Divorced/separated parents - truth v not bad mouthing

[Orangeandgold]

I always hear that you should never bad mouth the other parent to a child.

I would like to hear your thoughts on if being truthful about the other parent counts.

A little bit about my experience and thoughts
My parents divorced when I was a teen, dad lost custody and for whatever reason I ended up hating my mum. As I grew up I hated that I didn’t get to hear what happened. Now I appreciate that it’s their story to tell. My mum always spoke badly of my dad - which contradicted my memory of him.

I am now raising a daughter- me and her dad split when she was young. He was manipulative and abusive (emotional/verbal). I now do not speak to him. We haven’t seen him for almost 6 years. She is a teen now and he has reconnected with her through calls and messages. He saw her for the first time since the pandemic recently, but he did it in the most weirdest way (didn’t even contact me) and it ended with a huge argument. I don’t want to go into the ins and outs, but his behaviour scared my daughter and he really showed his true colours - and the reason why I stopped contacting him.

I do not bad mouth him, but I want to let my daughter know that she needs to be careful. Do I share my experience (this is why I do not speak to him, he wasn’t nice to me). Or do I just ask her how she feels and what she wants.

I want to tell her that her dad wasn’t nice to me at one point. And apologise that she has been caught up in all of this, but I want her to be careful. Or if I don’t trust him this much do I just go to court and remove his custody.

My friends and family have mixed opinions. They either say go NC or go easy on her.

I have been sharing with my children, my mil didnt share with hers, and my stbxh just did basically what his father did at the same age. And now i hope he regrets it in 30 years time just like his dad does. But, I need to make sure my boys never do this to their wives, and act more like my father and brothers instead.

It’s a tough one, OP. Verbal/emotional abuse is hard to “prove”… so say you tell your DD what happened, and she asked him “dad why did you do that to mum” what would he say?
without knowing details it’s hard to say but I think you could talk to DD through her own frame of reference - ie that behaviour she has seen that scared her. Talk to her about how no one gets to make her feel that way. Tell her that you’re upset/disappointed in him but not surprised.
I guess whether you go on to say you’d respect if she wanted to see him again depends on what he did. If you’re scared for her wellbeing, 100% put your foot down. If he’s just being a bit of a douche, but no real harm, maybe best to say to keep lines of communication open but you want to be involved/informed.

My children are 8 and 10. We havnt seen their dad since my youngest was 8 months old. Fled dv, he was found guilty and court ordered no contact or communication

A few years ago my DD started asking about her dad because of other kids speaking about their dad at school. I had absolutely no idea what to say to her.

School advised that I tell her in a child friendly manner.

You don't need to go into detail about things but I would forewarn her, especially if he has scared her already

I wouldn't want her to go if he was being a dick already

Tell them the truth - my mum didn’t say anything bad about my dad so I thought he was amazing until I found out what he was really like when I was an adult. It was a big shock and took ages to adjust and in the end, it made me not trust my mum. She said she did what she thought was best at the time and to protect me and give me a chance of a relationship with him but having gone through it all just let them know now in a way that’s easy to understand / age appropriate.

Tell the truth. Absolutely NEVER lie. Women are always given this terrible advice that lying and not laying blame where it is due protects children. It does not do so, it gives them a false sense of reality and safety around men who are abusive (if they are abusive) and it also lays a horrible burden on the mother if she is the injured party of having to be complicit in her own abuse.

Mothers are allowed feelings too and need support to process bad relationships, they are not automatons and unlike men are expected to be sainted angels who accept all responsbility for other people's happines at all times. Thats neither fair nor possible.

When I say tell the truth, I do not mean bad mouthing though. Those are two different things. And you could not for example tell a 4 year old the whole truth, but you can tell them when they are older, for sure.

I left your father because he physically hurt me/ he had an affair/ he stole all my money/ other circumstances.

Answer questions simply and as factually as possible. Try not to get to too emotive. In those circumstances, where a man has been abusive, it is better anyway to get the child some counselling to process everything anyway and counselling for the mother who has been harmed too.

NEVER take the blame for a man's bad behaviour, do NOT agree that it was a mutual decision when it was not, or try to speak kindly of man who has been abusive by cheating, hitting, stealing or emotionaly abusive. This always bites women in the arse later, and can be harmful or dangerous to the child too.

But do NOT bad mouth them either and do expect your child to be curious about and want to see their father regardless of the circumstances. They may not want to see him, but if they do, that's not a validation of their father's abuse, or unfair to the mother.

It's ok to say to a child, your father hurt me, I do not want to see him or talk about him. But I understand that he is your dad and you feel differently. A trained counsellor would probably be most helpful here for your child to proces what is going on without you having to cause yourself any further harm by having to be complicit in your own abuse.

I spent dd's younger years saying maybe one day her dad would show up and be a father but until then, he was busy and we were fine. All changed starting senior school when she decided she wanted to meet him so I contacted him. Long story short, he had another addiction added to the one he had when she was born and several now diagnosed mental health conditions. He screwed up the first meeting by no-showing, arrived looking so ill we both thought he might be terminal (one of the addictions) and then began not very subtly telling her I was evil and had kept him from seeing her (he ran off with another woman and despite several attempts refused to see or pay for her at all). Luckily dd knew this wasn't true because I had openly tried to contact him several years before at her request and had no reply, plus she knew I had never said a negative thing about him. Once he began sending her long emails and texts completely slating me she blocked him and we've spoken more honestly about it since then. I apologised as I had no idea that over a decade later he would be even worse than he was when I last saw him and had hoped he had grown up.

You don't have to be too open and honest about what they did in the past - chances are she already knows his behaviour is unhinged and has come to her own conclusions. She massively regrets meeting him now, which is such a shame as it could have been a much better ending if he had put in some work on himself in the last decade. Your dd will know he's where he is because of him and he can't blame you for that, even if he does try repeatedly.

@thebabayaga im surprised I haven’t thought about councelling for my dd actually. That might help - having a space where she can share her feelings.

I definitely agree that keeping silent isn’t helpful - my mums silence made me so angry in my 20s, so I’ve always wanted to have a more open relationship with my own children.

I’m glad that the culture has normalised honesty. I just have this feeling that if he is still so manipulative when she is young, he probably won’t change and it’s best that she figures it out for herself so that she can make wiser decisions as opposed to her being caught in between a “he said, she said”.

Yes to counselling - we did this after the first emails began coming in as I felt I couldn't be "impartial" and he was already saying I had poisoned her against him etc etc. I wanted to make sure she had an independent person to talk to who wasn't going to inadvertently eye roll or sigh which I was prone to when she made me read what he had sent...

@somethingnewandexciting a part of me hoped that he had changed, but he seems as if he is the same. Her dad also had an addiction which changed him (obviously) but he is so oblivious to his own behaviour.

It’s sad really, but as mothers we just don’t want them to get hurt.

Sounds very similar. I had really hoped he agreed to meet because he was in a good place. Not to be. It was a nightmare for about 2 years after that when he suddenly decided he wanted full custody (!) which terrified her even more as he was telling her and CAFCAS he was going to live with her and I'd see her only on weekends. Had to go through Court despite me repeatedly telling them his mental health was so bad it felt like we were kicking him while he was down. He was abusive and rude to me in the Court, Judges constantly having to call him on his behaviour - in all it really took a huge toll. However, he didn't get PR and now is only allowed to contact her a few times a year with zero face to face contact. So it did actually protect us in the end and she now doesn't feel obligated to reply to his long tirades. It has, sadly perhaps, also given her a very fast track lesson in what manipulation, gaslighting, victim blaming, narcicism and addictions are and can do to a person and their life. It's not something that is easy to explain but she had such a stable upbringing she could see it for what it was. I think we have to give ourselves some credit for not staying in that - if she had it would have been normal for her and she'd not know any different, likely ending up with someone similar. We did the right thing.

Sorry, wanging on a bit but you're not alone!

You arm your child - with the knowledge of what is acceptable behaviour and what is not, and you empower them with how to react when they see unacceptable behaviour, how to react (in different situations - when its necessary to stabd up or flee etc) but this isnt all in one big health and safety briefing... its through how you live day to day.

I think you can be honest without going into too much detail - along the lines of I left your dad because he wasn't treating me well and he had an addiction. Accessing counselling for your daughter sounds like a good idea so she can talk about how she feels with someone who isn't emotionally involved. The difficulty for children is often they are conscious of not wanting to hurt their parents feelings and also articulating how they feel can be difficult. They are bound to have confusing/conflicting feelings about the absent parent.