I just wish DD’s dad would die so Dd has a resolution

[Ostryga]

God I just need a vent. DD’s dad is a prick of the highest order. Basically chose his violent partner over Dd and so she hasn’t seen him for 18 months.

How do I talk Dd through this? She misses him so so much, and I have explained that he couldn’t keep her safe so she needed to stay with me, I don’t want to full out say “he chose a woman that was hurting you” so he’s decided you’re not good enough for him.

I’ll never let Dd see how angry I am with him, but I wish he’d fuck off the face of the planet so I can just say oh he’s dead and it’s an end point. Perhaps that’s me being selfish because I’m the one who has to navigate her grief at losing her dad while he’s still alive.

@Itsnotallaboutyoulikeyouthink and @likeafool thank you. I find this thread incredibly hurtful. My children’s dad died, the impact and pain that this has caused them and will continue to cause them is immense.
Unless you’ve lived it, you can’t comprehend it. I also had a friend tell me that it was easier than her divorce as he didn’t want to leave me, he was 33.
My dad was abusive to my mum, walked out when I was young, wasn’t interested in me. It was tough but totally different. Having a deceased parent is not an easy option!

My dad died when I was 10, he was not the best dad and had been in and out and was sometimes neglectful although the tried his best, he was not callous he just did not have the skills to deal with 2 young children alone, his own childhood was abusive and chaotic.
At least if he was alive he could have learned and got better or known what to do with older less dependent kids.
but none of us will get that chance to know because he’s dead and has been most of my life.
I miss him every day and losing him has affected massively.
Not helped by having to live with an abusive stepdad, maybe a good man could have helped me heal but I didn’t get that.

Ignore the incredibly sanctimonious pile on, OP. Some people just love a chance to be judgmental. Those of us who have been in similar situations know exactly how you feel.

I say again, this is not wishing a person dead.

This is wishing that a massive dickhead shaped problem that is breaking her childs heart would FTFOTTFSOFATFOSM.

"Why cant he just die?!" is, again as I said before, just like someone struggling for money thinking "Why cant I just win the lottery".

I totally understand how you feel, I also think it would have been easier for DS, he said it himself: having a lousy dad was worse than having no dad.

What I told to him throughout his childhood all the way into adulthood was:

1. It was never DS fault that dad stoped contact. Nothing,absolutely nothing he could have done had caused his dad to stop contact.

2. his dad could only love one person at a time and that was wrong of him but that was something that was part of him and neither I or DS could change (that person he loved was first his sister, then myself, then DS and nowadays his partner, he just dumps the previous one when he loves a new person and that had nothing to do with me or DS)

3. I made a massive point about not blaming the partner (who was very abusive as well). I avoided blaming her because I thought that it wouldn’t be healthy for DS to get to hate someone. Hate can destroy their mental health very easily.

4. Acknowledge her feelings but…Do not let her idealise the dad and avoid badmouthing him. If she asks you when she can see him or why he doesn’t want to see her you tell her the truth: you don’t know. Simple, then distract her, don’t let her dwell too much on it or try to divine his reasons, at that age you can say “I am sorry you are feeling like that, I wish I can tell you when or why but I do not know either” then distract her doing something that she likes for DS at that age it was McDonalds, ToysRus, the park or an ice cream.

5. schools often offer bereavement counselling to children and that includes providing for children who are finding their parents’ split difficult. Young Mind can also help as well as a private counselour who has been trained to deal with children (most aren’t and I suggest to avoid if they aren’t) Try to encourage her to attend some counselling.

There’s no way to escape the trauma and stigma of being abandoned by their fathers, it will hit them as kids, as teenagers or when they become parents themselves but you should aim to protect your child’s heart and preserve her mental health, to grow up free of hate, distrust or resentment so she can grow happy and can trust people enough to form healthy relationships when she is old enough to have a boyfriend/partner.

I can only imagine people tell you that because he’s a rotten individual / father. Generally people wouldn’t celebrate a father being absent or say the woman left to take care of the kids herself is “lucky” or that it is best for the kids to have a neglectful parent - so I can only assume they mean because he’s a crap person and would do more harm than good?

And even then it’s all very well these people saying that but they aren’t your kids who are the ones experiencing the impact of an absent father.

Many studies show the negative impact of absentee parents on children who are less likely to achieve in education, career, and relationships and more likely to have mental health issues and be involved with the criminal justice system. This is of course not the outcome for everyone, but yes in some cases the effects can be worse for a child than if their parent had died. If your kids father is a terrible guy and can’t be around the children, it may be better than having him in the kids lives ie. The lesser of two evils…but overall it’s not an ideal situation. Less worse doesn’t mean good.

I’m not sure why society has created this idea (responsibility?) that mothers (women) have to be super human in their response to an abuser and gaslight themselves and their children about shit dads.

Hear fucking hear.

Op that's really difficult and it must be awful watching your dd trying to process all of that. She will probably have questions that get bigger as she gets older and more aware, but I'd try and just go at her pace. She's going to eventually need to come to her own place of acceptance that this is the reality of what's happened and as you say, some of those questions are really only answerable by him as you don't know the full situation. I'd be as honest with her as you feel is appropriate knowing her as well as you do. And maybe if she's starting to struggle, counselling or some work with a specialist youth worker might be a good source of support for her.

It's so very unfair and its natural and understandable that you just want to protect her from the pain, rejection and disappointment of it all.

To those criticising, I feel the exact same way as OP. DD's "DF" disappeared out of her life with no warning December 27th 2019, which was the last time he called me promising he'd bring presents in a couple of days and then I never heard from him again. This year it will be four years. He left behind a little girl, she was only 7 and that year there was no contact at Christmas, no contact for her birthday a month later. She's now 11 and in secondary school. I heard on the grapevine a couple of years ago that he'd been sectioned, believed he had a secondary personality, several suicide attempts, diagnosed as schizophrenic. This was after he beat up his then girlfriends mum, the mums partner and the girlfriend. Their small baby was left alone in the house screaming while the fight spilled into the street. He broke the man's jawbone and ribs. I rang the court to learn the verdict. Let off scot free. I know that the ex girlfriend has a non molestation order against him.

After that social services called me and told me not to allow any contact between him and my DD.
In my time with him he cheated on me while heavily pregnant with DD, got beaten up the same night and when I caught up with him in A&E he pissed himself all down my baby bump. If he did come home after working as a chef in a pub he'd be three sheets to the wind having pissed his wages away and I'd wake up to find him pissing on our bedroom chest of drawers in the middle of the night. There was also a violent rape that he carefully led me into. I'd taken a sleeping tablet and had been asking him to come up to sleep for ages. He waited and waited then pulled me up the stairs, threw me down on the bed and did what he did (not the "usual way"). The next morning after flashbacks upon waking I asked him "Did you do that to me?" He smirked and said "What?"
He'd been violent towards me often when we were together. He'd happily belt me across the face in public. When pregnant with my second he pushed me over backwards hard by the stomach while wrenching DD out of my arms. I had a horrendous miscarriage, the haemorrhaging kind. The last incident before I left him was him choking me because I was wrapping DD's first birthday presents (that I'd bought) because he hadn't bothered. I had to wear a turtleneck on the day to hide the bruises.
I wish he would die. He's caused untold damage to everyone around him. He gets away with all of it and I know from the child maintenance claim, he flits between jobs like he's always done. He owes me thousands that the CMS have actually taken him to court for in two separate liability orders.
My DD is desperate to legally change her surname to mine, we've got that sorted with "known as names" in school but it won't be legal for her to change it until she turns 16.
Never mind that some people shouldn’t have kids. Someone people are cancer made human.

Agree, but it is not just an idea, you become a superhero simply because you have to, the buck stops with you.Nobody is picking up the ball if you drop it.

Interestingly, I find that this idea is spread and sustained mostly by women. Look at the lone parent threads, a woman cannot say she is struggling without having a bunch of self righteous women telling her that is her fault, that she should have chosen better (as if people didn’t change) or as I have been told in the past… that she should have kept her legs closed and they say that whether you are a widow, a divorced woman or someone who was happily married for years before bringing a child to the world.

It is very rarely that you hear women complaining that a man is not doing as much parenting as he should, if the dad is lousy, women around him are mostly offering him help and support to care for the children (and lots of babysitting) even if he hardly ever spends time with his kids.

@Ostryga My opion is that if your DD's dad had died soon after she was born (and you had still been together at that point) then your DD would still have had some issues about it, but on the whole should have grown up fine with no major issues as long as she had you as a loving, caring and thoughtful (full of thought about your and your daughter's situation) mother.

However, if your DD's dad was to die now, while she knows and loves him but they are estranged, I do not believe that either of your lives would be easier. At the moment you are/should be (but I do think that I understand how hard that is to achieve, it is a very selfless act, but one that I think your DD needs) manipulating the answers, explanations, truth that you give to your dear 7 year old.

However, as she gets older she won't be so 'easily' deceived, and will therefore ask you far more probing questions, and as she reaches her teenage years she is going to want to cross question ask her dad in person and face to face - if that is possible - exactly why he 'left' her (as I think that that is how she will probably view his desertion). As she gets even older she will want even more answers from him, as her own life experiences into adulthood, and her own romantic relationships, will help her read between the lines and seek the real and/or complete truth.

If her father were to die while she is 7 years old, she will never have the chance to work through all her increasingly complex emotions. She will start to realise as she gets older that if you were being a good protective and supportive mum - which so far you give all indications of being - that she won't have got the full story (probably no-where near it) from you, so she will want, in fact need, to hear from her father his interpretations of events. If he agrees to see her and talk to her he will probably distort the truth as well, but not for such caring reasons. Your DD will probably eventually see through his evasions, and may decide that she wants to push things further, or she may decide that she has had enough and wants the estrangement to continue indefinitely.

If her dad was to die today, or somewhere in the near future, she would not have any possibility of learning the truth from/through him, and therefore not have the chance of being able to process it (maybe with some professional and knowingly unbiased help). I just think that it might be easier for you right now if he were to die soon, but when you have a distraught teenager, and troubled adult daughter, that may no longer be the case. I know it is very hard to make the correct decisions right now (or ever), I can look back now and see the wrong choices I made even though I made them with love. Obviously in reality you don't have any choice about when your ex dies, but I hope for your daughter's sake that it will be a long time in the future.

One other thought, it is possible that your ex will split up with his current partner, and come back into your DD's life, and stay in it.

Many studies show the negative impact of absentee parents on children who are less likely to achieve in education, career, and relationships and more likely to have mental health issues and be involved with the criminal justice system.

Unfortunately, there are more studies about absent parents than there are about the damage caused by present parents who are abusive. There are hardly any studies on how children are affected when living in a toxic home with one or two abusive parents.

An absent lousy parent is far better than a present lousy one that is hurting the kids over an over.

Interestingly, these absent parents are absent mostly because they want to so again, whose fault it is their kids do not see them? The parents who stayed and are trying to deal with their kids’ heartbreak or the lousy parents who walked into the sunshine? Who can bring the lousy parents back for contact if they are not interested? Nobody really, courts can give access to children but can’t force parents to stay in contact.

I am so sorry that you and your DD went through such a horrendous situation @canyousmelltoast and I would not give you the same response that I gave to the OP, as your situation sounds like it was very different to the OP's. I agree with you, I wish your ex had died too, he does not bring anything but fear and loathing to this world.

Posters suggesting he might be in an abusive relationship so the poor lamb can’t see his child.

What the fuck? Why is it women never do this? In fact women often stay in an abusive relationship to STAY with their kids and not rock the boat for their dc.

Will we ever stop giving cunts like the OP’s ex an easy ride? OP is coping with all this because this man is a worthless piece of shit and is abusing his daughter. He doesn’t deserve to be alive.

Erm they do… some women have their kids taken off them as they refuse to leave abusive relationships

Nope been told it by people that don’t know my ex on MN and on single parent Facebook groups, because their exes are annoying I’m “lucky” mine isn’t around so don’t have to deal with him. My ex is not abusive.

I’m sorry for your loss LuckyCat, you are right in saying that he just didn’t have the skills to deal with children, he may have been different if given more time and knowing he could have possibly changed if he were alive is a consolation.

A child or an adult constantly brought down by an abusive or neglectful parent doesn’t get that kind of consolation. They know the parent has not changed and suffer because the parent can change but won’t.

Sorry but… Not abusive? He doesn’t see his children but that is not abuse? Neglect counts as abuse. It damages as much as emotional abuse.

That is very true I think, DH never knew his father as he died when DH was a babe in arms, I lost my father when I was approaching teens. Very different experiences. I used to work with someone whose father died while her mother was still pregnant with her, she was very pragmatic about it, she didn't know him and didn't miss him. It is a very different experience

OP I left DD14s father when she was two. He was abusive. Until she was 8 or 9 she would occasionally mention or ask.

I would have a stock phrase for a while so it fades over time. Mine was "some people are not very good at caring about others, they only care about themselves"

She hasn't asked about him in years although I do sometimes talk when she mentions other kids dads.

This. Neglect is incredibly damaging.

@EmeraldTheSeahorse I wonder if those other mothers might be trying (poorly) to make you feel better about the situation by saying that? But in reality it’s likely they’re glad it’s not them having to do it all themselves and explain a fathers absence to kids.

Unless their children’s fathers are not just annoying but actually abusive & awful - like OP’s - it would seem very odd they’d prefer them not to be around. What loving mother genuinely wishes their child didn’t have a (decent) father around?

Either way , I’m sorry but I doubt your kids feel lucky for their dad to have abandoned them.

I feel for you OP.
The top priority is that your child is safe from an abusive step parent. The inability/unwillingness of the father to prevent the abuse from the step parent is secondary abuse, but potentially less immediately damaging that the abuse from the step parent. As long as you are shielding your child from the step parent, you are doing a great job.
How you deal with the signalling with regard to your DD is the next problem, but remind yourself continually please that you are a doing a great job by achieving the first objective of keeping her safe from the step parent.
My DS has a father I have always described (kindly) as benign but useless.
I always told DS that I know his father well and chose to minimise contact, or permit supervised contact only, because he is not an influence that I trust to have around him. That is the truth, but a truth also is that the father didn't push to see him when I took that decision. He saw him once every few years, with me present when he was younger. DS is grown and not damaged, he also thinks his father is "a bit of a loser" but he's just not been influential in his life, thank God. The people who influenced his life are stable and good people (me, my dh, etc.).
It is harder for you because your DD already loves her father, but I think gradual withdrawal but constant messaging that the father is in a place where we need to minimise contact to keep her safe is the way to go. Focus on your caring and taking responsibility for her rather than the father's shortcomings, although don't whitewash those either, but that way she knows to trust you and that she is cared for.
And again, you are doing a great job.

Abusing her in what way?

In a criminal way? Did she go to jail? Was she arrested?

@Applesonthelawn hope I’m not detailing the OP’s thread here, but my ex sounds similar to your DS’s dad. He is absent but pays maintenance on time and checks it’s in the account, he will respond promptly if there is any kind of issue with ds but he has zero involvement with him and saw him a few times as a baby … an hour here and there with me still with them. He’s utterly pathetic. Ds is now 3 and has begun asking about his dad but obviously has no real connection and he hasn’t seen his dad since he was 1. I have sleepless nights worrying about the damage this will do to him and I don’t know what to tell him? Ex will not see ds, he lives a solitary life and has no real friends etc. He’s in his fifties now. I don’t have a new parter so there’s nobody else in the family home. I worry for ds. What sort of things did you tell your ds?

No been told it isn't abuse. Not abusive in the sense he wouldn't harm the children he just doesn't bother with them but he is not a risk to them.