Ex is not seeing dd for Christmas

[lolly47]

Sorry, this is more of a rant I guess...
Me and my ex split up 5 years ago, we have a 6 year old dd together, what we normally do over the Christmas holiday is that I have her for a week and a half and he has her for a week and a half since she gets three weeks off. This year he is supposed to have her actually on Christmas. However, he has decided to go on holiday to the west coast in the USA for four weeks with his girlfriend of a year, and their newborn son, and his girlfriends two daughters from a previous relationship. I'm not sure how they can afford this holiday as she doesn't work and he can barely afford to pay child support for our dd.

I'm not angry that he is going away, or anything, I'm just angry that I found out about this holiday through our dd, and he didn't tell me first, he told her yesterday that he won't be seeing her this Christmas as he wants to go on holiday with his step children and his new son. She came home absolutely distraught, and crying once her dad dropped her off and left. I had to calm her down before she could even tell me about this holiday. She feels as though her dad doesn't love her, he prefers his girlfriends children and she is being replaced. I was having to comfort her, telling her that he does love her, and she is definitely not being replaced.

I texted him this morning to ask if it was true and he said yes. I'm so fed up of his behaviour towards our dd, he's constantly forgetting the weekends he's supposed to have her, 7 of the weekends this year he has texted me very last minute to cancel on having her over his house, and he never goes to any of her tennis matches or dance shows, or shows any support to her whether it's to do with school or extra curricular activities.

I don't really know how to go about this holiday, I didn't reply to his message about him confirming the holiday, I don't really know what to say. I feel so bad for our dd and that she won't be able to see her dad over Christmas. Do I tell him that his dd is very upset about it all, or do I leave it?

Unfortunately myself and DD are in the same position (except no other children yet due to new wife's fertility issues).
Sorry but the cold hard truth is you can't do anything about it. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of telling him, esp if she held her feelings in until she got home - he's hardly going to turn round and cancel the trip is he.
Funny that it's even longer than the 3 weeks she is off from school so she categorically wouldn't be able to join them. I wonder if he's lyingexaggerating.

Yes, tell him. That is absolutely atroci... actually I'm sorry this just breaks my brain. I need a moment to marshal my thoughts.

A six year old? I mean at any age this is going to be crushing for a child, but six?? You must be furious. I'm not sure what to suggest. Mediation perhaps? He needs to be sat down and explained how his actions impact on his daughter.

I'm honestly more concerned with how you frame this to your daughter. You ultimately can't change his actions/behaviour, but you can influence a great deal how your dd comprehends it. At the risk of stating the obvious you don't want this to wreck her self esteem. What I'd suggest is sit her down and explain something like this:

Ask her how she's feeling about all this and then bring up something she is good at and/or takes pride in, then remark on how proud you are of her and how not everyone in life is good at that thing. Now explain it's a bit like love, and that daddy loves you very much, but he's not actually very good at loving people. As love is both things you feel and things that you do, and daddy is really bad at the doing part, and causes upsets like this, which is absolutely nothing to do with dd.

This may be a conversation that gets returned to, and try to listen to get a read on how she feels and make sure you help her with this.

I'd then do my level best to pull a spectacular Christmas out of my ass somehow, and try to fill up as much time with activities, family, friends and general merriment as I could.

I hope it goes well, and you all have a cracking Christmas!

Ugh. I have been there with my evil ex. The reality is that it's going to be an awful holiday anyway with a newborn.

I am sure you can manage something much nicer. Take your dd to Disney paris? Or plan your own trip to the USA? Or a nice trip to Italy where children can eat pizza and ice cream all day, every day.

My feeling from all that you have said about your ex is that he is going to go swanning off into the sunset with his shiny new family and that in a years time he probably won't see your DD at all.

Which makes him a shit and honestly I really hope I'm wrong but that just seems to be the way things are heading.

I would send him a text or email saying calmly that in future if there are going to be any major changes to the arrangements for his time spent with DD that you would appreciate it if he could let you know first.

Then I would focus on your DD. This must be incredibly hard on her. She needs to know that it is not her fault. You might even like to look into counselling.

And for yourself have and maybe come up with a plan for how you can best deal with this in the future. And if you don't have a claim in with CSA for child support, I would make one.

I hope you and your DD have an absolutely lovely Christmas.

I like Dervel's advice. This is the father your poor dd's been stuck with and the best thing to do is arm her with a bit of cynicism about the way he is.