I have moved out with eldest daughter due to the way my wife treats her.

[George805]

Hi, I am looking for some advice regarding my wife's treatment of eldest daughter.

Two daughters 8 and 6, eldest is a bit of an old soul, loves fossils, history, animals and cares deeply about the planet, she likes to wear t shirts with fossils and bugs on them with jeans and trainers, not interested in latest fashion or trends.

I love my wife but she can be a bit snobby and judgmental at times, she has to follow the latest trends and is in to everything glamorous, youngest daughter is the same, loves fashion, makeup (big no for me as she's too young) she is naturally very talented, does dance and can sing really well, I love both my children equally but I have to be truthful and say that I see a bit of a mean streak in youngest and I'm worried she is growing in to a bit of a bully.

Now the issue is that my wife massively favours youngest daughter, brings her everywhere, constantly buying her things, always calling her the most beautiful girl in the world (whilst eldest is standing right next to her), phone is full of pictures of just her, never stops speaking about her, always got to be right next to her on the sofa/dinner table etc etc

I've pulled her up on this so many times, told her she never spends time with eldest, never compliments her or shows even the slightest interest in what she's doing.

Had a horrible day at work today so stopped off in town on my way home to buy some snacks and treat the girls to a jellycat each, I bought eldest a caterpillar and youngest a bunny, when I arrived home and gave them to the girls my wife was instantly all over the youngest telling her how beautiful her bunny was just like her and didn't say anything about eldest. Eldest left and I went and spoke to her, she asked if I'd change her caterpillar for a bunny, I was shocked as I know for a fact she doesn't like the bunnies, she likes birds and bugs, what she said next floored me and made me feel like I've really failed her, she said mummy would like her the same way she likes her sister if she got a bunny, she got really upset and said she knows she's ugly and that's why eveyone likes youngest better.

I took both girls across the road to the neighbours and went back home and had the biggest argument with my wife we've ever had in 10 years of marriage, I'm not proud of it but I really lost my cool and accused my wife of neglecting eldest daughter and told her she's causing her to have body issues etc by the way she treats her, in the heat of the moment I packed a bag for myself and eldest and moved out.

But I've now had time to cool down and I realise I don't want to go back, I don't want my eldest to have to live everyday being compared to her sister and not feeling loved, living in her sisters shadow constantly having to hear how beautiful and amazing she is.

My wife has phoned over 20 times and left numerous texts and voicemails, I can't bring mysel to reply yet. I don't think it's good for eldest to be around her mother from now on until she can learn to treat them the same, I want eldest to live with me and youngest to spend half the time with me.

I know it's likely an unusual situation but would I stand a chance with this in court? I'm really worried about the way eldest is talking about herself and I think I'm going to need to get her some professional help, I obviously don't want her to never see her mum again, I just want her to have a brake from having to deal with her behaviour and for wife to slowly one on one build a relationship up with her without comparing her to youngest.

My best friend grew up similar. Mostly her mum always telling her she was incapable (of anything and everything). She is amazingly kind but absolutely lacks confidence which breaks my heart. Interestingly mum now lives with her (still unpleasant to her) while golden daughter who has more resources refuses to take her in. I gave told my best friend her mum shouldn't damage her kids now

You are a great dad. Give your girl a big hug and take her out bug hunting- good luck.

While I understand what you have done I must share a personal story. I grew up as the other child. F was abusive emotionally to whole family apart from me and this has traumatised me as much, albeit in a different way, as his emotional abuse traumatised my siblings. What I'm saying is, your other child will be suffering too and will carry a lot of guilt later in life. I have therapy for this exact reason. I am not telling you this to make you feel bad, just wanted to share as it seemed relevant. Your other daughter will need protecting too. What happens if she stops looking the way her M wants her to? or rebels? She too is being emotionally abused.

I agree.

Well done for standing up for your eldest, though.

What she said was absolutely heartbreaking breaking and has made me cry! Poor little girl

I think you have made the right choice, OP!

I had a rough relationship with my mother growing up (definitely wasn’t her favorite child) and ended up leaving with my stepdad when he left her. Wasn’t even my dad, but honestly I was very grateful he still considered me his daughter and accepted for me to move in with him. I do think he saved my mental health in many ways.

He had shared custody of my other siblings (his sons). He didn’t abandon his kids and I know my siblings would not have been happy living full time with their dad.

My mom was a lot more chill with them and they lived like kings with her (one of my siblings is now nearing 30 and still live there!). My stepdad was strict and more of a “tough love” kind of guy but with your best interest at heart, my mom was an “I will give you everything you want as long as you love me unconditionally and don’t ever oppose what I say or suggest I might have messed up in any way.” Her love was very conditional.

My siblings needed and wanted what my mom could provide and I needed and wanted what my stepdad could provide.

Kids have different needs, assuming it’s better to take both kids than just one is not necessarily right. In my case keeping us together 100% of the time at either one parent would have made us absolutely miserable.

I genuinely think his decision to leave and him
agreeing for me to go with him, saved my relationship with my mom way down the line. As adults we have now managed to slowly rebuild some sort of relationship, something I think would have been impossible if I had stayed longer in her care and confronted to her lack of genuine care/attention.

So good on you for doing what few dare to do and for understanding that your two children have different needs.

What rubbish! 6 year olds are not bullies? Were that the case then why is the kneejerk reaction to a child being unhappy about another child's behaviour in school to contact the school about 'bullying'?
If this were a woman posting in similar circumstances then LTB would be the advice of choice, after all, mothers are never wrong, are they? They're de facto 'supermums'.

My understanding from ine of Op's updates is that now he is just trying to get the eldest to calm but he wants to take both from the toxicity. May be am adding my own thinking but @George805 you definitely need to support both equally. At 6 your youngest doesn't really have a mind if her own and a real awareness of bullying or nastiness. She is simply parroting mum and thinks it's OK. So now am sure the eldest is calmer, please get and protect both. At 6 she absolutely is still learning and can learn to be kind and not bullying. If you take eldest only they will both be damaged no matter what you do.

What hope does this 6 year old child have in healthy emotional development if her father has written her off as a bully who won’t be ‘disciplined’ and left with her mother who actually is an emotional bully? Most schools will not see 6 year olds as bullies either, at this stage of development they would be questioning home life if they heard a child being abusive to another, and as I said it would be both parents. This ‘mum should take all the blame’ wouldn’t fly if both parents are in the home.

As I and others have said, no one would call the op ‘super mum’ if it was a woman who’d left one child, a very young child, with their abusive parent to favour the wellbeing of another.

He doesn’t want to take both, or at least not the youngest full time. There’s an insinuation he’s rather fully keep the sisters separate. Posters are so focused on what a great thing he’s doing for the eldest they’re either not picking up or choosing to deliberately ignore how he’s speaking about the 6 year old. Some are straight up excusing it. It’s not as bad as what mum has been doing but it’s definitely going down the same slope.

Proud of you and I don’t even know you . Well done and good luck

You've made the best decision that you can in order to protect your oldest.

There aren't any easy choices here. There's going to be damage all round (to your oldest, that her mum neglects her so badly), to your youngest (that she's the Golden Child). So you have to make the best choices that you can in the situation, having thought them over carefully.

You're in a very unusual situation so it's going to be hard to find independent advice that isn't coloured by the fact that it's not common for a man to take his daughter away from her mother and sibling in order to protect her. So you'll have to do some hard thinking and I suggest you read up as much as you can, and also talk to the wiser people you know.

In a way what seems best to me is that if you live apart, one child with each parent, not far away from each other and actually your wife has the oldest for every second weekend and you have the youngest, so that each of you is forced to focus all your attention on the child that they find hardest. It's also important that the siblings spend time with each other, which will have to be thought about too.

But right now either you will end up back at home and the situation doesn't change, or you'll end up back at home and your wife does better, or you stay apart, one child with each parent. I think you need to define what you want, and to talk to your wife with your goals in mind and stay calm. This is a negotiation for the best outcome for both your daughters, not a war.

Good luck. You're doing the best you can in order to protect your child.

I think the most important piece of advice anyone can offer OP here is that he urgently seeks legal advice on what he should and should not be doing here. Presumably his wife will be doing the same.

Before anything irrevocable, answer the phone to your wife, meet somewhere neutral, and let her explain or talk it out and hopefully apologise
Another option is to talk to Relate
https://www.relate.org.uk/
After that, if you still feel she will continue to abuse your eldest, then it's time to move on, but be aware that splitting your girls up will be terrible for both of them

The topsy turvey world of Mumsnet, OP. Some commentators just like giving posters, people who want help in really tough times, a good shoeing. Ignore them.

There are plenty of people here who think you've done the right thing here OP. Boiled down, all you have done is make it clear that things cannot continue as they are - which for DDs sake, the can't. Please give your DD a collective hug from us.

Your wife's complete blindness to how unfair and unkind she is being to her own child sounds bizarre. I don't understand how any woman could treat her own child like that. Her obvious desire to create a child in her own image perhaps reveals an interesting, almost pathological,aspect of her own nature.

You're absolutely doing the right thing by protecting your daughter, OP. Your wife sounds emotionally abusive. Unfortunately, the law isn't always fair though. If I were you I'd seek legal advice asap.

The op’s portrait of his 6 year old is worrying to me, he clearly looks at her quite harshly while idealising his gentle, nature loving eldest. He’s picked his favourite in just the same way as his wife has. So would that be good if he had custody of both?

Gosh this is so sad and such a difficult situation. You have done the right thing by removing your eldest from the situation. I hope there can be some way to bring the girls back together soon but clearly your eldest needs time away from her mother and sister right now.

Do you have anything planned long-term? I can imagine the youngest staying with her mum causing even more issues for both of the girls. It will likely add to the eldest’s feeling of second-best and possibly further the long-term damage already caused by her mum.

How will you explain to your DD why she isn’t seeing her Mummy? Are you going to tell her ‘Mummy wants to see you but I won’t let her?’ Are you going to lie and say ‘Mummy doesn’t want to see you?’

If your DD already thinks her mummy doesn’t love her how on earth do you think she is going to feel now, living apart from her mummy whilst her sister stays with her and wondering why her mummy doesn’t even visit her or spend any time with her. I do understand why you felt the need to remove your DD but be very careful you don’t make things worse and that your DD doesn’t come away from this thinking her Mummy has kicked her out, doesn’t love her enough to have her at home whilst she lives with her little sister and thinks her mummy doesn’t even love her enough to want to visit or have her to stay. All children want love and validation from their parents and you may think it is in your DDs best interests to keep her from her mother but you may actually be confirming in her mind that her mum doesn’t want her, that she’s so ugly and unloveable even her mum can’t bear to live with her etc. If you’re not very careful you may be making things a lot worse and I do think it’s important your DD continues to have contact with her mother so she doesn’t feel abandoned or rejected, instead of blocking contact it is could be more productive to consider how you can ensure contact is positive and supports your DD to feel loved by her mother and that you work alongside your wife to make this happen.

Oh so you are that parent. The one who sees her dc as perfect and refuses to believe they are the bully and no doubt blames everyone else.

hey people! We found one. One of those parents we can’t bear as they think their poorly behaved dc can do no wrong and the sun sines out of their dc arse

I feel terrible for your eldest.
There's nothing wrong with getting on with one child better than the other, sometimes that's just how things go if you're similar personality wise or have the same interests, but to praise and flatter the youngest child in front of the eldest while ignoring her is not on and she (the child) will be in therapy before you know it. Her self-esteem is already going down the pan, saying she wants the other toy so her mum will like her. Awful, awful parenting. That will seep in to her friendships and relationships as she gets older and your wife needs to stop it right now.
You were right to stand up to her and you all need some counselling to sort this out esp as she can't see that she's doing anything wrong.

No advice OP, apart from to echo getting some therapy for your eldest. You sound like a very lovely Dad.

And you’re one of those people who takes what’s written and makes up their own stories to fit their own agenda. This is an absolute cheerleader type thread where posters are choosing not to be balanced for both children involved and fully getting up in a frothy witch hunt for their own entertainment. It’s still a forum though and people are allowed to disagree and see that there’s some serious unpleasantness around the younger child who at this age is not accountable in the same way an older child would be for bullying behaviour. Not that we even have any examples of this, again everyone is going on the OP’s word as if it’s the absolute.

Please remember in all of this that your youngest is also a victim of the golden child, scapegoat dynamic of your ex. Just because it presents differently, with her damage coming out as passive aggression, doesn't mean she isn't feeling a discomfort inside.

And I say this as the scapegoat of my family. Me and my siblings have all equally been damaged, just in different ways.

If you can I'd be going for custody of both. Allowing youngest one with mum, but not eldest is still going to reinforce that feeling of not being good enough for mum.

On a more positive note, Lyme Regis is great for fossil hunting. Maybe you could take both girls, and introduce youngest to something special of the eldest, to help repair the split between them.

If you click see all on OPs posts you can read his updates.

I'm still firmly on Team Amazing Parent; OP must be in turmoil but is trying to navigate the best way forward. Or rather any way forward, because there probably isn't a good outcome to be had in the short term - OP can't wave a magic wand and make this all ok by Good Friday. He's chosen to face up to the hard stuff for his eldest DD and hopefully in future that will help the "golden child" youngest too. Bloody well done that man.