Daughter wanted answers about her Dad

[Ineedanapxx]

My ex left me 10 years ago following years of DV. Our child was a toddler at the time, now a teenager.

As a brief back story our marriage disintegrated when I fell pregnant as he became incredibly abusive and then violent. He assaulted me multiple times when I was pregnant and threatened to remove our child from me. I never reported it to the police as I did not want to lose my child. I had pre-natal depression (which he claimed made me unfit as a mother) and every medical issue caused by pregnancy in the book. I was admittedly difficult and emotional. I later discovered he had been having an affair which led to our relationship only deteriorating further. He left me multiple times during the pregnancy, and after only to return - until he finally left to move in with his mistress. He then took me to court to get residence on the basis I was mentally unstable/unfit. I did not disclose his abuse or seek to make it relevant to contact. Unfortunately, the police became involved 6 months later as he assaulted me during a contact handover, leading to social services getting involved and my being forced to disclose his abuse ( the social worker told me I could lose my child if I failed to disclose abuse and it put her at risk). Long story short, the court gave me residence and him minimal contact. I thought it would all end. I was wrong.

I never wanted our child to know any of this information so have always told her that we mutually agreed to separate as we did not love each other anymore. She knew nothing of the horrific things her Father did, nor of his continued abuse towards me as I did not fell this was information she needed or should have. I have always wanted her to form her own relationship with her Father, on her own terms, based on her own experience.

The abuse towards me has continued in the form of harassment, further legal action, accusations of alienation, manipulating our child & emotionally abusing our child. Our child has been in counselling for years at the request of various professionals to help her cope with her Father's behaviour towards her.

Last night, out of the blue, my daughter (now a teenager) began to question me regards the past - how we split up, her Father's involvement in my pregnancy, her birth etc. Her questions were very specific and blunt - among other things she asked me if he every hurt me and if he left me and if he was still nasty to me. I tried to evade the questions but she was determined to get an answer out of me. She told me to not lie to her and that she had a right to know the truth as she put it. I could not persuade her to drop it and the more I wouldn't answer her questions, the more she persisted. I did not want to lie to her, so answered truthfully giving the absolute minimum information I could.

I am in shock and absolutely petrified. My ex husband has been attempting to have our child removed from my care for 6 years on the basis of my ''alienating'' him and finished the last round of legal involvement only 6 months ago. The court and social workers involved have until now dismissed his claims I am alienating him but I am now petrified that having answered these questions I will be seen to have alienated him.

Does anyone have any experience of situations like this and how the court or social services would respond?

I understand the risks you foresee, OP, (I'm a family solicitor) and I don't discount them. They are reasonable, of course they are.

But what are your options? You have answered her questions, which I think (if I may say so) was absolutely the right parenting decision for a girl her age, in her circumstances.

So, you carry on parenting right. Support her in her relationship with her dad, no one understands better than you do what that means for her. Keep doing what you know to be best for her. And be scrupulously honest with her. She has no one else who deserves her trust more.

@MrsBertBibby Thank you, I hope you are right and that should he take this matter to court again, and her new knowledge become known, that the court would feel I did the right thing in responding as I did. As you will know in your capacity as solicitor, the court does not always handle alienation claims well and I fear my attempts here to be truthful will be twisted to serve my ex's agenda.

I feel like I am walking an impossibly fine line, whereby I am damned either way.

Lastly, I cannot prove he was violent as I didn't report any of it and lied to doctors to cover the injuries I sustained. It is my word against his and he would deny it as he has in the past

Yes I can see why that makes things very difficult for you. If he had hit you so that you needed 10 stitches, you went to hospital, had treatment, called the police, reported it and he was charged - that would be much more straightforward. You would be repeating information that was a matter of record. It would be hard for him to deny that it was factual and not an attempt at PA.

But the fact that you lied about it at the time makes it a lot more complicated. He can say that you are using an accident eg you fell outside on the ice and injured your face as a way of libelling him and alienating his DD.

Also your past lies ( understandable to anyone who knows about DV) can be used to argue that you have a history of dishonesty.

When your daughter is older I hope that she will understand why you did what you did at the time and why you have lied to her for the last 10 years. But that’s a tough thing to understand at 13.

I do have great sympathy for you, I can see that you are in a very complex situation. Then things that you have done in the past which you believed would protect your daughter are now causing her some psychological distress and may be putting her at risk of abuse from her father.

I understand, OP.

This might be a good Christmas gift to yourself. Out in aa week or so.

www.amazon.co.uk/Challenging-Parental-Alienation-Directions-Professionals/dp/0367559765?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

@Double3xposure I did what I felt was right. My daughter has been able to have her own relationship with her father and make up her own mind about him. Feeding her my narrative, from my experience of our marriage would have distorted her perception of him & given her information she was not equipped to manage. I stand by my decision to shield her from these things. If that makes me dishonest as you put it, then so be it. I have not spent the last 10 years saying what a wonderful person he is, or in anyway undermining her experiences of him. I've validated them at every step of the way. Its been about her not me.

The court saw fit to order that she had to spend time with this man, despite knowing he was violent and abusive. They put her in this position, where he has been able to be abusive to her - sadly she is not the only child failed by UK courts. This was not my decision and I have no choice but to comply with the order. I am not responsible for his behavior to me or his child, that's on him. Her knowing this information earlier would not have altered her Father's behavior nor prevented the emotional abuse she's suffered. It would have put her at greater risk in my opinion.

I've spent 10 years picking up the pieces of his behavior and if the worst thing I've done it to protect my child from knowing her Father's disgusting behavior to me then I all can hope I've raised her to think critically about WHY I did that than just judge me. So far, it would seem she understands I withheld this information for her sake. This may change of course.

@MrsBertBibby thank you, I will look into getting that.

She needs you to tell her that it isn't her, that he is like this with other people, that he is the problem.

I know that' obvious to you, but have you told her? Otherwise she may have wasted time and emotional energy worrying that she is not good enough, not a good daughter, unloveable.

@Ineedanapxx I’m not judging you. I said I have great sympathy for you and that I understand you are in a complex situation. I’ve said repeatedly that I can see you did what you thought was best at the time.

I didn’t say that you were dishonest. I said that I can see how the things you have done with the best of intentions and to protect your daughter could be used to say that you had lied in the past so you were lying now.

No one has said you are responsible for what your ex has done . I can see that you are angry and you have good reason to be. But I’m not attacking your or condemning you.

I am just another mother who has been badly let down by the legal system. I know it doesn’t protect women or children and generally puts mens rights first.

I didn’t say that you should tell her all the details. Or that you should feed her the narrative of your marriage. I just said that you should be honest with her when she asks questions, which other posters have agreed with.

When I posted that earlier on the thread you had not disclosed this -

I cannot prove he was violent as I didn't report any of it and lied to doctors to cover the injuries I sustained. It is my word against his and he would deny it as he has in the past

My last post was acknowledging that this changes things and that the situation was complex.

I’m not against you and I’m sorry that you have somehow read this in my posts. I can see that my good intentions have not worked and I’m not helping you so I will bow out now.

I wish you and your daughter all the best and hope things work out for you in future.

Op I have a similar situation without the physical violence (coercive control).

Legal advice has been that from 14, the children are deemed able to make their own decisions about contact. Parental alienation applies less and less as they get older and start to make their own choices.

Therapist advice has been that it’s a fine line to walk, but validating dcs feelings is critical (as you are), allowing them to make up their own minds in time. So responding to their queries with honesty, but not opening up the conversation yourself.

So I’d say you’re on pretty firm ground. You’ve allowed DD to come to her own conclusions in time, and no matter what lunatic claims of PA your ex makes, no court is going to force her to have contact any more than she wants, at 13.

I know how hard it is. I am 2 years out and still in therapy. I do sense the fear underlying your messages and recognise it. Do you have therapeutic support yourself? It is really key as the kids become teenagers ime.

@FutureHope thank you so much for your message & for sharing your experience. The coercive control was as bad, if not at times worse, than the violence (frankly the injuries healed, for the most part, and were easier to bear). I do have therapeutic support & while I now know I am safe, at the same time I will never feel safe again. Experience has taught me nothing and no one can curtail him. He still defines my life, even 10 years later. People don't understand that it doesn't stop when you separate, it just changes.

I was perhaps naïve to think I would never be asked and could keep this to myself. I just hope you are right, and we are past the point now where anyone is going to force her to spend more time there or force her to live there. Maybe I am just finding this new phase where she is discovering she has personal agency difficult as its so intolerable to him. The more she pushes back on him, the more backlash I get. His threats and accusations are more and more frequent.

Same here OP, I didn't have to tell my DS as he witnessed the violence. But you have been put into an impossible situation.
I don't think you have done anything wrong. You owe her the truth as she has asked and I think you should be totally honest.
You will not get into trouble for it, she is of an age to decide.
He is still trying to control you as mine did for several years until he was finally banned from seeing my son until he was 18.

Yes I know. The fear never really goes, does it? And as the dcs discover their agency, the coercive control on them - and through them, on you - escalates.

Ime the only way is through. You are safe now, he cannot hurt you. Your Dd is discovering her agency, making her decisions and turning to you t9 validate her choices.

I know it’s so much easier said than done, but try to stay consistent and strong. Validate her with honesty, support her choices, and stand firm. Turn to your therapist for support, loads of self care. Only open his messages when suits you. All the usual stuff, since you are still experiencing abuse.

If he goes back to court, even at 13, her wishes will be the key factor. At 14 ( which she likely will be when the case comes up) it’s up to her. So either way he will be exposed for the abusive prick he is.

Every day that goes by, she is getting older and stronger and he is more and more losing control. Soon she will be 14, then 16, then 18. And there is literally nothing he can do.

My therapist did an exercise where I had to visualise EXH but tiny in scale. Red in the face, Flapping his arms around, huffing and puffing but powerless. Funnily enough, that really helped with losing some of the fear.