My ex is phychologically damaging my daughter

[emi169]

I have never wrote on anything like this so please bear with me, My ex who I was with very briefly and split up with before I even found out I was pregnant, is very domineering and controlling and it has gotten to the point now where I am concerned for my daughters welfare. heres a little bit of background.. I had always been a single mum to my daughter and he would see her most weekends on a Sunday and occassionally have her overnight when it suited him, he has never paid maintenance towards her, and wanted to know who I was seeing and what I was doing all the time with the excuse that he needs to know as he is her father and has rights of who can be in her life etc, for example he said that she should not see my step father who had been in my life since I was 2 who I classed as my father, as he was not blood related to her, he was like this with my friends and tried to alienate me from them, to a certain extent i let him get away with treating me like this for an easy life as he would argue with me if i went against him, he told me on so many occassions that i was a bad mother (infront of my daughter) and threatened to have her taken away from me, I was on my own at the time and didn't have the energy to fight him..this went on until she turned 5 when I met my now husband, when I met my husband he told my ex that this controlling is to stop has he has no bearing on my life only my daughters.. As you can imagin he didn't take this well and on one of his access visits he noticed that my daughter had a bruise and called social services, they came and spoke to my daughter and us and were happy to not escalate the matter. We decided to move half an hour away, and when he found this out he went straight to a solicitor and took me to court for custody even though I told him he could still see her when he wanted and I would make all the journeys so that he wasn't put out, we have now finished going through the court process and my daughter has told them that she wants to live with me but loves her dad and wants to see him so the courts decided that she would see him 3 weekends out of 4 but since court has finished he has started trying to get at me through my daughter, he now does not even answer the phone to me but tells her that I hit her when she's asleep and that I love my husband more than her and that she's not doing well in school (she's doing very well in school) because I moved her away to a new school, he checks her for bruises when she's with him and has told her that he is going to "chop me up" and that Im evil!! he has told her that my husband is nothing to do with her and she is not to listen to him, my daughter is getting very confused as she loves her father and doesn't understand why he is like this, I have spoken to her and told her to speak to him but she says she can't as when she mentions my name he gets angry so she just keeps quiet. She has started seeing somebody at school to help her deal with these problems in her head, as she is always crying when she comes back from visits but i don't know what I am supposed to do, I have already been trhough the court process once and I have phoned social services and they have told me that because it's been through the court there is nothing that i can do, this is just a short version of things, i could write forever the things that he has said to her. I just want somebody to understand really

Im sorry that i have no actual legal experience on this, but very very very strongly feel that you need to stop him seeing your daughter. I just don't know how you can actually do it.

I think as a start you could write down all the damaging things he has said and preferably when as well.

Also if she is seeing someone at the school can they write a report? Can you have her see a child psychologist?

I don't believe that social services think it is fine to leave the child in an abusive situation just because the courts have awarded him access. If that were the case they would never be able to intervene in any parent/child situation which of course they do all the time if there is abuse involved. Perhaps speak to someone else at ss?

When it went to court was all this mentioned? If not why not?

How old is she now?

There are plenty of parents who are ordered by the courts to allow access to the other parent who don't do it for whatever reason. Sometimes it seems like no reason at all! Whereas you have one massive reason . . . the damage he is doing to your child. Perhaps find out the legal implications of this. What could they ACTUALLY do?

While were were going through court I did keep a diary of all the things that were said and some of them were shown in court but as my daughter had told the cafcass officer that she loves her dad and wants to see him, that's all the court were interested in, my daughter is now 9 and won't have a bad word said against her dad.. She's very confused I would go as far as saying that he has brainwashed her, she has said that she can't tell anyone the bad things that he says cus he'll blame her and then go to prison, I have told her that that will never happen, The school have got a councellor in for her and she sees her once a week and is slowly opening up and telling the councellor some of the things, the councellor has spoken to me and I have asked for advise and she said that she needs to speak to my daughter more but has a pretty good idea of what he is all about and thinks already that this is not a healthy relationship and if needed she will get SS involved herself, I just have to play the waiting game I think and wait for her to open up if a recommendation comes from the school rather than me phoning SS I think and hope more might be done

Well that's great if the counsellor is willing to call ss. Did you tell the counsellor that this is fine with you?

Very scary that he's brain washed your daughter

Its ridiculous that the court weren't interested! Victims of any sort of abuse from their parent nearly always still love them as they are all they have. Plus she is a child so doesn't have the life experience to know what's best for herself!

Do you talk to her about the things he says and tell her how wrong they are? Poor little girl, she must be so confused!

Hopefully someone who has more experience of this will come along soon and give you some proper advice!

Why don't you simply stop access and, when he objects through the courts, bring the school counsellor in as witness to the abuse? Your DD probably feels obliged to keep both parents happy and would be very relieved if you took the decision out of her hands

witness to the psychologically damaging effect of the abuse, I mean.

Make sure that you explain to your DD that the reason you are stopping her seeing her dad is because of his horrible behaviour and that he has no right to scare and upset her. Don't let her have the chance of believing it's her fault. Best of luck. What a shitbag of a man.

"she has said that she can't tell anyone the bad things that he says cus he'll blame her and then go to prison"

this is very wrong and i would go as far as to say, 'creepy'. this is along the lines of what (physical/sexual)abusers tell children to stop them telling an adult they are being harmed. i would be very very worried that this has been said. he has clearly said things that he never wants you or anyone to know he has said otherwise why use the threat of her losing her father to get her not to say.

I don't think that he has told her that he'll go to prison, it's just what she thinks will happen. I genuinely think he thinks he's doing nothing wrong, he has told her that there are cameras in my house so that he can keep an eye on her to make sure were not hurting her, I've told her this is not true and I tell her that dads silly saying these things and that she can talk to me about them. I think he thinks in some warped way that he's protecting her, but I don't know how many times social services, cafcass etc have told him that she's not being harmed at home yet he still believes it, it's like he wants to be proved right so he can say I told I so, I love my daughter and have always wanted her to have a relationship with her father as I never had one with mine and was hoping that she will see him for what he is when she's older but he's getting worse with his obsession with hating me and my husband, I'm going to speak with her councillor next week and see if she has enough for me to stop access

Apart from the horribel things that he says, he treats her and takes her out every weekend (no money to pay maintenance though) to theme parks and cinema etc and this is what she likes, so I know that she still wants to see im and I fear that if i stop contact too soon before I have enough evidence from her mouth then I will get no where with it as she would not speak out against him with cafcass. The last court case cost me over £4000 and he got legal aid so paid nothing, I am still paying of my solicitor now, so if im going to go through all of that again i want to make sure i have a solid case

Perhaps tell the councillor that you feel it is urgent then.

I'm going to be very blunt here visit your laywer stating you are worried about emotional abuse and start a diary and write down EVERYTHING, offer supervised visits or nothing (that way you are not stopping access) and get the CSA on his ass

We have a very emotionally abused 10 yr old we are trying to sort out and believe me you need/HAVE to stop him, its worse than physical as you can't see the damage

We got full custody after 2 yrs in January and i can truthfully say nothing will ever shock me again and poor DSD still is drip feeding what has been done/ said to her

Has there been any progress? Seen a solicitor?

What Smurfy says: visit your lawyer; write down everything; supervised visits.