I am divorced from the father of my kids ranging in age from 16-23 years old. I initiated the split after years of awful communication, some verbal abuse and emotional abuse, lack of respect, and some alcohol abuse (sporadic)
For the most part the split was relatively amicable in that my ex has been fair on the legal and financial side of things and for the most part we co parent fairly well, although there are moments of friction and tension still.
My 21 year old daughter finds her father really hard to deal with. The same issues I struggled with (lack of respect contempt selfishness and lack of empathy) she finds really frustrating Things kicked off over the weekend over an incident that happened with one of her siblings and she ended up having a huge row with him where she told him that she wasn't surprised his marriage had failed because he was so awful to try and communicate with. She pointed out to him that he has a bad relationship with his own mother (which is true as he has been really horrible to her on occasions in the past said really hurtful stuff) and he said really horrible stuff to her to her too, not the sort of thing a loving father would say to his daughter.
She now has gone back to college and he's texted her asking can they talk but she says she's not ready for that, and is still too upset with him.
He's not going to talk to me about it as he still blames me for our marriage breaking up, that I broke up our family, I want them to have a good relationship and not have the same issues I had, but there is nothing I can do is there? It would be great if he could see a counsellor with her like some kind of family therapy where they could air their issues with a neutral 3rd party to mediate them.
Otherwise their relationship is going to be strained and distant which is really sad. However he is not going to change at this stage in his life I think - and I'm left picking up the pieces for my DD as she is always going to challenge his behaviour and call him out on stuff.
Anyone any suggestion or ideas for how to deal with this. Posted in Aibu for more traffic. TIA