Should I send dd to boarding school a year or early

[Kira4]

Have been through big changes as a family as my x and I split almost two years ago. The split was amicable, we’ve stayed on good terms largely and we’ve shared custody 50/50 but my relationship with our eldest daughter who is now 11 has suffered during and ever since the breakup.

We have moved around quite a bit because of our jobs and have been in Spain now for a few years. Dd had already been in international schools and she picks up languages quickly and had no problems settling here. As it not unlikely that we (now separately) will end up moving again at some point, we’d always said we’d consider a British boarding school eventually for the girls so they’d have greater consistency to finish their education.

A few months ago, dd decided to stay full time with my x. I accepted this at the time if it made her happier but presumed it would be temporary. She’s now stopped wanting to even see me at weekends because she’s got so many things on but also because she’s grown very close to my x’s new gf. They seem to regularly do things just the two of them, they speak Catalan together which neither me nor my x speak and dd just seems to think the sun shines out of her. I recently saw photos and videos from a camping trip they went on with friends and dd is bubbly and affectionate with the gf in a way she hasn’t been with me since she was a little kid.

I can’t fault the gf really because she does seem to be kind, whenever I’ve met her she’s been nice and she never overstepped the mark until dd moved in fulltime (I don’t know exactly how much time gf spends at the apartment but I presume it’s a lot).

I speak with my x about dd all the time(can’t fault their parenting) but afraid to bring up the relationship with the gf too much in case it turns into a row and/or they just think I’m jealous of the new relationship- I’m jealous of her relationship with my dd but not with my x.

Im worried any chance I have of salvaging/building my relationship with our eldest before she hits her teens will be lost if we continue like this. I’d like to send her back to England to a school I know she’d love that’s close to my family. I have family connections with the school and could get her a place for next year if we got the ball rolling soon but not sure how to pitch it to my x that now is the right time?

11 is a tough age for girls. They're navigating puberty, separating from parents and navigating friendships. She's likely angry about the divorce and in the black and white world of the pre-teen/teen she's chosen you as the villain of the thing that shattered her world. You'll not repair your relationship by sending her to boarding school and ripping away the fragile foundation she's building. I think the best thing you can do to salvage your relationship is to let her know, constantly, that you love her. Reach out again and again with offers to go shopping, skiing, whatever you like to do. If she says no keep trying. It may take a while but she'll be aware you care and want to be with her and she'll eventually come around. Enlist her Dad's help- he can say to her every so often "Oh look, Mum's suggesting this- why don't you give it a try. She loves you and wants to be with you"

You’d be failing your daughter, jealousy is a vile reason to rip her away from a loving family.

Im now making active moves to begin the transition back to England and hope to be resettled there within two years. It’s possible X will also be back in UK then but far from certain and not sure that’s even what he wants in the short term anymore.

Okay so you think your ex probably won't move back to the UK and your DD wants to live with your ex... so why are you making these active moves to go back? Do you want to not live in the same country as your DD? To force a split between your DDs as well? People on here get hauled over the coals for moving an hour away from where kids are settled in schools/friends/life in the event of a separation. I know you have your own agenda, but it seems weirdly blinkered to be focusing on this future that suits you and pretty much only you. I certainly wouldn't be ploughing ahead on the assumption that what you'll say goes for DD1 on this huge matter when you can't even get her to stay the night.

If your daughter was writing a post about the situation on here, what would it say?

DD is 11. If her father and his gf separates, or have kids then DD will not have that stability. If DD has any major challenges, will gf be there for her?

Also what should op do, give up her DD and sign up adoption paper for DD to be adopted by gf?
What would you do in OP's shoes?

I really don’t understand why you think putting her in British Boarding school will help your relationship in any way? The only possible benefit may be just having her nearby, which may turn out to be temporary if you end up relocating for work again in the future. It seems clear that she has been deeply unsettled by your breakup and ‘attaching’ herself to your ex’s new partner is her way of showing you what she really feels. If you put her in boarding school she will still be separated from you the majority of the time, and she won’t have the benefits of being able to come home to a parent each day, to home cooked meals, and she won’t be able to see friends ad hoc when she feels like it, with strict rules about what she can and can’t do, and it’s highly unlikely she will be allowed to leave school premises on her own at that age. I can just see her storing up her resentment and using it as weapon against you, with constant demands to visit her Dad at every opportunity.

DD is 11. If her father and his gf separates, or have kids then DD will not have that stability. If DD has any major challenges, will gf be there for her?

Also what should op do, give up her DD and sign up adoption paper for DD to be adopted by gf?
What would you do in OP's shoes?

@Redpaisely

I would sack off the job that requires me to keep moving about, I would put my daughter first and not my career. I wouldn't ship her off to boarding school with no mum or dad nearby because I'm jealous of her step-mum. I'd be a parent.

I have to be brutally honest and say that everything you’ve wrote here indicates you’re not a very good parent. You don’t seem in anyway bothered that you’re not remotely involved in your daughters life.

leave her where she’s happy and crack on with your job.

Who has parental responsibility? Because if it’s your ex and he wants to stay in Spain (and your daughter does to) then all this moving back may be a moot point

Im now making active moves to begin the transition back to England and hope to be resettled there within two years. It’s possible X will also be back in UK then but far from certain and not sure that’s even what he wants in the short term anymore.

But this doesn't make any sense!

She's happily living with her father in Spain. The likelihood is that if you move back to the UK, she'll be staying with him in Spain, not returning to the UK so you can then palm her off in some boarding school.

If her dad is planning on returning to the UK, then you need to discuss the timeframe for this with him, and honestly fit in with his plans, unless you want to see your daughter even less.

I can only see one of two things here:

1. either you are totally deluded (and selfish), and then that you can force her to return to the UK with you, leaving the family that she is actually close to, and where she is in school and had friends. Your relationship with her likely would not survive this.
2. you are planning on leaving the country regardless if what she does. This would be deeply selfish and likely destroy your relationship with her.

Either way, she seems to be your lowest priority, and that's incredibly sad. She deserves better.

Are you going to force her to move if the dad who she lives with wants to stay? Because if so, that would be shit of you. She didn’t get a say in the breakup of the family - obviously - but she shouldn't be moved away from Spain, her dad, and friends just to be shipped off to boarding school. Where, honestly, you have no idea if she will thrive let alone love being.

You mean England is YOUR home and where YOU will end up eventually.
Sounds like you haven’t given your daughter the most stable of life in her 11 years? Moving around the place is incredibly de stabilising for a child, even if they seem to ‘love it’ at the time. Children need predictability, stability and routine. Not wondering where they are going to be living next. The fact that you and your ex have split is another huge de stabiliser and then another ‘mother figure’ steps in. I mean how much change do you think a kid can take?
You speak of her like some sort of object- you will move her. Erm… she’s not a piece of furniture you can have shipped back to the Uk!? Boarding school is Hard as is it for kids IMO. Children need a loving mother and father and a stable home. Where each day and week and month they feel like they know what’s coming next.
Think abouts what’s best for your daughter- not for you. Maybe she won’t want to live in England eventually? Maybe she doesn’t want to go to boarding school?

I think the suggestion of therapy was to help you not your daughter

How do you mother someone who has decided they don’t want to be mothered by you anymore though?

I just carry on what I'm doing. DS has no other option but to live with me, so even if he (at 15, so quite a few years old than your DD) decided that he didn't want me to be his Mother he'd just have to get on with it.

If things looked like they were breaking down I'd seek professional advice, take time off work, do whatever the hell I needed to do to show my son that opting out me being his Mother was not an option.

It seems highly likely that if you expedite a move back to the UK your elder daughter won't come with you. What will then happen to younger DD? Will she want to be separated from her father and sister? She might wish to stay as well. At her age she will feel even more Spanish than the 11 yr old.

You seem to have absolutely no understanding that parenting is a long game and it changes constantly.

My parents split at about the same age and unless it is handled brilliantly - and maybe even then - children (especially the oldest) tend to take sides. Because a line of separation has been drawn and they have to choose either/or. Your poor daughter is trying very hard to work through her own grief and navigate this and your response appears to be either take her away from what makes her happy, or just be catastrophic, defeatist and woe is me. Grow up. Your daughter is doing the best she can, in a situation that she did not create. Try to be the adult here and cut her some slack.

The long game...your relationship with your D probably will not be fully repaired this week, month or year. But if you can adult your way through this, showing genuine respect and care for your daughter, at some point your efforts will likely be repaid.

That poor, poor child!

She has been through so much and she’s finally settled and got some stability and is seemingly extremely happy, and you want to tear her away from it all simply because you’re jealous.

You sound controlling and almost narcissistic and if this was a man posting he’d be getting torn apart.

Can you not see why your daughter doesn’t want to see you and you have no relationship with her?
You sound awful.

Stop trying to ruin her life and start making an effort where she is now.

She may ignore you and not want anything to do with you for a while but you still need to show you’re there for her and love her.

Why do you see boarding school as a solution? Your child needs love, sending her to boarding school isn’t love?! She will feel abandoned.

It sounds as if your dd has been shoved from pillar to post and, whatever she says, however she presents, has been feeling unsettled and unloved. She now has a mother figure who is giving her love and consistent in person affection and attention. I hope it lasts. Sending her to boarding school would be full on cruel. My stepchild’s
mother is like this - has given the child no stability due to prioritising her own needs to live/work/date in various locations, with child dragged along - and then wanting to send her off to school abroad when the impact of an unstable childhood started revealing itself in behaviour. Have a word with yourself and be the mother this child needs. Or let your exes’ new gf be that mother.

Are your two daughters living in separate households at the moment? I don’t understand how you and your ex husband are happy with that. Of all their existing relationships, that’s the one that should be encouraged and protected to last a lifetime.

It doesn't sound like you are putting your DD's best interests first. She sounds happy where she is you would stop that over YOUR jealousy in regards to her DF's girlfriends. Stop being so selfish and put your daughter first.

It could look as if you were punishing her for finding some happiness. It sounds as if your daughter is settled at school and needs some time, at this point in her life, to stay with dad.

As a coparent to a daddy's girl, this is something I anticipate may happen at some point in my daughter's life. We live close so there is that option as she grows older. However, what we would do is put in place access to both parents, so that it's not a choice between parent A or B, and that our daughter still retains contact with both. Is there any way you can discuss her coming to stay for a night every fortnight or few weeks so that you can make that time special for you both?

Building on understanding your relationship from her perspective sounds like something that would be more beneficial that moving her from family in Spain to the care of a school in England.

We moved numerous times when I was growing up to further DFs career. As the eldest I was expected to suck it up and set an example of how to settle into the latest situation. Any raising of unhappiness was answered by "we're doing this for you". Total bollocks as it was all about my df and his ego.

Although we were kept with our parents, our perception of what was home was never tbe same as theirs. They expected to be applauded for keeping the family together but all we craved was stability particularly through our teens. Making superficial friendships was easy as we were practised at it, but we longed for friends who we had a shared history with. As adults we have very loose bonds with our parents. They still expect their needs to be more important than ours.

Your focus on your wants risks the same thing happening.

She'll have her dad.

This is so heartbreaking. Maybe your daughter's family is now with your ex and his partner, in Spain. You'll always be her mum and her family, too, but we all need a single place that means home to us and just as she's starting to rebuild one after so much tumult, you want to take her away from it - because of your blatant jealousy about this new gf, and because you have some predetermined idea about how your daughter should identify, and the sort of person she should be. We don't own our children, we just have them on loan. It's not up to you to decide that her primary identity should be British etc etc.

I strongly suggest you read a book called The Gardener and the Carpenter which discusses the damage done by parenting styles that try to determine specific outcomes for children rather than creating the optimal conditions for them to make healthy choices for themselves - which may not be what parents had envisaged.