Daughter struggling with our divorce

[Iamnotapotato]

My 12 year old is really angry at her Dad since we told her around a month ago that we were divorcing.

He has since moved out but he and I are ‘nesting’ whilst his house purchase goes through. However whilst he is in the family home she refuses to speak with him. Communication is in grunts and I get a stream of messages from her whilst I’m not here. I’ve asked her to consider just being civil and answering yes/no questions or even messaging him if she can’t bear to speak with him but she refuses. She’s also deleted his number from her phone. She’s obviously hurting but it’s also starting to affect her relationship with her sister. She says she doesn’t want to stay with him and refuses to call him Dad - saying her real Dad would never hurt her so much.

The divorce wasn’t something I wanted and I’m finding it difficult to deal with my emotions and having to be a beacon of shining positivity about her Dad. I am being positive and haven’t said anything negative about my ExH as much as I’d like to.

I’m at a loss at what to do. Has anyone experienced this with their children?

I'm not in the same position but I did experience kinda the same when I was younger myself and she probably feels like everything she knows and saw in him has been destroyed or was a lie.

I'm not sure there's much you can do to make it better other than let time do it's thing and maybe she will adapt and things will settle down.

Take care of yourself and your own mental health too, I'm sure it's stressful going through it with this on top but some things you can't do anything to help make things better.

I think a lot of that behaviour may come from her thinking that if she punished her dad enough he would go back to her senses.

First thing for her is to understand that what is going on is final and, it has nothing to do with her, she has not the power to change it. She surely us feeling like dad failed her BUT it is healthy for kids to learn, from an early age that other people around them and their feelings are as important.

At this time she may be in denial so the key is how to support her so she adapts and accepts the situation. I strongly suggest you get a book called Putting Children First: A Manual by Separated Parents by K Woodall. This could give you and ex some strategies so you can manage this transition in a way that the children feel loved, safe and secure with both parents.