutshell. dh has a DD from a previous marriage. for the sake of this post i will call her SD even though i don't really have the right. as DH doesn't see her at the moment because SD doesn't want to (basically because of her mum causing loads of trouble). he is not in contact with SDs mum at all other than he pays maintenance via csa. he has tried and tried to stay in touch with his DD but she is not interested at the moment. and we don't even know where they live at the moment.

anyway just joined twitter and decided to start seeing who i could find on there, well i found SD (just turned 16) and was quite shocked at what i found, there is semi naked pics, and loads of sex and drugs talk, honestly it takes a lot to shock me but it made me feel sick :( i know i shouldn't have looked, but her profile is open and i just couldn't help myself.

should i tell him? or just leave it alone, as technically SD is an adult....he can't really do much anyway, maybe tell her mum, (although god knows how seeing as he doesnt even know her address or anything).... plus i am embarassed for looking, but i was curious as SD is my DD's half sister :(

and as an aside, her twitter could be a way for DH to get in touch with SD without having to go through her mum as he has had to for the last 5 years.

wwyd?

badinage - he has TRIED. and TRIED and TRIED. i promise you.

he had "access" to her for the first year or so, ie seeing her at weekends, after school etc. and then her mum stopped it. she told him to stay away as it was upsetting DSD him being in touch. so he took her word for it, as he did not want to cause any more upset. and since then, there have been periods where he HAS been in touch with her, via text and msn. but inexplicably these have suddenly stopped (by her), and then he has kept trying and been met with nothing. the last time he properly spoke to her was about 2 and a bit years ago :( then suddenly he got an email off her mum saying they had moved house and she wasn't going to tell him where to. he sends xmas cards, bday cards, presents and money care of his exMIL's house and just hopes they get to her.

and re the courts, unfortunately once a DC gets to a certain age, a court can't force them to see a parent if the DC say they don't want to (even though they are most probably saying that just to make the other parent happy). and DSD was about 13 once she finally stopped talking to him for the last time

his exW made his life a misery the whole time he was with her, and she seems to want to continue with it, to the detriment of her own child

it breaks my heart. he adores our DD and my DS. he is a bloody brilliant dad and does not deserve all the shit he has had over the last 6 years

Why did he take his exW's word for it if he didn't think himself that contact was upsetting his daughter? And why were his wife and daughter so angry? Because he left for you?

If he hasn't tried to contact her for over 2 years, despite knowing logically that every kid of this age is on FB or Twitter, he doesn't sound like a dad who is that bothered about getting in contact tbh.

She might be furious and angry with him for good reason if he walked out when she was about to start/had just started secondary school, especially if it was for someone else. He's the adult here. I think you should both stop blaming his exW and that he should step up and take some responsibility for what looks to me like a troubled teen if she's now into drugs.

So did this ever go to court, at the stage when DSD's mother was saying 'she doesn't want to see you'? Or was she then past the age when the courts could have intervened to compel contact?

she was past the age a court could have forced contact snazzy

badinage read my last post, he has been trying to make contact, sending letters, presents etc to his exMIL's house.

and he did find her on FB as well but her account is set up so no one can message her other than friends and can't friend request.

and, no, he didn't leave her for me.

you seem very angry yourself badinage, have you an axe to grind?

There isn't a definitive age so your information is incorrect. If he'd gone through the family courts when he was first warned off (when she was 11 or 12) he would have known that. Cafcass often have to get involved to make a judgement about whether a child is being unfairly pressurised by the resident parent. The rights of the child are paramount in these decisions and courts take a very dim view of a child's rights to see a parent being tampered with or made difficult. Ultimately if you're a parent yourself, you know there's not a damned thing that would persuade you to give up your child's mothering rights and if you thought that their father was influencing their decisions to their detriment, you'd fight it all the way. It's just too pat to say 'My ex wife's a monster so I'll give up' and people make far more excuses for men in this position than they do for absent mothers, even though there is law to protect children's rights.

I've never been in this position myself so no personal axe to grind at all. Some of my work is with teens though and so I know quite a lot about family law and how young teenage girls will often behave like this after a father has walked out on a marriage and a family. I also see how much angrier kids and parents are if there was someone else involved in the break-up and dad's gone on to have a new family or live with a new partner's kids. So yes, I am sceptical about why your husband left and why if there was no-one else, there is this much bad blood and anger after so long.

You can tell him but I'm not sure what exactly he is going to do.
I remember when I was 15 and started smoking my half arsed father phoned to give me a lecture and I asked him wtf it had to do with him.
He was right of course that it is bad for you, a stupid decision etc however I didn't appreciate being told anything by a man who wasn't around.
I know you say he had no choice in it but I'm telling you she will not be happy at him telling her what to do

Whys the ex so angry? There must be a reason.

god only knows dreams

they broke up 6 years ago, you would think most normal people would have moved on by now!! she is a hypocrite anyway as she has had a new Dp of her own for years. so its clearly ok for HER to move on but not dh.

So he gives up on her for years (yeah, I get it,it's not his fault) then gets in contact to give her a ticking off about how she conducts herself on Twitter?!

Look, the Twitter thing sounds awful and should be addressed but you and your dh can't address it, he has no right.

And it's all very well to be concerned for her, but he's already party to something far more damaging. And he's not exactly covered himself in glory sorting that out for her sake, has he?

Moody, it just seems so strange that she has that much hatred towards your dh and his dd at 16 seems to feel the same, especially as she has moved on, have you met her? I guess as you wernt there at the end of their relationship you dont really know what happened and how it affected his dd I suppose, however your dh definately could have got access through a court then, easy with hindsight but thats what he should have done, at least the dd would have known that he fought for her.

But, it doesnt matter, your dh however will just have to stand back now and leave the door open in the hope that one day she might want to see him, he really has no place saying anything to her.

You have no idea whether his wife is still angry though. No-one's heard from her for years so for all you know she's moved on with her life and is happy. Just because she wants nothing to do with her exH doesn't mean she's still in a bad place and is abnormal. This sounds like it is all in your head.

Having seen a few of your other posts on threads in Relationships the last few weeks where you are frothing about 'mad toxic bitch' wives and offering this as a reason why some men have affairs with other women, I think the person who has a problem is you and that you have been less than truthful on this thread about your role in this woman's marriage break-up and why her and her daughter were so angry in the first year or so.

Even if your husband did manage to build a relationship now with his daughter, it would be fraught with difficulty because of your obsessive hatred of her mother, especially as you are attributing feelings towards her that may have passed a long time ago. She might not like your husband or want to have any association with him, but that doesn't mean she is still in a vengeful or angry state obsessing about it all. For that I'd look closer to home if I were you....

well the last time exW was in touch with DH she was still angry and bitter and abusive towards him.

sadly, like it or not, some women are mad, toxic bitches and she treated DH like shit for most of the time they were married. and where did i say i hate her? i don't hate her, i don't know her. but i know what she did to DH and i hate what she has done to destroy the relationship between a father and daughter

and some women, actually, a LOT of women, do their very best to poison their kids against their dads. (i have actually seen this happen in my own social circle) and this is what has happened here. and when the child lives with the resident parent it is very easy to persuade an impressionable child / teenager that the NRP is an absolute bastard of the highest order, and only give the child their side of the story.

and i really don't care whether some random on the internet believes me or not, but he didn't leave her for me.

and how very presumptious of you to think you know so much about my marriage based on my opinions you have seen on other threads

anyway, i have told DH about what i have found. and showed him. he is not going to say anything to SD as far as what he has seen etc, as clearly that would just ruin everything. but he is going to use twitter as a way to get in touch with her.

Look, people are easy enough to find in the UK - google is all you need and access to the electoral rolls. It makes it very difficult for people to 'hide' (unless they have changed their name)

If your DH really wants to find his daughter, he can. I appreciate he may not want to rock the boat at this juncture.

And, Op, I too have seen women twist children away from their father. Its not all one way traffic with heinous abusive men. There are some equally abusive women out there who use a child as a mean of control and manipulation.

I wouldnt do anything until her GCSEs have passed by. Think long and hard about what the possible effects (at her home) could be if he contacts her and gives his side of the story before then.

And remember there are 3 sides to every story - his, hers, and the truth!

I think women who call other women 'bitches' especially when they've never even met them have got a problem with other women. You weren't in their marriage either so you've only got your husband's word for what went on in it.

Ultimately, your husband could have gone to court if he'd been a responsible, caring father - but he didn't. If he let himself believe myths about age limits without checking the facts for himself and getting legal advice, that's his responsibility. The cost has been a relationship with his daughter and the chance to intervene before she started going through this phase.

And, Op, I too have seen women twist children away from their father. Its not all one way traffic with heinous abusive men. There are some equally abusive women out there who use a child as a mean of control and manipulation.

yes, my point exactly. thank you holly :)

and thanks for the advice x

Dear lord, all men are really crap on here aren't they?

Would you question a woman who said her ex was crap rather than actually dealing with the question?

And no, I wouldn't tell him.

Online personas are the new diaries for teens Full of angst and emotions which on a day to day basis are not seen outside of the book binding. Unfortunately they do not realise that it may follow them forever, and it will probably take another half generation before they realise.

that's not stalking that's what twitter us for. I'd mention it

My ex was a controlling, wannabe bully. I put up with her behaviour for 10 years, before I left. Despite all her "i'd never stop you seeing DD talks", once I left she did everything in her power to stop me. The courts made an arrangement and she broke it, time and time again. She would send abusive texts and phone calls, also. Only when I admitted defeat and stopped having dd to stay overnight, did the abuse stop. That was only because I changed all my numbers and moved house, and she didn't need contact details because I wasn't having dd over to stay anymore.
10 years later, dd has only just told her mum that she comes to my house to visit. She used to lie as "mum gets angry and upset". What did I do to deserve this? I left, because I didn't want dd growing up in a house where we argued constantly and she'd see me getting hit, abused and put down all the time. That's it.

So sick of hearing how, often, the "absent" father is assumed to be at fault and the left mother couldn't possibly be actually a pain. You all keep saying that the OP doesn't know that the ex is still angry, but none of you really know why the OP says she is. You can't have it both ways.

re the court: i asked him last night why he didn't go to court at the time, and he says it was because she was already about 12 by the time she had stopped seeing him. so, for one, even if the courts had ruled that he was granted access, if she said she didn't want to see him, no one would have been able to force her. what could they have done?? kidnapped her and took her to her dads? i don;t think so.

and 2)going to court costs a lot of money, that he (and I) just did not haveand he was working for not much more than min wage, but wouldn't have got legal aid.

when parents split up, everything is in favour of the mother and the father seems to have no rights at all. its all well and good saying, well why didn't you go court etc but when you haven't got the money, it isn't an option.

and believe me, the shit we have had from this woman, i am quite entitled to call her a bitch thank you very much, there's far worse i could call her believe you me! :o doesn't mean i have a general problem with other women, i have a problem with anyone, male or female that does the kind of shit she has done!!

omg techno :(

that is so similar to DH and his dd. you have my sympathies x

Yes Techno but the difference here is that you went to court, tried everything in your power to have a relationship with your daughter and this showed her beyond anything she'd heard from her mother, that you wanted to be a co-parent.

I don't doubt that ex partners of both sexes can be unreasonable and manipulative, but that's why the law exists as it does to arbitrate and make judgements in disputes of this nature. There's a big difference between a man who tries everything including the obvious solution of family law - and one who just gives up without a fight. And there would be no tolerance whatsoever for absent mothers who gave up on their children's rights, without recourse to law.

At 16 this girl knows that her father didn't exercise her legal rights on her behalf. She's entitled to make a judgement about that.

Your last post shows that you have no idea how family courts work. The money argument is lame, seeing as you went on to have another child.

when parents split up, everything is in favour of the mother and the father seems to have no rights at all.

Nonsense. And it's not about the father's "rights" or the mother's come to that.

It's about children's rights to see a parent. Do check your facts before spouting this nonsense.

I'm not disputing his daughter's wishes. I've been continually open to whatever my dd wants. If she doesn't want to see me, I'd respect that. Thankfully, she always does.

The court rulings are, often, meaningless though. The London Family Court judge told me I was selfish to want to have my dd every other christmas. She said it was much more important to spend time with her cousins and uncles. They were her exact words.

I couldn't afford to fight that, nor could I do anything when my ex continually lied about or flouted the fortnightly visits.

The OP has my sympathies.

It's also not about a anyone's right to see anyone. Parents have responsiblities, not rights, in law. Supposedly equal, but in reality not so.

I resigned myself to putting up with things, as they were, until dd was old enough to make her own decisions. Which she now is. I won't go into my mum's interfering or supporting my ex over me, as that is a whole other thread .