My child's father won't bring daughter back

[ImaSandyGirl]

I would be grateful for some advice. There is a child arrangements order in place. I am the resident parent, my DD, who is 3, sees her father every other weekend and alternate Christmases. My DD has been with her father this Christmas and is due to come home tomorrow. Her father has told me she is poorly, covered in a rash and is too ill to come home and he will keep her with him until she is better. I'm so upset. Her father refuses to speak to me. Is there anything I can do or do I just have to wait until he says she can come home?

So is your daughter ill in fact?

Am I missing something here? The child's dad says she is ill and will keep her an extra day til she's better. Somehow everyone doubts this and thinks the other parent should go get her back etc. I'm finding this all quite odd. She was with her dad who presumably is capable of parenting her, not sitting in the school office with a sick bowl.

Myotherprofile, the problem is not that DD is ill and will stay one extra day but that ex refuses to speak to OP about DDs welfare knowing OP will be worried and he said he'd bring her back when better so not just an extra day. For all OP knows it could be an extra week.

DD is 3 so still a baby, compared to an older child, so I totally get why OP is upset.

Added that he deliberately made OP wait an hour at the meet point, this is a lot more than just DD being ill.

Didn't we have a thread about this the other day?

Thank you PrincessScarlett you are absolutely right and have explained it a lot better than I have. There is a lot more to it. My ex has always been mentally abusive towards me and very controlling. If our relationship was fine and I could totally trust him, I wouldn't have panicked and got so upset about this whole situation. The thing is he is a very nasty man. I am forced to ensure he sees our daughter regularly due to a court order but he makes sure that I suffer.

You really need to deprive him of the satisfaction of seeing that you suffer, difficult as it may be. If he doesn't get a panicked response from you there is no incentive to him to carry on behaving like this and he will lose interest.

You need to play him at his own game. If he tries to keep DD longer again say "great, I've been invited out". I bet he brings her back sharpish to stop you enjoying yourself!

Agree that you've got to stop letting him see you are worried/anxious/upset by his behaviour. He is enjoying playing with you. And carry on keeping any texts/evidence of his behaviour as you will never know when you might need it.

Sorry you are stuck with this horrible man OP. I have a friend on the same situation as you and her ex does everything he can to keep some sort of control over her.