Did anyone’s Mother stop you seeing your father? If so, how do you feel about it now?

[andanotherproblem]

My DP’s ex has always been really difficult, controlling and demanding, she stops contact for the silliest of things and even just if she’s having a bad day. She has always been very jealous and bitter of our relationship, especially now we have a DD. DP hasn’t seen his daughter for almost 4 months, not for lack of trying, she will not let him, I’ve told him numerous times to go to court, he is so deflated with being told no all the time, he keeps saying he will eventually take her to court but I don’t think he will. This annoys me as I want our DD to have a relationship with her sibling, the ex pretty much says our DD isn’t important as she isn’t a full sibling. I’m wondering, has anyone’s mother stopped them seeing their father and if so, once you got older and learned the truth, how did you feel? Were you annoyed your dad didn’t try harder or were you more angry at your mum?

My mum stopped my Dad from having contact with me, I was a baby when they split as mum was having an affair, who later became my step dad, as I was baby I was led to believe that Step Dad was my biological dad, until I found out he wasn’t at 13 by a strange quirk of fate, so that was a shocker. Mum went on to have a new family, half brother and a much younger surprise half sister (half brother knew we were half siblings, sister wasnt to be told, no idea why, we had very different characteristics. Then mum had another affair, left step dad took half sister, and stopped Step Dad seeing her, again married the person she had affair with, no children, as she had had a hysterectomy by then. She has had many affairs since, mainly with foreign men on holiday, still with 2nd Step dad as far as I know. She’s nuts been no contact for 16+ years.

Come back when you are his ex and you are painted as a psycho. My ex has 3 psycho exs now - hmmmm

My dad told my mum point blank he didnt want either of us so that was that, but I want to pick up the point about yours not fighting for his kid.

My ex is toxic, difficult, full on narc. We had a custody issue after splitting (after all, not having his prop would harm his good guy image!) and although I saw my daughter as much as possible we were essentially kept apart. I cried myself to sleep every day. Every thought i had, everything i did, was all for the aim of getting her back. It didnt go to court in the end but i would have spent every penny and every breath in my body on the process, no question.

I know a lot of dads with the classic psucho ex and only ONE has ever gone to similar lengths to actually raise his kid and i respect him for it. He's a deadbeat really, drinks, doesnt hold down jobs etc but he has NEVER given up on his son, for real.

I am mid fifties now but my mum left my father after only six weeks of marriage. This was in the 1960s when women did not leave their husbands.
I grew up living with her until my mum died when I was 7.
I had been kept away from my father, only met him a few times from age 4/5 ish. My mum moved us far away and he didn't know about my existence until I was about 2.
When she died I was sent to live with him.
He was a cold, cruel abusive man.
I can totally understand why my poor mum left him and kept me away from him.

I too am a psycho ex. Ex and his ow have worked very hard to paint that picture.

I tried to get my dc to have safe contact with my ex. Social workers stopped it and said video calls only. I was sad for dc in one way but relieved in another. At least they are safe. but they will know that he fought to see them…. Which is important.

courts do not always give contact to abusive parents … but they can’t do any if you don’t get them involved.

It costs less than £300 to take her to court. I have been on the receiving end of being taken to court, as I wanted to protect my DD. Let me tell you now, the court’s position is contact over safety. No psycho ex will be allowed to stop your DP from seeing his child. My ex is now seeing DD, safely, after me (psycho ex) provided evidence of abuse.
Either he is looking for a sob story or he is frightened she has solid evidence to prove why she stopped contact.
we’re all psycho exes. My DDs father has 3 😉
If he’s not making the effort then he can’t be bothered, simple.

I think there are two types of ex.

There are those who keep their children away for legitimate reasons, and then there absolutely are those who keep the children away out of spite and bitterness.

I don’t think that we should dismiss the fact that psycho ex’s do exist, however, the response from the father in these instances is also crucial.

I have a friend who had an ex who deliberately withheld contact. Time and time and time again. But instead of walking away, he took her to court, and then back to court when she broke the court order, and again, and again. And when the DC were old enough they decided of their own accord, one by one, to live with him, and now that they are adults they are all NC with their mother.

Your dp’s ex may well be a psycho. But there is a separation between her being a psycho and his disinterest in having contact with his DD.

There are only two reasons why this could be the case.

Either he sees the child as an extension of her mother (have seen this before) and as such wants nothing to do with her, Or alternatively he really isn’t bothered because he now has a shiny new child to replace her.

But if he cared about his child at all he absolutely would go to court. There are 0 legitimate reasons not to. And by staying with him, by affirming his decisions not to go to court, you are backing up his belief that not loving his daughter is ok. Perhaps because deep down you’re happy with your own nuclear family now that you have a baby of your own?

I mean from your perspective you could walk away from him at any time, stop him seeing his child, and you know he’d never bother with her again. If you’re happy with that thought then clearly you support him and don’t feel you have to give him a hard time.

But I don’t imagine this is the first time she’s withheld contact and he’s just done nothing, and yet you had a baby with him.

Personally any man who didn’t see his kids wouldn’t have made it over the threshold into my life let alone into my bed.

But the bar for some women is clearly on the floor.

My mum made it difficult for me to see my dad. Would crumble every time he was mentioned, would cling to me and use me as an emotional crutch. She would repeatedly state “he’s left you as well as me”.

As an adult I see the whole thing very differently, but bizarrely 30 years on, she still believes this. I do resent her, much more than I do him.

Depends on the situation. To protect a child is one thing out of spite is another.

My mil was very controlling with access when divorced from fil - it was due to fil meeting someone else. But that wasn’t the fault of my husband who was 5 at the time. She is very bitter (still) custody and access went to court and to keep my husband having any relationship with his father he was sent to boarding school.

End result some 47 years later my husband has a strained relationship with his father, they meet occasionally. And we are very LC with his Mum to protect our children from mil bitterness and mean personality. We have had to pay for therapy (a lot) for my husband to deal with the rejection feeling that his Dad didn’t want him and his mum controlling dramatics when she is on a nasty streak (usually after a couple of glasses of wine)

Sometimes (if there is no DV or child at risk) I just wish the parents wouldn’t use their children as a way to hurt the other parent. The ONLY person it affects in the long term is the child.

Low effort is low effort whether they see you or not. My DF saw us, when it fitted his plans, but the contact was very boring because he didn't make an effort even when he did pick us up. Think often leaving us to play with babysit his other kids while he napped or watched sport. People could well have said at the time that my mother was a psycho, but I think she was fierce in protecting us from someone who had cheated on his family (and would go on to do so again) and was capable of huge damage. I'd bet my house he doesn't tell the story that way. I can't be arsed with him now.

Not quite what you're asking op, but my mum constantly badmouthed my dad growing up. He never said a bad word against her. As an adult I can see now that my mum was a nightmare (although she never stopped me from seeing him) and I have a good relationship with my dad. I do slightly resent that he never tried to get custody as my mum had a lot of mental health problems but I also acknowledge it was a difficult situation and he was just trying his best at the time and had a lot of guilt about leaving her for another woman.

On the contrary. I, like many of my old school friends from back in the 80s, wish our mums had been more proactive in protecting us from abusive fathers & other male relatives.

He won't be able to go to court before going to mediation. After the first initial meeting that should cost around £100, he will be entitled to a voucher that will most likely cover 2 hours of free mediation.

If he isn't willing to try that, he just isn't really interested in the child, end off, no excuses. No sympathy, whether the ex is a psycho or not.

My mum was bitter and used us to get back at my dad by stopping contact or making it awkward, later on she did it by telling us enough lies that we didn't want to see him (eg that he left because he didn't want children) She really, really hated him.

My dad fought a bit through the courts at first but quickly gave up. We assumed his lack of contact was lack of interest.

As an adult I learned a bit more about my dad's side, but I haven't forgiven either of them. My mum was poisonous, my dad was wet. He walked away and left us in that situation because it was too stressful and he didn't know what to do - that's pathetic, sorry. That's not how a parent should be.

I've never really had a relationship with either of them. My siblings weren't interested either.

I tolerate seeing my dad a few times a year to appease one family member and avoid arguments. He talks nostalgically about what he missed out on but to me it's all talk, actions speak louder than words. He never made any attempts to repair anything as adults, just a lot of handwringing about how hard it was.

This.

Imagine dating a guy who doesn't think his own child is worth the effort and the £300 to go to court for. Imagine then getting into a serious relationship with him, standing by him, and then actually having a child with him!

Raise your bar, OP.

What a horrible, crappy excuse for a man he is.

And OP, whilst not that bad, is still pretty naive thinking darling man sending a few text messages to his ex constitutes being a good father who has tried his absolute best to get contact with his child.

I always find this kind of situation mind boggling.

Your mum has MH issues, essentially a disabling health condition that she can’t control, yet she raised you and allowed your Dad to have as much contact with you as he wanted (much less than your mum).

Yes, she bad mouthed the man who cheated on her and left her alone to raise a child when she was ill, but fuck me, that must have been a tough time for her, especially as MH services weren’t really a thing a generation ago.

He, a grown man, felt his wife’s illness was too difficult to live with, but he left you, his child, to be raised in her care so he could spend more time alone with his affair partner?

And you’re pissed at your betrayed and mentally ill mum for telling you she was betrayed and ill and left alone to raise you? You say your dad was “trying his best”, but I’m pretty sure your mum was too AND she was the one doing the day-to-day parenting.

Time and time again the mothers who do the hard work of raising a child are sidelined when Dad comes back on the scene in adulthood. Men who have not been bothered with the effort of hands-on parenting want the company, care and interest of the adult the mother has raised.

If the mother was a “crazy ex” WHY doesn’t the father protect the child by staying, take the child with them when they leave, or fight in court until they get custody?

"psycho ex" is even more reason to get contact formalised through court so he gets to see his dd.

There is no reason not do do this other than he can't be bothered with the effort ........................unless there are reasons a court won't look favorably on him and would favour the "psycho ex" instead.....................

Back to your original question - the dd is going to grow up emotionally damaged that her dad did not -

1. care enough/she wasn't good enough for him to take the available legal route to see her
2. abandoned her with her "psycho" mum
3. that she was not good enough to be loved / important enough for him to be bothered

It will potentially impact her development, life chances and future relationships.

A friend of mine is in a similar position. His ex has done her utmost to prevent contact. The difference in his case is he's never given up trying. He has had contact thanks to the courts.
When his child is older they'll know he moved heaven and earth to see them.

There seems to be a weird belief on this thread that all he needs to do is pay a few hundred quid to go to court and then everything will be settled and his ex will instantly handover the child at every mandated time.

Maybe that will happen but there's a very good chance that it won't. Going to court is a long drawn-out and intensely adversarial situation which will ratchet up the tension between them even further. Even if he gets a set contact schedule she could very easily decide to ignore it. He'd then have to take her back to court. While it does happen that repeated refusals over years and years and years sometimes end up with custody being changed, that's by no means guaranteed.

If I was in this father's shoes I probably would push it in court but I can understand why he's reticent. It's a big step and one that will likely make things very much worse in the short term and with only a vague hope that it will make things better in the long term.

How old is your child? You can apply for a Child Arrangements Order for them to have time with a half sibling. It's very unusual with the parent choosing not to get involved, and there is no automatic legal right, but the court may still judge that it is in the best interests of both siblings. There is no legal distinction between full and half siblings in that case. I think your partner will struggle to ever gain his child's forgiveness if he won't bother to engage, but that does not mean you need to accept your child having no relationship with their sibling.

Also wanting to see responses from people who were children in this position. I fought hard for sole custody because DD's dad was not a safe person to be around and then he died so DD will never have the chance to see him again and that makes me feel so guilty too.

So my friend done this for various reasons with her son. I think like your DPs ex it was mainly due to the fact he didn’t want a relationship with her and kind of petty (made that clear from the pregnancy). I know she was hurting etc and pregnancy hormones make things worse. She would say he was inconsistent, had alcohol problems, didn’t want the pregnancy so why should he be near the kid etc.
over time he tried and tried to get contact, he wanted time with his son and even tried being around with mum present. Nothing he did was good enough. I kinda felt sorry for the guy, her family also took her side through it all. I did attempt to speak to her but it fell on deaf ears. I even offered to be the go between etc or even be the person that supervised dad until we knew he could manage alone. He didn’t try to go through the courts etc as far as I know (likely costs) but 🤷🏻‍♀️

anyway my point is her son is almost 16 he asked about his dad over the years etc but in the last year or 2 he’s made contact and he’s now very resentful of his mum. Turns out dad has kept all messages/emails/contact of his trying and what the response was, returned bday / xmas cards . He has 3 other kids with his wife (so siblings) and other family. Her son has talked about leaving when he’s old enough to live with dad and cut contact from mum. She’s obviously devastated and I guess until maybe he’s older he won’t understand how hurt she was etc and her reasons. I guess he just sees it as mum kept me away from dad.

all I would say is your DP should try his best to keep contact, keep records of everytime he’s contacted his ex etc. go to court or even speak to a lawyer etc. Have some sort of proof of what he’s tried.

What made her a “jealous bitter psycho?” Were you the other woman? An affair?

Certainly no excuse for withholding contact, but I think there is likely a whole backstory here.

That’s a cop-out.

Nobody is denying that the court process can be long and drawn out. And perhaps it can be understandable that after being taken through the court system time and time again some men might reach a stage of feeling they can’t continue.

But this man hasn’t even tried.

At what point would you abandon your children? At the first hurdle?

It’s like someone saying they can’t find a job when they’re not actually looking.

The only point at which he can start claiming victim status is if he’s actually tried through legal channels to gain access, and at this point he hasn’t.