I think my DD is wasting her life away and Ex is enabling it

[Bigorangeballoons]

This could be a little complex so I’ll give some background first.
I have 4 DC, 2 with my ex husband. My 2 eldest with my ex are 22 and 19. We divorced when they were 6 and 9. My Ex is French and we lived in London, both of our children attended a French language school. For 2 years we both lived local to the school but the area was very expensive. DS decided at 11 he wanted to go to a “normal school”. Stupidly my ex and I agreed DD would live with him as the primary parent and I would move further out for DS to go to secondary school. I then had 2 more children. DD continued living with her dad and going to French school. Upon reflection I should never have left DD with her dad, at first I had her every weekend then by the time she was 11/12 every other weekend and she spent most of it at her hobbies. Ex spoiled her rotten, she was his little princess. He never really spoiled DS the same and they have a very strained relationship as a result while DS and I are very close. Ex bought DD the newest iPhone at 11, upgraded it often, she had a MacBook at 12, let her spend stupid amounts of money on clothes, took her to loads of gigs, took her on trips alone (snowboarding mostly as DS never enjoyed snow sports), paid for all her hobbies. Apparently she was golden for her dad, never misbehaved etc. But with me she was a nightmare, she’d get so stroppy, ignored curfews, constantly shouted at my now husband that he isn’t her dad and he shouldn’t even talk to her as a result. Punishment rarely worked as by Sunday night she was back at her dads and being spoiled again.
When she was 16, my ex told me he was moving back to France and wanted to take DD with him. I didn’t want this to happen but eventually I gave in and let her move with him, mainly as I felt if I said no she would be horrific to live with and view me as the reason and it would break our already tense relationship entirely.

She is a clever girl, did really well in school, settled down with her behaviour a lot after moving when she would come back to visit. She started university in France in the autumn but dropped out. Her dad now pays for a flat which she shares with her 22 year old boyfriend. She doesn’t work, doesn’t study, she is in a band, who write their own music and do play some very small gigs but it’s not making money. She messages me and I have tried to visit her alone without my husband or other children but the last 2 times I’ve done this once in the summer I got all the way there and only met up with her for a meal one night, she was busy or ‘ill’ the other 2 days. Then just before Christmas she again met up with me to trade presents but only for dinner one night, apparently again too busy to see me on the other days.

My older son went to see her and their dad over the weekend and today when he got home he told me her life is “a mess”. Apparently she is smoking loads, drinking loads, spends her days just messing about and has no plans to go back to uni. Her dad is paying her rent, he gives her an allowance to buy whatever she wants etc. Apparently her dad fully supports her and her “boyfriend and band mates” and they are all just following the creative process!

I have no idea what to do, her dad won’t talk to me and I have a feeling anything I said to DD would be ignored. I feel like I messed up by ever letting her live with her dad full time as he is clearly an incompetent parent.

AIBU to feel I have failed her? What do I do? Is there even anything I can do?

this. a couple of years gap and gigging is hardly the end of the world.

Sorry you are so worried OP, but I don’t think you can do anything about what she is doing. Just try to maintain some sort of relationship with her. She is young, she’s not hiding away and depressed, she is living her best life in Paris. She’ll grow up in time, give her till 28 until you start to worry. (I have adult kids by the way and some take longer than others).

So we have a difference of opinion. 'm good with that.
Could you point out where I have been angry?

It seems to me that I am not the one projecting, maybe you should reflect on what you have written.

Is this not kind of the story for many in the creative industries?

You can't do anything to change her. You have to accept her as she is.

Hi OP

Only your DD can tell you if you’ve failed her. You clearly did what you thought was best for both your kids at the time and given the constraints. And you still have plenty of time to be there for your DD 🙂

But it does sound like she had a pretty traumatic childhood if she was separated from you and her brother (other than at weekends) at 9. Then, had to fit in part-time with your new family, which her brother was fully part of. Being spoilt by her dad won’t have compensated. Lots of privileged people have childhood trauma. Because money and treats can’t compensate for a close family.

That’s why the ideal when parents separate is they prioritise living as close together as possible, so kids can easily come and go and see both parents as they please, as that’s more important for kids than schooling. I know you say your DD chose to stay with her dad and at her school. But at 9, she was really too young to choose (as reflected by family courts), as she’d be unable to comprehend what that’d mean for her family life.

If she’s really ‘a mess’ could it be because she’s coming to terms with the trauma as an adult and needing to work out her relationship with you and her siblings? It sounds like she doesn’t feel very close to you if she’s not keen to spend much time with you, even when you visit. I went through this with my father. It was really tough.

As PP’s have said, perhaps you need to first (re)build your (now adult) relationship. Could you go on regular short trips away with her, just the two of you, where you do things together as mother and daughter. So she has your full attention and (because you’re staying together) she can’t cancel on you? No ‘deep chats’ about her life, past or present. Just having fun and hanging out together.

However, what she’s up to doesn’t sound ‘a mess’ or ‘wasting her life away’ to me. She’s living her life, isn’t she? Just not in the way you’d expect or prefer. It’s typical of lots of people in their early 20s, past and present. Most of my mates left school at 16 (in the 80s) with no qualifications and were in bands in their early 20s. They’ve all done OK (PhDs, professional careers). Brian Eno (in a lecture 10 years ago) said unemployment benefit in the past helped so many creative people to succeed.

IMHO what you must never do as a parent of adult kids is judge their life or choices. Or continue to treat them like children. Your role is to support them in whatever they choose to do and only offer advice when asked. My DS dropped out of a top uni at a similar age a few years ago. He preferred to work. It’s up to him. As long as he’s happy, so am I. At a similar age, I’d have found it horrifically overbearing if my mum had told me what I should be doing. And her judgment and blame throughout my life has created distance between us.

Is your DS (being into sport), more clean living and that’s why he views your DD’s lifestyle as being ‘a mess’?

The OP has said very little about the relationship between the DS and his father.
So we know very little about how he was involved and if the trips were offered to the DS.

I have no issues with th eOP moving on but this thread is about her relationship with her DD, one is which the DD said that the step father "was not her dad".
So I would what was going on during the weekends that the OP had her.

And at 16 the DD would have had a say in whether she wanted to go to France with her dan and presumibly has other family there.

Just to add

The OP has said that the holidays that her DD had were offfered to the DS as well.

Jesus
Harsh!

It's her daughter!!!!! (Mind your own business doesnt come in to it!)

Bit late to suddenly remember that now. 🤷‍♀️

No, it did occur to me that he could be the sanctimonious type but I think jealousy is more likely.

Drinking and smoking in your teens/twenties and dropping out of school doesn’t mean having a do nothing life, don’t be ridiculous.

You obviously aren’t the sporty type, the suggestion that he is jealous is laughably foolish.

The daughter she abandoned.

The daughter she couldn’t be arsed with for years - it’s a bit late for her to bother now 🙄

My SIL went through this dynamic.

her parents split. She went with her dad and her brother went with her mum.

her dad is now dead (cancer) and she has a very, very turbulent relationship with her mum. The sense of abandonment is very real.

Goodness me. Do you feel better now?

She has a point though 🤷‍♀️

Beg to differ. The double standard is interesting to see.

OP you’ve had some harsh comments here, including one from me earlier. I just wanted to come back and say that I don’t think you’re a crap mum, and that the decisions you and your ex made about your children’s living situations and schooling were obviously what you felt was best for them both at the time. Separating such young siblings might be unconventional but I can see how the language factor and the wealth difference between you and your ex must have really complicated things.

The reason your first post upset me was that you talked a lot about your daughter being difficult as a teen but seemed to blame this entirely on her dad spoiling her and buying her MacBooks. I saw no acknowledgment at all of what a usual situation your daughter was dealing with at that time, and how that might have factored in. Your entire post presented your daughter as a difficult child who has always been difficult and pinned that solely on your ex buying her things and taking her on holidays. Two things can be true at once: we can understand the decisions you and your ex made while also recognising the impact they may have had on your daughter and on your relationship, both in the past and now.

I was a lot older than 8 when my parents split and my mum left, but the impact on me was huge. I was often made to feel like a bad, difficult daughter for showing any emotion about the situation or being anything other than 100% accepting. I carried trauma from that time for many years. It wasn’t until I had some therapy in my mid 30s that I stopped blaming myself for being a bad daughter and realised that I was just a teenage girl going through a massively destabilising time and missing my mum. I don’t want to overly project but I do wonder whether some reflection on your relationship with your daughter and how the past has shaped it would be more beneficial than giving her a talking to because she has spent a few months having fun and playing music instead of studying.

What double standard?

OP has received some pretty tough comments including that she was a crappy mother. I’m not sure a man who saw his children ew/wow and took them on holiday twice a year would have been taken to task in the same way.

If I’m wrong, fair enough.

He absolutely would be! Men are regularly called out on here for only seeing their kids twice a month.

Please dont blame yourself, you did the best you could with a seemingly hostile co parent.
All you can do is keep doing the right thing and acting appropriately and kindly to her.
As previous posters have said, she is an adult now, so the mistakes are hers to make.

You don't do anything. She's an adult. Just leave the door open, keep communication open and maybe she'll find her way to you once she's properly grown up. I feel for you. It feels like your ex set things up like a snare to scr*w you over and alienate her from you.

What you can do for your own sake is thrash out all these feelings with a good psychologist so you can keep being the rock in the storm. In my view being the rock does not include enabling and financing her, let papa dearest do that.

I think know the school and community you're referring to and they do turn out some entitled brats.